Customer Experience Champions: Best Practices from the CX Veterans
I’ve just returned for Corinium’s Chief Customer Officers and Influencers conference in Atlanta. As someone who just joined the customer experience and insights industry four weeks ago, this felt like a capstone project where I was forced to “talk the talk” and “walk the walk.” It was humbling to meet these experts. The experience inspired me to share some of the Customer Experience best practices that we discussed.
Within minutes of talking with other attendees, I was blown away by the passion these practitioners have for their craft – creating frictionless experiences for their customers.
As a novice amongst veterans, I took the opportunity to expedite my learning by asking these practitioners, “what is something you wish you knew at the beginning of your CX career?” The answers varied from tactical approaches to technical expertise. Much of the advice also focused on how to avoid common pitfalls for practitioners who take on too much. I hope you can learn from these customer experience best practices as well.
David Garcia (VP of Guest Experiences @ Atlanta Hawks)
Think beyond the next game, focus on the customers’ intent to return as the KPI.
Donna Nall (Content Strategy @ Instacart)
Getting an equal understanding of content and technology. Get embedded with the technology teams to enact faster change.
Alyona Medelyan (CEO @ Thematic)
Tie data to financials in a logical but easy to understand way. This will make people listen and therefore more likely to act.
Rukesh Reddy (Head of Digital Governance & Capabilities, Citi Digital @ Citi Bank)
Start with a regimented methodology (ex. CSAT, NPS). Once you get started, look for opportunities where you can fix core parts of the customer journey.
Beth Zampieri (Client / Customer Experience Leader)
Focus on quick wins instead of “boiling the ocean.”
Martha Craft ( VP Customer Experience @ Rollins)
Polling the customer using more video and sharing it with the c-suite.
Jehan Moghazy (Executive Director, Customer Experience @ Havas
Your product is the brand. Some fall into the trap of being too product driven and forget to focus on the journey.
Crystal Collier (Customer Experience Consultant)
Backing up CX through technology and data.
Camille Nicita (President & CEO @ Gongos, Inc.)
Consumers expect to have a two-way relationship with you.
Josh Ives (VP Customer Experience Management & Strategy @ Samsung)
To get a clear understanding of the customer, watch customers in their natural environment. You will be surprised by how much consumers are willing to struggle through bad product experiences.
Marc Riesenberg (Customer Experience Program Manager @ F5)
If you torture data long enough, you can get it to tell you anything you want
Joe Gagnon (CEO @ Spark Central)
When you go to a restaurant, the first trip is for the food, the 2nd, 3rd 4th, are for the service. Customer experience is about hospitality, how you make the customer feel.
As the field of customer experience evolves, with digital and physical experiences blending, it takes a highly skilled conductor to tie these “instruments of experience” together. I couldn’t be happier to have the orchestrators I met during CCOI be my professors in Customer Experience.
Sharing customer experience best practices benefit all our customers. If you have any best practices or tips you wish you had at the start of your CX career, share it in the comments section so we can all keep learning.
