September Newsletter – an interview with Sara Chapman
Welcome to the September 2024 edition of the CX Talent Ltd Newsletter. Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk are so delighted and grateful to the amazing Sara Chapman – Executive Experience Strategy Director at adam&eveDDB for her incredibly valuable time and insights. We have been increasingly working with agencies in their CX and Experience Design teams and it’s a growing area. We are keen to pass on valuable insights and advice to those in our network who are interested in a career in an agency and what skills and experience you should be looking to get in order to be able to do so and could think of no-one better to ask! We certain that you’ll find Sara’s advice and observations of interest.
Sara, you are currently the Executive Experience Strategy Director at Adam&EveDDB. Please can you tell us what this entails?
In a nutshell, I help our clients to understand their consumers better and partner with creatives, strategists and account leads to make experiences that deliver on those needs. I also look at the technology and new thinking that’s coming down the line and make sure we’re thinking about how we as a CX team need to evolve what we do to make sure we keep our clients ahead of the curve.
What skillsets and attributes do you particularly look for when considering those who will work in your team (in terms of CX and Experience for your clients)?
Mindset is super important for me when I’m hiring new team members. In an industry like CX it’s really important to be entrepreneurial and have that resilience or grit needed to make your ideas a reality.
It’s great if you’re well versed in best practice but if you can’t adapt the theory based on the time, budget and client then you won’t bring work to market. And as CX-ers we only make a difference if we put new experiences or improvements live as that’s the only point the consumer feels the benefit – if our work dies in a slide deck then we haven’t made change happen.
Are there any skillsets you’d particularly recommend candidates honing if they want to pursue a career in CX in an agency that are likely to be in demand in future roles?
I think it’s important to have a great grasp of how the brand and technology influence an experience. Historically CX has focused on empathy and design thinking which is great but it can get you to a sea of sameness where everyone is following best practice and so everything is similar. Adding brand into the mix adds personality and it shows you the places in an experience where a client should be showing up. So when we’re doing experience strategy in the agency we’re not just asking where consumer pain points and gain points are, we’re also really interrogating where does this particular brand have expertise or knowledge that could really help. Then we’re layering in emotion; emotion drives decision making and smart CXers know how to conduct research that reveals how emotion drives decision-making and how to design solutions that use that emotion to create momentum and action.
How do you see AI impacting CX?
We’re already seeing some use of synthetic personas in research (where companies use their consumer data to build an AI consumer who researchers can chat to in order to stress test early thinking). I think the use of these personas will become more wide-spread and help us get to hypothesise for work faster. Of course that means we’ll have to work harder to justify our research budgets but it’s really vital that AI consumers don’t replace testing and research with real consumers!
Do you think that AI will affect how organisations use agencies in the future?
Of course! We’re at the point now where it’s vital organisational leaders to be thinking deeply about where they believe AI will help creativity and productivity and where it will not. Just because we can automate certain things doesn’t mean that we should – one of the most fascinating things I’ve learnt recently is that the brain needs boring tasks to give it down-time. And that if you don’t have that people experience cognitive overload and burn-out. It’s a bit like if you go on holiday and you do ten days of sight-seeing and don’t give yourself time to watch Netflix or read a book on the beach; you leave having had a lovely time but you still need a break! Well human brains are the same – if we remove all the boring admin and give it to AI then we simply won’t function.
Do you think it is essential for candidates for your consideration to have come from a similar agency background? If not – why not? If so – why so
This is one where it depends on the role. If you need to hit the ground running then it’s helpful to have worked in an agency before as you’ll know how the creative process works, who to engage when etc. But some of the most interesting candidates I’ve met have been people who have a real diversity of experience and this means they bring in different perspectives and ways of doing things that can make the team stronger.
Is there anything in your career that you wish you’d done differently? Any organisation you wish you’d had the chance to work at?
No. I’ve always been of the mindset that if you want to try something then go do it. When I started my career I specialised in digital. I remember going to a recruiter and telling them I wanted to work in comms and they told me “You can’t do that, you don’t have any experience”. But by working at it I got a job in a comms agency. Then when I wanted to move out of client services and become a strategist I experienced the same reaction, but I just pursued it because it was my goal and it was something I wanted to do. All this is a long way of saying, if you want something don’t just wish for it, you can make it happen!
What career advice do you wish you had been given in the early stages of your career that you would like to share?
Ask for forgiveness, not permission. A very wise CEO I worked with took me aside once and told me I’d get a lot more done if I trusted my instincts and tried things rather than waiting for people to tell me it was OK to get off the beaten path. Obviously you need to do this with a bit of care, but I find it really helps me experiment and find better ways of doing things when I follow this mantra.
Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk would like to give our enormous thanks to Sara Chapman for making the time to speak to us, we’d also like to give our very best wishes to her as she begins her maternity leave. We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this latest edition of our Senior CX Leaders series.
CX Talent Ltd produces a newsletter monthly where we interview a senior CX Leader on their views and insights about working in CX and the skills and experience that they feel candidates will need for the future. If you do not want to miss out on these incredibly valuable observations and views – do hit the subscribe button!
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