Autumn Newsletter – an interview with Nicola Murphy
Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are delighted to bring to you our Autumn edition of the CX Talent Ltd newsletter. We have been over the moon with how these interviews with Senior CX professionals have been received since we started doing these. In this latest edition we interview Nicola Murphy Head of Experience Delivery Affinity Water . Nicola has had a very interesting career to date working in financial services, automotive and Consultancy. She has some fascinating insights to share, which we have no doubt you will find invaluable!
You’re currently Head of Experience Delivery at Affinity Water. What does your remit cover today, and what are the key priorities for improving customer experience in the water sector?
My role is to lead the customer experience strategy within a major transformation programme. Right now, our focus is on improving self-serve capabilities, giving customers more choice in how they interact with us. Unlike other utilities, customers can’t choose their water supplier. That means we serve a very broad and diverse customer base, under the scrutiny of a highly regulated environment. Because of this, resolving customer queries quickly and effectively is critical to building satisfaction and trust. Most people don’t think about their water service until something goes wrong — so when they do reach out, it’s essential that the experience is simple, convenient, and easy.
You’ve led CX, digital and transformation across industries as varied as utilities, banking, and automotive. What are the common threads of great customer experience, no matter the sector?
When looking at customer journeys I stand by the mantra they need to be personal and relevant . How is this journey personal to the customer and how it is relevant to the It sounds simple but journey planning can inadvertently take a turn when designs start to become a neither of these things so then you must question why you’re doing it. I’m a big fan of Matt Watkinson’s book, The Ten Principals of Great Customer Experience. One, it’s an easy read, but for me, if you follow these well thought out principals, you lead up to making your experiences relevant to your customers and therefore more personal.
At Metro Bank you launched the organisation’s first chat service, and at Volvo Cars UK you built the brand’s first end-to-end online car-buying experience. Which of those past innovations best prepared you for challenges in water services?
Automotive, banking, and water all share a common thread: regulation. In banking, it’s the FCA; in water, several regulators and bodies. Even in automotive, regulation is ever-present, particularly as many cars are bought on finance. Each sector has shaped how I approach my current role. Banking taught me how to design experiences for a broad and diverse customer base, always with compliance front of mind. Automotive, by contrast, is less transactional and far more emotional — buying a car is often one of the biggest purchases someone makes, so the journey has to feel personal and memorable. Bringing those experiences together has prepared me well for water services — combining the rigour of regulation with the need to design journeys that feel both seamless and human.
Looking back across your career, is there a project you’d describe as a turning point in how you think about customer journeys?
Absolutely. During my time at Volkswagen Group, I led the launch of SEAT’s first retail store — right in the middle of a shopping mall. It was a rare opportunity to completely reimagine the car-buying journey.
The traditional dealership model hadn’t changed for decades: sales targets, commission-led staff, and price negotiation. Dropping that into a shopping centre just didn’t make sense to me. Instead, we designed a true retail experience.
Out went commission-based sales executives; in came people with a retail background and no sales targets. Fair, transparent pricing meant creating a brand-new legal framework. And to match the setting, we built a fresh, modern environment inspired by SEAT’s Barcelona roots — complete with self-serve touchscreens, sunrise-style lighting, and a bespoke handover and test drive centre.
Every element of the journey was reimagined with one guiding principle: the customer comes first. The result was a bold new retail approach that customers loved — and it reshaped how I think about customer journeys to this day.
Can you share an example of how you’ve helped an organisation with limited CX resources design meaningful customer journeys?
During the pandemic, I worked with a consultancy supporting a client in the fishing industry. They had a long track record of success in B2B sales but were looking to launch a direct-to-consumer model. The challenge? They didn’t know who their end customers were or how to build an online buying experience. There was no voice-of-the-customer programme, no modern CRM, and very little data to work with.
What they did have, though, was deep industry knowledge and years of experience. Over three intensive days, I worked with their core team to create five target personas. We built these using customer questionnaires, first-hand insights from trade fairs, and even comments and blogs from online forums. To bring the personas to life, we gave them names and stories.
Next, we explored the motivations behind angling — why people buy, how they make decisions, and what might stop them. We then broke down the customer journey into sections, focusing on making each stage feel personal and relevant.
By combining the team’s expertise with some structured CX practices, we created a clear “north star” for their online journeys — each one designed with its own “magic moment” to surprise and delight customers. It showed that with the right approach, even limited resources can spark a customer experience that feels meaningful and distinctive.
Most underrated CX metric?
Customer effort is the metric which springs to mind. I was once asked in an interview how I’d sum up customer experience in a few words. My answer was: when you’ve invested huge amounts of energy, resources, and budget into a new feature or service — and the customer simply says, “well, that was easy.”
It may feel underwhelming after all the late nights and hard work, but in reality, that’s the perfect outcome. Effortless experiences are what customers truly value.
Customer Effort Score can be hard to quantify and even harder to build a business case around — but consistently removing even the smallest pain points is what makes the difference between a good experience and a great one.
A CX myth you’d retire.
Personalisation is all about the data.It also comes from empathy, listening to our front line teams and designing journeys which empower your teams to be human.
Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk would like to thank Nicola Murphy for making time to speak to us and sharing her insights and thoughts.
We intend to continue producing these interviews with Senior Leaders throughout 2025. If you have a desire to hear from someone from a specific industry or there is a particular Leader you would love to hear from – please do let us know and we will do our best to accommodate. To subscribe to these newsletters – please do hit the subscribe button to make sure you don’t miss out on future editions.
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