#CX Management Bootcamp
This week I completed a deep dive on Customer Experience design. I thought I knew Customer Experience. I thought I lived and breathed Customer Experience. I thought I knew how to create excellent Customer Experiences. What I learned in those few days was that I was ignorant to the basic tenor of #CX, as it is often shortened to, it must be embedded across the entire organization.
What is CX?
The perception that customers have of an organization, one that is formed based on interactions across all touchpoints, people and technology over time - CCXP.org
Over the decades of my career, yes I am that old, the terminology for “servicing the customer” and it tools or processes has changed. I began working with call centers back when they were really simple places, basically there were only phone calls, fax machines and people opening letters which were sent to the business. Emails came soon after and “call” was replaced by “contact” and the centers provided “customer service”. In the early 2000s CRM or customer relationship management came on the scene and the approach, often in tandem with new CRM tools. Later in that decade CEM (customer experience management) came around and had it theories of what is involved in designing those experiences. Somewhere 10 or so years ago the #CX came in my direction and I took it as another relabeling of what we were doing all along.
CX touches every department of a company
Sure the tools, computers and amount of digital data made available brought change to how service processes were designed and how customers received their service. Web 2.0 made it possible for a broader integration of data across disperate systems. So that leads me to today and the course I completed this week “Mastering the 5 Pillars of CX Management”. I will write another post what those pillars are with an explanation of how they are used but the fundamental ah-ha moment was when I learned that true #CX is achieved when the entire organization is involved in the needs of the customer. CX touches every department of a company.
One example which was given which stuck with me was a department plans to make an investment in something that the CX Team (every department of the company, remember?) asks the question “how will this improve the Customer Experience?”. Any member can veto the investment if it is felt that it is not tied to improving the CX. Imagine if another department vetoed your request to get new tables for the break room.
I shared an experience I made in the early 90s when I applied to work with AT&T. The HR rep at the interview that my role was an important one as it was focussed on services their customers. I replied that her job is also servicing those customers. Her reaction told me I should shut up if I wanted the job (I did get it). Many of the theories which I learned this week were not knew but we mostly not connected to the others. Customer Journey mapping was usually included only the points which interested the customer service team; post sale service touchpoints. Another attendee from a marketing role explained how journey mapping was also used there and covered “discovery” through to “conversion” or the sale but where was billing & fulfillment in all of this? When true #CX management is applied the entire journey is included.
The course was really fun and loaded with information. It could easily be split over more days or even with more pauses and over 2 weeks but this compact approach was just perfect for me. Our trainer Daniel Ord from OmniTouch International who has been teaching and training CS/CRM/CEM/CCXP/CX for over 20 years. It was fun with participants from 4 countries and the location, wow. The Abbey in Eberbach is just a wonderful place for such an event. Now I only need to process the learnings and take the pieces I was missing and build them into the processes that I use. Time well spent.