Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are delighted to bring to you our August edition of the CX Talent Ltd newsletter. We have been over the moon with how these interviews with Senior CX professionals have been received to date. In this latest edition we interview Kirsten Pattie who is the Global Head of Customer Experience and Insight at Collinson . Kirsten has had a very interesting career to date working both in-house, Consultancy and Agency. She has some fascinating insights to share, which we have no doubt you will find invaluable!

Kirsten – you are currently Global Head of Customer Experience and Insight at Collinson – please can you let us know what that entails?

I was brought into the organisation to help put people (customers, clients, partners and employees) at the heart of our product and experience design and innovation efforts.  I was attracted by the dual focus on CX and Insight.

My role involves helping the organisation to build an aligning understanding of our markets, consumer, client and partner needs and innovation and opportunities through research and insight and working closely with our data capability.  In my time at Collinson I have looked to put in place a more holistic approach to plan, collate, analyse and disseminate action oriented insight and then understand the impact of that action on our audiences (through a more structured Voice of the Customer and Customer listening programme)

My role also includes helping the organisation to leverage that understanding to identify our points of ‘meaningful difference’, identify what that means for our customer / portfolio and product strategy and iterate and optimise our current product and service experiences to deliver better customer and business outcomes and identify and ideate new solutions to unmet customer needs.  My team includes researchers, analysts, experience strategists, and UX, service and product designers.

You’ve got an amazing work portfolio – working across a broad and different range of companies and brands, from the BBC to agencies like RAPP , Historic Royal Palaces , Consultancies like CGA Experience and now totravel! How do you feel that having such a diverse range of sector and company experience has helped you progress in CX?

I think in the world of CX and also in Product Development and Innovation it really helps to have experience across a range of industries.  There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly it is important in both CX and innovation to take an outside-in approach, starting with looking to understand your customers, and the broader suite of audiences that you serve, not just as consumers of your products and services but as individuals with a diverse set of needs, motivations and beliefs.  Too many organisations start from the inside out, relying on existing industry knowledge and what has happened in the past.  By bringing in people from outside of the industry an organisation can gain a fresh perspective, challenge to existing ways of doing things, and potentially a broader understanding of your consumers, markets and untapped opportunity.

Secondly many organisations take a ‘me too’ approach to customer experience and product and service optimisation – copying the approaches taken by other industry players. This is a limited strategy as consumers are not judging their experience of your organisation solely against that of your direct competitors but against their experience of all the organisations that they interact.  Their daily interactions with other completely unrelated organisations are continuously resetting their expectations of your organisations product and service experiences and interactions.  By bringing in talent from a variety of industries (and indeed from diverse personal and professional backgrounds) you bring in new skills and experience of having addressed similar emerging customer needs and expectations, albeit in a differet industry category or context.

Of all the companies you’ve worked for, which have you most enjoyed in terms of Customer Experience?

I would have to say working for Historic Royal Palaces .  The organisation had a very clear purpose – to help people engage with the stories of the royal palaces and help preserve those palaces for future generations.  Employees across the organisation were aligned around this purpose and the shared desire to deliver in person and digital experiences that provided all our ecommerce customers, members, donors and visitors with a royal welcome and exceptional experience that went above and beyond.  In my role, first as Head of Customer Engagement and then ultimately as Programme Director of the Customer Experience Transformation I helped the organisation to understand customer needs through the end to end experience and then work together better, in agile and collaborative ways, to deliver seamless and joined up experiences that brought smiles to all.

Can you let us know what have been your proudest moments in terms of CX initiatives to date?

Leveraging customer insight and behavioural change theory to design and deliver a CRM programme for the governments Change4life anti-obesity programme that delivered record sign up, engagement and participation and drove positive social impact.

Helping empower and mobilise local communities to support older and vulnerable audiences to make the switch to digital TV, leveraging CX techniques and approaches to identify barriers and needs and design simple and intuitive experiences.

Helping a number of organisations (both as a consultant and in house) assess their customer centric maturity and shift away from working in vertical functional siloes to working together around the delivery of insight informed seamless and joined up customer experiences that delight and deliver positive customer and business outcomes.

Designing and delivering a Voice of the customer programme for an energy client and helping drive the associated business change and engagement.

You have experience of working on CX initiatives both in Consultancy and Agency as well as in house, what would you say are the main differences? Which do you prefer and why?

I think that I have benefitted greatly from spending time in all three.

In agencies the focus is on the creative ideation and optimisation of core parts of the customer experience through both the development of customer strategy and the creative design and execution of new points of interactions and communications. As a Customer strategist in consultancy you are typically helping the organisation to drive forward bigger programmes of transformation and change; helping organisations become more customer centric and insight led and / or delivering large scale digital and customer capability transformation. This helps to set clients up for future success by introducing new ways of working, new ways of capturing and disseminating data and insight, new ways to identify and capitalise on market opportunity, or designing and delivering new digital platforms and experiences. In both consultancies and agencies one is constantly exposed to fresh and emergent thinking and colleagues with deep expertise in complimentary fields.

In client side roles I would argue that the focus of the CX leader is on helping align the organisation around a common understanding of customers and markets and mobilising, enabling and empowering colleagues across the organisation to work together to deliver more customer centric experiences.

I have enjoyed all the roles I have had in different ways. I enjoy working in house most, in particular for purpose driven organisations; building teams and capability, introducing and embedding new ways of working and operating (such as insight driven, Design thinking and agile approaches) and driving forward customer centric change, ultimately enabling and empowering colleagues to succeed.

If you could have your career all over again, are there any things you would have done differently or are there any skillsets that you feel you wish you’d honed earlier?

I probably would of chosen to work in consultancy at an earlier stage in my career as it provides such a brilliant opportunity for  on the job training from brilliant people who are experts in their field and early exposure to senior decision makers. It also enables you to try on different industries, areas of focus and challenges for size to see what fits.

I do think that it is beneficial to go in house to build the stakeholder management skills that are critical to driving and embedding customer centric change both within teams and at an enterprise level. I benefitted from early exposure to this in my career, when I worked at the BBC and then for the Digital UK – the organisation responsible for driving the switch to digital TV. We were managing a complex network of both internal and external stakeholders and driving forward a nationwide programme of change.

I have really enjoyed projects where my work is having a positive social impact on the communities and audiences that we serve and would probably dial up that if I had my time again.

Ultimately though, there is not much that I would change about my somewhat ‘wiggly’ career as it has given me a broad perspective, fed my curious nature, enabled me to be creative, learn from great people, and build a wide network and connected skill set that enables me to be a better CX leader.

How do you think AI is going to impact CX as a discipline?

I think that AI will be a huge enabler to CX as a discipline.  It will enable organisations to curate a better understanding of customers current and future needs, proactively identify issues and deliver more personalised and tailored responses in real time. It will empower and enable employees. I am really excited by the opportunity it brings. However, I am also mindful of the need to respect the privacy of audiences and to be responsible in the application of AI.

What aspect of CX do you most enjoy? Strategy? Insight? End to end implementation?

I like aligning colleagues around a common (data and research driven) understanding of audiences and market opportunity. To identify and put in place the customer centric capability that better enables and empowers those colleagues to work  together to design and deliver optimised experiences that delight and drive positive outcomes for both customers, wider society and the business.

I also like helping organisations to connect the dots between identifying the organisations point of meaningful difference in the markets and communities it serves. How that translates into brand, customer, portfolio product and experience design strategy, so that everyone can understand the critical role they play.

What skillsets and attributes would you say that candidates wanting to further develop their careers in CX need?

I would say that curiosity, creativity, empathy, tenacity, and an open minded and collaborative style are the personal attributes that will put CX candiates in good stead to succeed.

From a skillset perspective, I think it is critical to build and understanding of the tools and approaches that enable you and your colleagues to better understand the audiences you serve, your business, market, opportunity and challenges.  In my experience the best insight comes when you bring together the right mix of data, research and existing knowledge to better understand a problem.  You don’t have to be an insight professional but knowing what data, research and stakeholder engagement approaches to apply to any given challenge is a real attribute. It will drive fresh insight and provide a better jumping off point for CX innovation and iteration.  In addition, CX professionals need to be adept at bringing together diverse teams and perspectives to enable and empower colleagues to work better together, to deliver seamless experiences and navigate entrenched organisational siloes.  Stakeholder engagement and good communication skills are important, as are an understanding of design thinking and agile approaches.

Finally, it is absolutely critical for CX professionals to really understand the businesses that they work with or for. To understand the commercial models that underpin them, how the organisation makes money, where there is challenge and opportunity and be mindful of both the commercial and customer impact and outcomes that the organisation needs to deliver and how to monitor and measure this impact.

You have got the CCXP accreditation, do you think that this is a worthwhile qualification for candidates to work towards and why?

I think that the CCXP accreditation is a good way to certify that you have a solid understanding and experience of the cross spectrum of skills that are required of a CX leader.  The accreditation is more widely recognised in the US than the UK but I am really glad that I took the time to gain mine.

What career advice do you wish you had been given in the early stages of your career that you’d like to share?

‘Don’t turn down that marketing executive role for Ebay with share options’ (this was in 2003)!

In all seriousness I have been so lucky to have had some amazing mentors and bosses through my career who have given me great advice.

I think the one piece of advice I wish I had been given earlier in my career is – Driving customer centric transformation and change (or indeed change in general) takes time. Especially in organisations made up of entrenched functional siloes rather than those organised around delivery of the customer experience.

Be prepared to meet colleagues where they are, listen and Empathise, and take them on a journey with you. Communicate in their language and often.

Identify Exec sponsors to sponsor the change and champions across teams to drive it forwards at grass roots level.

Think big but start small and promote small successes building a slow ground swell of support.

On a personal level I wish someone had told me to be eternally curious, keep learning, stay playful and most importantly take time out to do the things that bring you joy (for me this is art and walking in nature) as this in turn will enable you to be more creative and productive in the day job.

Oh and the final thing – take time every now and again to stop and look back at what you and your teams have achieved and celebrate your shared successes, experiences and learning opportunities.

If you could describe the ideal CX role – what would it look like?

For me it would be working for a purpose driven organisation that wants to put customers and the broader audiences and communities that it serves at the heart of everything that it does to deliver a positive impact both for the business, customers and wider society.

There would be an aligned executive leadership team that are unanimously supportive of the imperative to start from the outside in, leveraging insight to align and mobilise colleagues around a common view of the market, customer and opportunity and strategy.

The role itself would be focused on enabling, empowering and inspiring colleagues across the organisation to be more customer centric and insight driven and work together to deliver innovative product and service experiences and interactions that exceed customer expectation and needs.  The Role holder (or their team) would also be responsible for leading and embedding customer centric culture change, engaging and communicating with stakeholders across the organisation, be a continuous champion of the customer, and responsible for monitoring and communicating the holistic impact of this collective effort on both the customer and the business.

Finally I would be surrounded by great people who inspire me, teach me, open my eyes to new perspectives and make me laugh in equal measure.

Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird hope that you’ve enjoyed this latest edition of the newsletter. Kirsten Pattie has given us a lot of food for thought, great insights into her career and some fantastic tips and advice for those looking to continue to develop their careers in this wonderful world! Huge thanks to Kirsten Pattie for her time and professional insights.

If you enjoy reading these newsletters and finding out what the top CX Talent are saying about this discipline and how they’ve got to senior positions – please do subscribe to make sure you don’t miss out!

CX Talent Ltd is the recruitment partner you need for all Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Transformation, Strategy, Digital Experience and Service Design roles. We make it out business to be connected with the brightest and best talent at all levels to make sure we can fill your roles efficiently and effectively with the right people.

To discuss your recruitment requirements in CX, Digital Experience and Service Design please do get in touch!

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Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are delighted to bring you our next edition of the CX Talent Ltd Newsletter. This month we are so pleased that the truly wonderful human being who is Helen Wilson – Global CXO – CX, Channel Performance & Global Service Line Organisation at Ipsos shares her thoughts and professional insights with us.

Helen has significant leadership, CX and research experience and is a frequent speaker, chair and judge at industry events. Helen has been in the industry for over 25 years, and has helped leading brands design, orchestrate, and ensure they are delivering great CX. She has held various ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) leadership roles across Ipsos, and is a trained business coach.

Helen – you’re the Global Chief Experience Officer (CXO) for Customer Experience, Channel Performance and Global Service Line Organisation at Ipsos – what does that entail?

I ‘wear a few hats’ at Ipsos, which means I get to work with our brilliant Ipsos teams across the business, across the world, supporting them to deliver great experiences for our clients; to help drive greater impact in their organisations. In the case of my Customer Experience role, specifically, ultimately we’re about helping our clients deliver a greater Return on their CX Investment (ROCXI); helping them increase customer retention, share of spend, advocacy and doing all of that in an operationally efficient manner.  I get involved in shaping our offer – which spans CX research, technology, analytics, and advisory services,  equipping our people to deliver on our brand promise, and ‘shouting loud’, so thought leadership and marcomms sits with me too.  Needless to say, our Customer Experience teams works hand in hand with our Employee Experience teams!  Channel Performance is about improving the performance of physical, digital and contact centre channels, another key aspect of the Customer Experience, of course!

Having been promoted six times in ten years at Ipsos you are clearly doing something right, what skills do you feel that CX leaders need generally to focus on leading change at this level?

I attended a fantastic Ipsos event many years ago, at which one of the speakers spoke about the skills needed to succeed in the future (and current!) world of work.  If you were that speaker, please do give me a shout – I’d love to credit you and talk more! That message stayed with me and is one I repeat, including to my four daughters as they prepare for their futures. As for those skills – for offspring and CXers leading change alike: empathy, resilience and the ability to orchestrate!  Fundamentally, CX is about building strong relationships with customers – creating emotional attachment that leads to those desired customer behaviours.  Understanding customers is the starting point – empathy rules!

What would you say are you favourite moments in terms of CX in your career to date?

There’s a long list, but I’ll keep it short here: brilliant relationships with brilliant clients; helping to ‘unlock the potential’ of rising stars; being surrounded by people I learn from very day – Ipsos is a ‘talent magnet’, so I get to work with the best of the best; and I do get a buzz out of standing on stage and talking CX! Watch out for our Ipsos LinkedIn Live CX event, on 25 June, 15.00 BST. Marko Ivanovic, Haleon’s Global Consumer Relations Director – Digital Strategy and Innovation, and Ipsos’ Nicholas Mercurio, Helen Bywater-Smith and I, will be exploring how the world of Customer Experience in products is evolving. We’ll consider what brands in this space, including Direct to Consumer (D2C), need to consider to enhance their Total CX management, measurement, design and delivery – to drive those desired consumer/customer behaviours and that ultimate Return on CX Investment (ROCXI).  For more details on the event – see the link at bottom of page.

Ipsos is #1 for CX Insights. What characteristics and specific skills do candidates need to have to be successful in CX at Ipsos?

As well, as being CX experts, we’re researchers, technologists, analysts, advisors, relationship builders, storytellers, data scientists, ethnographers, designers … and more besides.  You get the idea!  Ipsos is in 90 markets, across 220 cities.  There are 20,000 of us, partnering with over 5,000 clients. We need all sorts of characteristics and skills! At Ipsos we aim to recruit, develop and retain the most talented multi-disciplinary employees in the industry – to help them to achieve their career goals, to feel valued for their contributions, supported by technology and engaging leaders.  We’re continuing to grow and would love to hear from great CXers.  I loved a recent comment from our CEO, Ben Page, who said when asked about facing future challenges: “I know we’ll succeed because of the flexibility, adaptability, ingenuity and above all the overall commitment of Ipsos people”.

You’ve been the Chair of Judges for the European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards (ECCCSA) for the past few years – what insights has that given you into the world of contact centres and customer service?

How long have you got? Seriously, I could write a book! One of the fabulous things about doing this is that I get to see the best of the best; the truly gold standard organisations and their practices, and the same goes for my ‘day job’! But as just a trio of topline insights from the ECCCSAs, I’m delighted to report on ever more:

• Sophisticated use of customer feedback and data analytics to understand where to focus efforts, including the delivery of tailored experiences, and with what return
• Intelligent use of AI to better equip agents to meet customers’ needs
• Recognition of the importance of the contact centre to the business as a whole.

As a recognised thought leader in CX – how do you see CX evolving in the future?

Our world is complex. Our expectations as citizens, employees and customers are shaped by an increasingly diverse range of influences. Advances in technology, including the rise of Generative AI and digitisation, are changing the way people interact with each other. ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) concerns impact what customers expect of the brands they use or consider. Customers want fast, yet personalised and authentic interactions and relationships.  All in all, the pace of change feels quicker and quicker. This challenging and uncertain landscape makes it difficult for businesses to plan and work out how to design and deliver experiences that drive improved business performance.  So what can they rely on to create solid grounds for business success?

Relationships are, and will continue to be, fundamental assets for businesses. Strong relationships ensure loyalty, sustainable revenue and growth. Ipsos’ R&D data clearly shows that emotional attachment, the highest form of relationship strength, is key to driving higher lifetime values. When a customer is emotionally attached, they are:

• Far more likely to express a preference towards the brand
• Much more likely to recommend the brand (than if they were just functionally satisfied)
• Significantly more likely to stay with the brand in the future.

Of course in many cases the priority will be to reduce customer pain and dissatisfaction. But in parallel, brands need to work out how to design and deliver experiences that create a meaningful connection and ultimately drive positive outcomes.  And that leads us back to where I started – with ROCXI – delivering a Return on CX Investment.  And whilst ROCXI is key, in our current and future environment, it is critical for Businesses to act in a way that benefits themselves andthe wider world.

To help you prepare for the future, keep an eye out, as ‘Ipsos Global Trends’ will certainly be heading your way.  And on that Gen AI front, look out for a paper we’ll be launching later this month, concerned with balancing AI and HI (Human Intelligence), for exceptional Customer Experience. Give me a shout if you’d like a copy.

What advice would you give your younger self in terms of career development?

• Be bold, be brave, ask yourself what’s to lose?  What’s the worst thing that could happen if you did ‘xyz’ – not too bad, huh?  So go ahead and make it happen!
• Network, network, network – relationships matter!
• Be the person people want to be around – positivity all the way …

I’d like to think I took my own advice, but perhaps we could all be that bit bolder, no matter what stage of life …

A massive thanks to Helen Wilson for her time and really useful and interesting professional insight into her world at Ipsosand CX. We hope that you have enjoyed reading her thoughts and opinions. Please do check out the links below to find out more and to sign up to the IPSOS’ LinkedIn Live Event.

Sign up to hear from Helen at Ipsos’ upcoming LinkedIn Live event: Ipsos’ Customer Perspective: The Experience Beyond the Product | LinkedIn

Head here to read about Ipsos’ Forces of CX, and learn more about what it takes to do the right thing by your customers, and your business … and by the world: Embedding ESG in Experience | Ipsos.

Head here if you want to enter this year’s ECCCSA awards: Enter – ECCCSAs (closing date 19th July).

Next month – we have a fabulous guest from a retail background to give their insights into CX and their advice in developing a career in this fantastic world! Do click subscribe to make sure you don’t miss it!!

At CX Talent Ltd – Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Bairdaer proud to be connected with the brightest and best talent in Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Digital Experience and Service Design at all levels. To discuss your recruitment requirements in this area and how we can add value in finding the right fit for your team – please get in touch as we’d love to hear from you!!

We are delighted to present this edition of our CX Talent Ltd newsletter featuring an interview with Liezel Botha  – an internationally experienced Transformation leader focused on Customer experience, Product management and Programme delivery.  Liezel leads large scale turnaround projects in digitilisation of CX, developing successful propositions based on customer needs, and managing product portfolios.  Currently at the nationalgrid ESO, she has also worked across both the Telco and Financial service industries.

Liezel – you’re currently Head of Customer Transformation at nationalgrid ESO. Can you tell us what your role entails?

Hi there, and thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts around Customer Experience in your newsletter.

Here at the ESO we are on a journey to drive Customer Centricity across the organisation. When I joined 18 months ago I developed alongside the team 5 focus areas to support the journey. These include the centralisation of customer data sources to drive deeper insight and support decision making, focussing on the development of customer journeys, driving continuous experience improvements through a Partnership model with business functions, embedding the use of CRM as our central customer tool and launching a new Customer Service Operating model.  My role as Head of Customer Transformation is to lead across these initiatives to deliver a stronger Customer Centric culture and a better overall experience for our customers.

You’ve got fantastic experience across Telco, Financial Services and Utilities in CX. All of these are heavily regulated – how are CX initiatives impacted by these regulations? What challenges or opportunities does that present? 

In my experience the regulatory environment should not be viewed as a limiting space to operate in. Regulation serves a great purpose to provide protection for customers and sets the scene for “hygiene” standardisation requirements or minimum expectations that has to be met for our customers. It therefore also creates opportunities to excel in meeting customer expectations and to drive differentiation in the experience offered.

What would you say would be your biggest successes in terms of CX in your career to date?

I would probably call out two very successful outcomes. In Vodafone UK there is a real drive to use journey analytics to look for customer pain points in existing customer journeys in order to eradicate them through, where possible, automation and digitalisation initiatives. Identifying these pain points also stops them from being replicated in journeys when new propositions are launched. With a relentless focus on continuous improvement we uplifted the Consumer Pay as you go NPS score by 2 points. This is significant at this is one of the most competitive portfolios in Telco. The other example that I will add is from the short term insurance industry where in Vodacom as Head of Insurance Propositions and Operations we unlocked a 51% revenue increase by understanding customer payment behaviour and needs and delivering a customer experience that provided more choice and addressed security concerns.

Of all the roles you have had over the course of your career – which one has been your favourite and why?

Ooo can I pick two again… Some years ago I launched the first Innovation Team for Vodafone UK. Our key focus was to use customer behavioural data/insight and technology developments to identify potential unmet customer needs or challenges and find a tech solution that could solve these for our customers thereby creating new propositions and revenue streams. The work that we did in the team (and these are some years ago) was ground breaking for QR barcode scanning, digital maps on mobiles and starting to understand human behaviour and UX for the use of mobile devices. All of those learnings are in real propositions and products and in today’s world “second nature” but started off from understanding customer needs and behaviour. My second example will have to be the short term Insurance role that I outline before. Insurance has difficult customer journeys as it starts from a “grudge purchase” perspective and no one really wants to go through a claims journey so getting it right from a customer experience point of view really does create a buzz across the team, a value outcome for the customer and off course revenue for the organisation.

I know you are particularly interested in consumer psychology and design thinking.  How does this impact your approach to CX?

Yes the world of consumer behaviour and the way our customers think and react has always been something that I have watched with interest. Human behaviour, how it adapts over time as new experiences or technologies comes along as well as the impact we can have on creating value outcomes for customers is just a world of endless opportunity. With data models and the world of AI this area will develop even faster than ever before. My go to place is always “what does the data say” and “how are customers behaving”. This shapes where our time and monetary investment goes to really make a difference in the experience we offer to our customers irrespective of channel used.

You have quickly built up a large team at nationalgrid  ESO. What skillsets do you think that people really need to hone if they want to pursue a career in CX going forward?

Yes we did ramp up the team rather quickly at the ESO to bolster a very strong foundation and to bring in additional skills. Working in customer experience is not just about the skill of co-creating strong customer journeys but really includes the ability to understand customer insight from data, have a strong commercial understanding to be able to articulate the ROI for investment in experience improvement and a strong omni channel marketing understanding. A CX role is one of the broadest skillset roles to work in and that is probably why I enjoy it so much.

What is your view about the use of AI to help CX initiatives?

I am a strong advocate of AI and believe that it is going to step change the CX industry over the coming years. I do believe that structure and boundaries will be needed to prevent unwanted or fraudulent interactions but with the right guardrails in place it can truly unlock a great experience for customers and will support organisations to redeploy staff to focus on complex futuristic customer challenges.

As a recognised thought leader in CX – how do you see the discipline evolving in the future?

That is really linked to the question around AI. Our industry is rapidly evolving and this will accelerate as more competition, more market pressures and great advancements in technology drives us to ensure that we deliver the best customer journey to obtain and retain customers for our organisations.  It is a very exciting discipline to be a part of with endless transformation opportunities all around.

Do you have any advice for those candidates who are looking to develop their career in CX?

Don’t be scared to move across different functional areas within an organisation as this gives you a breadth of understanding of the impact Customer Experience has on the organisations and vice versa as well as a solid understanding of the commercial implications. During my career I have covered product development,  portfolio management, programme delivery, customer experience with different design methodologies, proposition development and technology transformation programmes. CX impacts all of these and having the understanding of those functions equips you with insight on how to take teams and key stakeholders on a journey to understand the criticality of investing in CX initiatives.

 

We’d like to thank Liezel for her time and professional insight in answering our questions.

Stay tuned for our next months’ amazing CX guest for further insight into CX initiatives and advice on career progression.

At CX Talent Ltd – Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are proud to be connected with the brightest and best talent in Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Digital Experience and Service Design at all levels.

If you would like to discuss your recruitment requirements in this area and how we can add value in finding the right fit for your team. Please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!

 

We are delighted to bring the March edition of our CX Talent Ltd newsletter featuring an interview with Andrew Clayton – an Award winning and Globally Experienced Transformation and CX Executive.

Andrew is a seasoned senior leader with a proven track record in designing, developing and delivering large scale transformational change programs that have made a significant impact on performance.

Andrew has extensive experience working within heavily regulated environments such as financial services, utilities, healthcare and insurance. He has held senior positions at a global, regional and business unit level and covered the functions of Marketing, Sales, Operations and HR.

Andrew is passionate about how organisations transform their business to bring their Purpose and Brand to life in everyday operations through the design and delivery of consistent and persistent end to end experiences that earn trust and loyalty and enables the delivery of sustainable earned growth and value.

Andrew is also a founding member of the global Net Promoter (NPS) Loyalty Forum and has contributed to several books and publications. He is a recognised thought leader and speaker on brand, digital transformation and CX.

Andrew – you’ve recently left Close Brothers where you were the Group Head of CX. Can you tell us what your role entailed and what was your biggest achievement there?

Without going into lots of detail, the core purpose of my role was being charged with the over-arching Group responsibility to shape, govern and deliver the experience strategy to enable customer led growth. Reflecting on my time I would say the most significant achievement my team and I had was helping to align the organisation around a common Customer Commitment ‘Customer North Star’ and target customer ambition. The Customer Commitment articulated how we wanted customers to feel in dealing with the brand, the behaviours that needed to be demonstrated and the outcomes, metrics and targets we needed to deliver against to earn and retain loyalty leadership. This framework provided the guidance to business units and stakeholders to co-create, shape and build their strategic CX roadmaps and end to end journeys to deliver loyalty leadership. The Customer Commitment framework and CX roadmaps also helped to identify, build and refine key CX capabilities and further embed a CX culture across the whole organisation that underpinned the overall company growth ambition, purpose and vision.

From your experience  of leading CX transformation in different sectors / industries are there any key success factors that CX leaders need to focus on in leading change ?

I personally don’t believe there is one single recipe for delivering successful CX transformation, but I do think there are some key ingredients that CX leaders need to include when trying to find their winning recipe for success. Concretely from my experience these would be my top 5 tips:

1. POSITION CX AS A STRATEGIC PRIORITY: Secure unwavering commitment from the top of your organisation ensuring there is a bridge between CX and your purpose, brand framework and values.

2. ESTABLISH THE BUSINESS CASE FOR CX: Robustly demonstrate how improving CX impacts the metrics that matter for your organisation and quantify the potential value opportunity.

3. EMBED CX INTO BUSINESS RYTHYM: Build CX into the operating framework and as part of strategic and planning cycle with appropriate budgets specifically allocated

4. INSTALL EFFECTIVE LISTENING & UPGRADE VOC CAPABILITY: Move away from ad-hoc surveys to always on predictive listening ensuring robust customer insight that drives real action and delivers meaningful impact

5. CREATE A CUSTOMER OBSESSED CULTURE: Weave customer centricity into your everyday culture, communications and reward & recognition systems

You’ve got fantastic experience across Healthcare, Financial Services and Utilities in CX. All of these are heavily regulated – how are CX initiatives impacted by these regulations. What challenges or opportunities does that present?

The first thing that comes to my mind when I get asked this question is why has the regulator intervened in the market in the first place? A large part of that answer must be that the market incumbents have failed in their duty to adequately deliver to the customers they are there to serve. This to me means there are opportunities for brands to stand-out and differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack if they place customer at the heart of everything they say and do and truly walk in customers shoes. As such I would say achieving the bar set by the regulator is the minimum requirement. Given it is an Olympic year it is like the bar you need to reach to even take part in the games, but it will certainly not be sufficient to earn you a gold medal. To earn the gold medal, you need to find ways to stand-out, perform when it matters and differentiate yourself in  your customers’ eyes as they are the ultimate judge in the business world of whether you fail or thrive. Practically that means consistently delivering what I call the ‘brilliant basics’ as well as finding opportunities to stand-out, the ‘branded hallmarks’ that make you unique and valued. In a previous organisation we challenged CEOs in each country business unit to identify based on customer insight some game-changer initiatives that they would personally sponsor and be accountable for executing to ‘shake’ their respective markets, stand out from the competition and deliver earned growth.

What would you say would be your biggest successes and your favourite moments in terms of CX in your career to date?

Any successes in my career to date have been shared moments and team success. I firmly believe in ‘We not Me’ as it is always about teams of people rather than any one individual in any of the transformation roles – I have been given the opportunity to lead. Personally, I always get the biggest source of pride and enjoyment from building organisational capabilities, leaving organisations in a better place than when I started and seeing the growth of diverse young talent. Looking back on some stand-out team successes I would say helping Allianz become one of the first global adopters and thought leaders in successfully implementing the NPS system, supporting Bupa in its journey to fulfil its purpose by bringing the brand to life through the end to end experience delivered, helping E.ON with the design and delivery of innovative new game changing propositions as part of the energy transition and finally aligning Close Brothers around a shared Customer ‘North Star’ ambition and commitment to guide decision making and embed a customer centric culture.

Over the course of your career – CX has changed enormously, what skillsets do you think that people really need to hone if they want to pursue a career in CX?

CX leaders to me are primarily change leaders helping organisations to transform their business to become more customer centric and earn the right to grow. Given CX roles by definition are transversal I think any CX leader needs to be a well-rounded systems thinker with an appreciation and knowledge of the key business functions and how each function’s skills and expertise can be best harnessed to deliver the target experience and outcomes. On a personal skills level – stakeholder management, effective communication and cross functional leadership are key assets for any aspiring CX leader to possess along with an unwavering passion for customer. On the technical side skills such as CX/UX design, insights and analytical ability, measurement and capability building are key for CX leaders and their teams to hone.

What is your view about the use of AI to help CX initiatives?

As a transformation leader I use the mantra ‘customer first not digital first’ as a key principle. With this in mind within the end-to-end customer design process, brands need to consider how to best blend AI with human experience design, which is relevant to their target customer needs. There are of course significant opportunities that AI presents to leaders such as improving real-time customer understanding fuelled by predictive analytics and insights, enabling better personalisation of experiences especially in the Metaverse, equipping colleagues with knowledge and prompts at their finger-tips to provide immediate support to customers and improving speed to market especially in content creation and prototyping. However, I would also say especially in relationship driven businesses it is important to stress the continued importance of building and maintaining strong human-to-human connections with customers whilst looking at ways to optimise the experience through the careful adoption of appropriate AI tools and digital technologies.

As a recognised thought leader in CX – how do you see the discipline evolving in the future?

I think there are couple of important emerging themes and trends to consider. Firstly I believe that CX will evolve to more broadly encompass the orchestration of the total experience. This means experience management will gradually accelerate to include a broader remit and scope which includes designing and improving the brand, product / proposition, customer and also employee experience. Secondly, I think  experience ecosystems will become increasingly important requiring leaders to look beyond just their own organisation towards designing and delivering the total experience both upstream and downstream with partner organisations. Finally, I see considerable movement towards the so called ‘third wave’ of experience management which for me includes key elements such as the continued maturity and adoption of AI, the evolvement of predictive analytics and greater personalisation. These are all of course exciting developments, but I still believe there is a long way to go in many organisations to get even the basics and fundamentals of experience management right as well as properly anchoring CX with a seat and sufficient influence at the Executive table.

Given your experience what advice would you have for those candidates who are looking to develop their career in CX?

As I mentioned earlier, I think CX professionals need to be well-rounded, multi-disciplinary change agents. I therefore believe gaining experience and knowledge in a variety of functions is key for any aspiring CX leader. I recommend this should include spells in Operations, Sales and Marketing. The ability to lead and influence people from across an organisation towards the achievement of common goals is also critical. As such ensuring time is spent on developing those leadership, influencing and stakeholder management skills through project management and chairing groups and committees would be helpful skills to attain. Finally, I would say building a network internally and externally of trusted peers and colleagues who have been there and done that has always been a massive help to me and something I would highly recommend any young leader to nurture as part of their career development.

What is next for you? What sort of challenge are you looking for next?

I am always excited and positive about what the future holds. I am particularly keen to work together with purpose led brands who want to create a better, more sustainable future and who are committed to placing customer at the heart of their business strategy. I am passionate about supporting organisations in driving transformation to earn the right to grow. I want to continue to equip organisations to differentiate their brands from competitors through the total experience delivered that builds trust and loyalty from their customers, partners and their employees alike.

We’d like to thank Andrew for his time and professional insight in answering our questions.

Stay tuned for our next months’ amazing CX guest for further insight into CX initiatives and advice on career progression.

At CX Talent Ltd – Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are connected with the brightest and best talent in Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Digital Experience and Service Design at all levels.

If you would like to discuss your recruitment requirements in this area and how we can add value in finding the right fit for your team. Please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you!

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