A very warm welcome to the November 2024 edition of the CX Talent Ltd Newsletter. Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk are very grateful to Vish Patel – currently responsible for the growth, strategy and experience of Meta’s biggest partnership clients in EMEA – for his time and insights in this months’ interview.

  • Vish, you are currently Partner VP, Strategy (EMEA) at Meta. Can you tell us what this entails?

 

In real simple terms, I am responsible for the growth, strategy and experience of Meta’s biggest partnership clients in EMEA. It’s a blend of commercial, partnerships and customer experience packaged into one, really unique!

  • You’ve got some fantastic experience across consultancy, telco, media and tech. Please can you tell us which role you’ve enjoyed the most and why?

 

This is a tough one, but I would say it’s my current role at Meta. Why you ask?

Meta really embraces cross-functional collaboration, allows people to have autonomy on how they work and the tools they use, which makes doing your job so much easier. The other reason is because I have learnt so much from the realm of partnerships which compliments my previous skillsets really well.

  • What has been your biggest success in terms of CX initiatives in your career to date?

 

It has to be the 18pt improvement in Brand NPS which I achieved for CenturyLink within 12 months of joining. When I joined, the business had merged with Level 3 but had a really poor perception amongst customers and high churn. However, with sponsorship from a great leadership team, a solid 2 year-plan, digital transformation and a huge culture shift, we turned customer experience into a differentiator within the B2B Telecoms space!

  • How valuable have professional qualifications been in your career?  You’ve recently qualified for your MBA as well as having Prince 2, Lean and Six Sigma.  Would you recommend any or all of these to CX professionals developing their careers now?

 

You can never learn too much, so I would 100% recommend doing them all. My recommendation for CX professionals would be to go for LEAN or Six Sigma qualifications in particular, as they as building blocks for problem-solving alongside practical execution. And if you want to fast-track yourself into the c-suite, think about doing an MBA.

  • What skillsets do you feel people wanting to pursue a career CX now need to really develop?

 

Nowadays, I think people wishing to pursue a career in CX should focus on 3 things in particular:

Data analysis and insight

Strategy / design-thinking

Stakeholder engagement

Data is really the foundation of everything. Being able to understand, manipulate and tell a story from data is key for CX professionals. Strategy and design-thinking are also super critical because you need to inspire a vision that meets the changing expectations of customers and markets. Finally, stakeholder engagement is your ticket to success. You have to be a catalyst in getting buy-in from senior leaders/sponsors, collaborating with multiple teams across functions and driving customer-centricity internally. It takes a whole organisation to make the step changes in customer experience. Be the master of the orchestra.

  • How important has professional networking been for your career development?  And how much of this has been virtual or in person?

 

It’s a game changer. Professional networking, and personal networking with mentors, capitulated my career upwards in a short space of time. I would say it’s a 70%-30% split in favour of in-person networking for me personally, possibly influenced by the fact that I am a social butterfly.

  • How do you see CX evolving in the future?

 

Over the next 2-3 years, I think we are going to see more around:

Hyper-Personalization with AI and Data: Real-time, predictive personalization using AI and ML will become standard, balanced with privacy.

Multi-Channel Experiences:Integration of physical and digital touchpoints, leveraging conversational AI, chatbots and big shift in native commerce experiences, for example Travel SIMs.

Ethics and Sustainability in CX:Transparency and ESG practices will heavily influence customer decisions, engagement and loyalty with brands

Shift towards Predictive Proactive Support:ML and Predictive-AI application in customer care will push organisations to re-think service SLAs and operating models.

Employee Experience as CX’s Cornerstone:Doubling-down from organisations on improving employee experience (EX) to influence customer outcomes, linking EX directly to CX success.

  • If you had to describe the ultimate CX role for you – what would that look like?

 

My ultimate CX role would be a chief customer officer role at a multi-conglomerate organisation or an industry-leading organisation that oversees strategic, commercial and experiential aspects of customers across the entire journey for all brands. I personally would relish the chance the drive CX across multiple verticals and more importantly be the pioneer who keeps pushing the standards to new levels by innovating. Today is not tomorrow’s future!

  • If you were setting up a CX team from scratch for an organisation where budget was no object, what roles would your ideal team consist of?

 

The key roles I would certainly have in my fantasy dream-team are:

–       Customer Experience Professionals

–       Data Scientists / Analysts

–       Software Developers / Shadow IT

With these 3 roles, you have a holy trinity. A small but complimentary group that have multifarious skills capable of solving problems end-to-end in a timely manner, and could even be spun as a professional service, call it CX-as-a-service.

Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk would like to give our enormous thanks to Vish Patel for making the time to answer our questions. 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!

CX Talent Ltd is the recruitment partner you need for all Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Transformation, Strategy, Digital Experience and Service Design roles of all levels. We have been trading for over 13 years and are connected to the best and brightest talent. If you want to work with a recruitment partner who supports excellent candidate experience, diverse and inclusive recruitment practices and works with efficienty, integrity and honesty at all times – do give us a call!

www.cxtalent.co.uk

#customerexperience #cxtalent #cx #recruitment #cxjobs

A very warm welcome to the October 2024 edition of the CX Talent Ltd Newsletter. Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk are very grateful to Nicola Langley– voted one of the most inspiring women in Automotive and Volkswagen UK’s Customer Experience Strategy Head -for her time and insights in this months’ interview. Nicola, you are […]

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!

CX Talent Ltdis the recruitment partner you need for all Customer Experience, Customer Operations, Transformation, Strategy, Digital Experience and Service Design roles of all levels. We have been trading for over 13 years and are connected to the best and brightest talent. If you want to work with a recruitment partner who supports excellent candidate experience, diverse and inclusive recruitment practices and works with efficienty, integrity and honesty at all times – do give us a call!

www.cxtalent.co.uk

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!

www.cxtalent.co.uk

Both Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are so pleased to bring your the July 2024 edition of the CX Talent Ltd Newsletter. This month we are delighted to introduce you to James McGhee Director of Customer Experience at FOOTASYLUM . James has been kind enough to share his thoughts and professional insights with us, which we are certain you’ll be fascinated to read!! So get that cup of coffee and sit back and enjoy!!!!

James McGhee has got some fantastic experience in retail having done not one but two stints AO and most recently at FOOTASYLUMHe is an incredibly accomplished Sales and Customer Experience Operations/Contact Centre Manager with extensive experience in large matrixed organisations. He has achieved record-high customer satisfaction rankings, improvements to bottom line and turnaround of under performing operations to prepare companies for fast growth and profitability.

James – you are currently Director of Customer Experience at Footasylum, please could you let us know what this entails?

I’m responsible for everything that is post purchase and customer affecting. This includes the contact centre, post purchase communications, reviews, feedback, and sentiment analysis. I’m also responsible for the qualitative measurement of our carrier partners.

You started your journey at Footasylum as the Head of Customer Experience but have since been promoted to Director of Customer Experience. How do each of these roles differ from each other?

As Head of Customer Experience, I really focussed mainly on the Contact Centre. The title change came after taking on the wider remit above and being on the Senior Team at Footasylum for a couple of years.

In your career to date what CX initiative that you’ve been involved with have you been most proud?

Two spring to mind. One was a real team effort at AO.com to deliver amazing customer experiences after customers had reported faults with their appliances. We collectively managed to convince manufacturers to take a much bigger role in the resolution, not just the assessment of faults. All were really receptive to it and it meant that there was a combined, concerted effort to delight and, most importantly, fix the customer. At FOOTASYLUM ,the culture of my department makes me proud. The management team understand the importance of customers time and our ethos that it’s about the experience over service.

I tell the teams about service being “dead” and a filing cabinet of options stuck firmly between the customer and ourselves. We choose to approach contact with customers collaboratively.

What aspect of the CX function to you personally enjoy the most?

It’s hard to choose between the front-line customer interaction – especially when you get it right and it’s almost magical in the way that we can turn a customer around and the positive feedback we receive in various places. Reading that is heart-warming and extremely satisfying.

You’ve had two separate stints at AO.com who are reknown for the excellent CX. In your opinion what do you think it is they do different that results in such a strong experience for their customers that other companies could learn from?

It’s a top-down thing that they have going on. John Roberts is obsessed with customer satisfaction, the experience and the difference it has to that business. It permeates all the way through.

When hiring for your team what attributes do you look for in candidates? What makes a successful candidate for a retail CX function?

It may not be popular, but resilience is number one. It’s an odd trait to find in someone who, more often than not, is taking the job as a perceived gap-filler in their career or fresh out of education. The best people I’ve worked with have been able to separate the customers needs from the customers’ frustration and emotion.

What skillsets do you feel that candidates in CX should be looking to develop or hone?

Resilience, Psychological understanding (Cognitive Biases, The Chimp Paradox and Amygdala Hijacking are great starting points) and how to create fun in conversations, where appropriate. Again, the best CX professionals have started from the bottom and could create an incredible, personable, personalised experience with customers.

How are you using AI in your CX initiatives?

We use it to assess customer sentiment, to write canned responses or virtual assistant responses and in virtual assistants themselves. We have a super clever Whatsapp VA where you can track and amend your delivery in Whatsapp and get order updates too.

How do you see AI use developing further in retail CX?

I was always a firm believer in it’s adoption in areas like Alexa and Siri. I’m less confident now and hope that it’s used to do simple tasks that are a frustration for advisors and customers alike. Little things like small compensation, refunds and tracking orders should be able to be automated, or at least 50-60% of them .

You’ve managed large teams of customer facing agents in contact centres in several of your roles. How important is the employee experience to your bigger picture CX strategy?

Vitally important. Richard Branson has been advocating it since the 80’s and, if I’m honest, the best CX led businesses focus on it. Anyone you look up to in CX has an excellent experience for their teams too.

What do you think it takes to be a successful leader in CX?

Influencing skills, a desire to work harder than everyone else and an analytical mind. As a given you should be the best people leader you can be and be kind. I hear horror stories of how people are dealt with in the CX world by their leaders. Those people never last and create a perception that contact centres and front-line retail, for example, are bad places to work.

Are there any CX focused events you attend? Why? Why not?

Not really anymore, I got out of the habit during Lockdowns and, to be honest, the commercialised element of it puts me off. How often are you in market for a new contact centre platform!? I’d love for events to be focussed on making customers lives better, not just SAAS products with huge claims.

What advice do you wish you had been given in your earlier career?

That your time is worth a lot more than you’re currently being paid for it. We can’t all be business owners, and that’s not what I mean. We can all use our free time wisely to enrich and create value for ourselves. Learning new skills, reading, exercising, and spending time with those you love are equally, if not more, important than working late to finish reports or clear your inbox. The problems will still be there tomorrow when everyone else wakes up and replies, you’re better at fixing them if you’re at your best.

Kate Baird and Jo van Riemsdijk would like to thank James McGhee for his fantastic insight and thoughts on the wonderful world of Customer Experience. We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this latest edition of the CX Talent Ltdnewsletter. Don’t forget to subscribe to make sure you don’t miss any of our interviews with fabulous leaders in CX in the forthcoming months!

At CX Talent LtdJo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are so 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 and to get involved!

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 LtdJo 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!!

Jo van Riemsdijk and Kate Baird are delighted to introduce our May edition of the CX Talent Ltd newsletter. We are very proud that the amazing Carole Layzell Managing Director & Head of Barclays Local South has agreed to share her thoughts and professional insight with us.

Carole is a highly experienced CX and Business Leader with a successful career spanning over 35 years at Barclays, Nationwide Building Society, Salesforce & Medallia. An experienced international keynote speaker, and has established herself as an expert in digital innovation.

She is currently Managing Director for Barclays UK Local South playing a pivotal role in creating the strategy to deliver exceptional colleague and customer experiences using technology to help inform our decisions and create market leading customer and colleague outcomes.

Carole has led teams across face to face banking, back office operations and customer experience centres of excellence and is well-versed in harnessing the potential of digital experiences within the ever-evolving omni-channel landscape.

You’re currently Managing Director – Head of Barclays Local South.  What does that entail?

My role entails leading an amazing team of colleagues who support our customers f2f in our branches, Locals (which are sites where we work with local councils and communities to offer in-person banking support, helping customers with their everyday finances in places such as town halls and libraries, Pods or Vans) and out in our communities.

This incorporates half of England and Wales and West, with c3000 colleagues. My team are passionate about helping and supporting their customers – and it’s been fantastic in the last 8 months to get out and visit many of our sites and communities to experience the work they have been doing.

You’ve had a really broad career, starting off at Barclays, then at Nationwide and then to some of the SaaS platforms before coming back to Barclays again. How has working at Salesforce and Medallia helped shape your understanding of CX programmes that is beneficial to you in your current role?

Gaining a detailed understanding of how technology can support in delivering great Customer experiences has been key.  Technology can be a really powerful tool to support and enhance what we do, however it is crucial to recognise that technology should complement rather than replace the human touch.  Working with different organisations has enabled me to see the rich diversity in how differing industries approach their CX, some of the commonalities that exist and some of the Market leading innovations and ideas that are shaping the future.

Can you tell us about some of the successes you’ve had in terms of your CX and EX initiatives at Barclays?

One of my career highlights has been leading the Digital Eagle programme across Barclays. The programme started off by developing the digital skills of a small group of colleagues, but when we saw the passion to help each other and to in turn help customers we decided to scale the programme to enable all colleagues to benefit across all our communities. This provided our colleagues with increased skills that they could use personally but also, and vitally, could also share with our customers to enable and improve their digital skills – whether that be linked to banking or in other elements of their lives.  I`m incredibly proud of the huge number of digital tea and teach events and code playgrounds we developed for children that we have provided to our customers and non-customers alike. Also, increasing digital skills helps protect our customers against fraud and scams, and is important that we continue to work together to protect against this.

As a people leader in Barclays what do you see as key to improving colleague experience for the colleagues that you lead/work with?

I believe the most important elements are to be open and transparent, and also to give colleagues the opportunity to share what they think isn’t working and then work really hard to fix this.  This might though sometimes say that we can`t fix / action something at that moment in time and the reasons why. It’s vital to create a culture of speaking out, taking action and accountability to leave the organisation in a better place than you found it.

I have always been passionate about supporting colleagues with their own development and connecting people so they can take ownership of what development looks like for them – whether that be developing in their current role or getting them ready for their future career aspirations.  LinkedIn have recently announced that Barclays are in the Top 10 of their 2024 awards which look at the ‘best companies to grow a career’ – which is great to see and something that makes me feel proud to work for Barclays.

What attributes do candidates need to be able to demonstrate to be a strong candidate to work within the CX/EX team for a financial institution like Barclays?

We would be looking for candidates that are passionate about both colleagues and customers and embrace the concept of wanting to help everyone to thrive. Doing the right thing in the right way is critical and to be driven by our values. Customer Experience is always on our mind to make sure we drive progress for our clients, customers, communities, and fellow colleagues.

How do you think financial services will continue to utilise AI in CX in the future?

We are proud to be a business where personal connection is still important. Our customers tell us that they want to feel as though we know them each, as individuals. The best CX companies are doing this well already – although usually on much simpler use cases than in the banking industry. Our challenge is to harness the power of AI to give our Customers the benefit of all their data to help make money work better for them.

For example, in Chat, there have been many companies who have deployed AI to replace humans and it hasn’t worked well for them. Our vision is to use that channel to enable customers to have conversations with real people – but we’d like to use the AI to give our teams the most helpful insights into how to serve each customer best.

We also want to learn more from our customers about how we can serve them better. Again, AI can take a traditional survey format and instead collect feedback in a really conversational way that picks up on what’s most important to our customers, and explores it in a very natural, conversation.

As a recognised thought leader in Customer Experience, how do you see the discipline evolving in 2024 and beyond?

To deliver great customer experiences you need to ensure you are continually listening to your customers and then act on that feedback. It’s taking that insight and using it to take or suggest the next best action as our customers will not always know what is the best way forward and will rely on our expertise to support them in this. The organisations that truly listens to their customers and takes relevant value add actions are the ones that will thrive in the future.

What advice do you wish you’d been given in your early career?

Buy technology shares!

On a serious note – What has stood me well during my career is that in whatever role you do, continue to walk in the shoes of your customer.  Get out there first hand and experience the process or journey as your customers do, understand where the pain points and friction exist and then be relentless in removing that friction.

Are there any sectors or companies you wish you’d worked in at any point in your career?

I have enjoyed all the companies I have worked in as I have learnt so much from each of them. What I have particularly loved is the opportunity to work with different industries, for example the automotive industry based on how they are using technology to engage their customers and exceed expectations to deliver the wow factor. The hospitality sector is another example.  They are great examples where they are looking to exceed customer expectations based on customers hopes and dreams – and that’s something that gives a really interesting insight to what the art of the possible is!

We’d like to thank Carole Layzell for her time and professional insight into the world of CX and are certain that our followers and network will have enjoyed reading this latest edition of the CX Talent Ltd newsletter.

Stay tuned for our next months’ guest – we have another real treat in store for you! The purpose of our newsletter is to bring you real world advice and insight into CX initiatives from a broad range of senior professionals working in the field and producing great results to help you further your career in this amazing discipline.

At CX Talent LtdJo 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 do 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 LtdJo 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!

www.cxtalent.co.uk

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contact@cxtalent.co.uk