Tag Archive for: CX

Candidates have AI too! The new Recruitment Experience.

Candidates have AI too!  The Recruitment Experience has changed – and what to do about it. 

A lot has been written about the deterioration of the recruitment experience over the last year or so, both from a hiring and job seeking perspective, and as an independent specialist recruiter in CX spanning all sectors and scales of business, here’s a look at our analysis.

The enthusiasm with which businesses embraced AI-driven recruitment tools over the past couple of years was understandable. Specialist recruitment partners are expensive, hiring could be slow, and technology promised a cleaner, faster, more objective alternative. For many organisations it seemed only sensible to automate.

The fundamental mistake was assuming that only employers would use these tools. In reality, candidates gained access just as quickly. Today, CVs are optimised in minutes, experience is reshaped to mirror job descriptions with uncanny precision, and applications are submitted at scale. What was once a considered, targeted exercise has become a numbers game, even for senior and specialist hires.

The traditional signals hiring managers relied on — a well-structured and well-presented CV, a clear alignment with the role, the “right” language — no longer mean very much. When every application looks good, none of them truly do. The screening process becomes guesswork, driven by time pressure rather than the insight and experience of the recruiter.

Where do you start as a hiring manager now?  CX particularly has traditionally been a difficult space to recuit in, with job titles and seniority fluid between sectors and a specialism needed to be able to read between the lines.  Now, on paper, it’s almost impossible.

Employers are back where they started, struggling to identify who will actually perform well once hired. Only now, the volume is overwhelming, response rates to candidates have collapsed, and the experience on both sides has deteriorated sharply.

And the consequences are significant – filling your role with the wrong person is an increasingly costly error in a labour market shaped by stronger employee protections and heightened expectations of fair process.  Financially and reputationally, this is a big deal.

Recruitment was never just about matching words on a page, it’s about understanding how experience was gained, what kind of leadership someone has been exposed to, how they operate under pressure, and whether they will thrive in a particular environment. AI can align language, but it cannot validate truth.

This is why the human networks many businesses dismissed as old-fashioned are now proving their worth again. Knowing candidates personally, understanding their professional history, and being able to check claims through trusted relationships, delivers something algorithms cannot: confidence.

Particularly in customer experience roles, where judgement, empathy and leadership matter as much as technical competence, that confidence is critical. A CV — however perfectly optimised — tells you very little about how someone will show up for customers or colleagues.

The reality is that giving everyone the same tools has just given us a different problem on a much bigger scale, and that the people are relying on their own real-world, human professional networks again.  Good recruiters and hiring managers amplify this process with LinkedIn, but in the end,it comes back to good old fashioned relationships.

None of this is an argument against technology. AI has a role to play, and used well, it can improve efficiency. But the idea that recruitment could be fully automated in any field ignores a basic truth: work is human, and so is hiring.  If organisations want better hiring outcomes, they must stop treating recruitment as a software problem and start recognising it for what it is: a people problem. And if you need a person to do the job, you still need a person — with judgement, context and a real network — to find them.

 

Kate Baird, December 2025

kateb@cxtalent.co.uk

July Newsletter – an interview with James McGhee

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 Ltd – Jo 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!

February Newsletter – an interview with Richie Rumbelow

We are delighted to bring you the February edition of our CX Talent Ltd newsletter, featuring an interview with Richie Rumbelow, Customer Experience Director at Sovereign Housing Association.  Richie has over eight years of senior CX experience in various sectors, including health, charity, and property. He is a CXPA Professional Member as well as being certified in NPS, Six Sigma, and coaching.

  • You’re currently Director of Customer Experience at Sovereign Network Group. What does that entail?

Customer Experience at Sovereign Network Group consists of four key teams covering service design, insight, reporting and customer involvement. We’re a small team, which works across the organisation driving customer-centric improvement.

  • What is the most challenging aspect of working in CX for a Housing Association?

The UK has a lack of affordable housing and this combined with economic pressures, creates the perfect storm for the housing sector, which is then felt by tenants and Housing Associations. When it comes to working in CX specifically, one of the biggest challenges my team face is a lack of awareness of CX and the benefits it brings for both customers and the organisation. CX is often thought to be customer service or some kind of undefined mystic art.

  • Can you tell us about some of the successes you’ve had in terms of your CX initiatives at Sovereign Network Group to date?  

There are several areas where I think my team has really excelled over the last year. At the end of 2023, we produced the organisation’s first Voice of the Customer report, which has really helped the organisation understand customers and the challenges they face, most importantly it has guided where we focus improvement activity. To further support this, we’re just about to launch the organisation’s first needs-based customer segmentation.

We’re also enhancing our existing feedback mechanisms, layering on geomapping, which allows us to spot trends not just in specific regions or areas but in small towns and even on specific roads.

In addition to our work improving customer insight, we’re pushing forward with several key projects which will enable self-service for customers. It’s early days but we’re really excited to be working on this throughout 2024.

  • You’ve got some really interesting experience across your career in CX. How do you feel that your career path has led you to your position today at Sovereign Network Group? Would you have done anything differently?

My first role after university was at PPL, working in a contact centre environment, which gave me a good grounding in the essentials of customer service. I was then fortunate enough to spend time working at one of the UK’s largest charities: Cancer Research UK. Here I gained vital project and programme experience within the Digital team. My role there also expanded and I led the Consumer Insight team, which is where my love affair with research started.

My most recent role before joining Sovereign Network Group was at the British Heart Foundation, working in the marketing team. I led a large transformation project to bring together various customer service teams in order to provide a single, consistent customer service experience. I also oversaw the people strategy for the Marketing, Fundraising & Engagement team, which was incredibly fulfilling but also helped strengthen my understanding of employee experience and its link to customer experience.

The skills I’ve gained working in customer service, digital and marketing teams have positioned me well for a CX Director role, as these are the three key disciplines, which I’ve found to have the biggest impact on the customer experience.

  • Your experience in CX is broad both in terms of what you’ve been doing in CX And also from an industry sector perspective. You had a commercial start at PPL – which is a music licensing agency as well as a Telco to working in the Third Sector and The Public Sector. What did you learn about CX in each and what are the key differences about working in a not for profit organisation in CX that you enjoy the most?

There have been cultural difference across every organisation I’ve worked at, but there have probably been many more similarities. Every organisation I’ve worked at has cared about its customers and wants to improve their experience because it’s the right thing to do. Some organisations are more commercial in their approach, with a keen appreciation of the Return on Investment of CX. It may sound strange but I’ve found charitable and not-for-profit organisations to be incredibly commercial as there’s a heightened awareness that every penny comes from customers and there’s a responsibility to use income as effectively as possible.

  • What attributes do candidates need to be able to demonstrate to be a strong candidate for a Housing Association, not for profit or charity organisation?

When I interview people, I look for a genuine passion for customers. Buzzwords like ‘customer-obsessed’ are great as long as people have the examples to back them up, but words alone can fall flat.

CX is all about making change in an organisation and no one can do that without their colleagues; I look for people who can build and maintain relationships. Having strong influencing skills, the ability to sell a vision and the perseverance to cope with setbacks and challenges is also key. This is particularly important in the housing sector as it’s a challenging environment, so you need high resilience levels.

  • How do you think Housing Associations will utilise AI in CX in the future?

I think Housing Associations will use AI in the common ways other organisations are using it. The most obvious and easy step is automating transactional customer service interactions, freeing up people to engage in more complex or emotive interactions.

The other natural application for AI within the housing sector is though smart sensors, which can monitor and analyse data on things like temperature and humidity.

Sovereign Network Group is currently looking at the systems it uses to book and track repairs. There is AI baked into some of the systems we’re looking at and it will undoubtedly have a role in things like dynamic scheduling and route planning.

  • What skills do you think candidates in CX should be looking to hone for the future?

AI and Digital skills are obvious areas for people to focus on. The area my team are focused on currently is total experience, bringing together customer and colleague experience, combining it with knowledge and insight to design experiences. I think developing a good understanding of how People and HR teams design Employee Engagement strategies is going to be crucial for CX professionals.

I also think getting leadership experience is crucial. This can be challenging when you’re starting your career but experience outside of work is a brilliant: do you coach a football team or run a lunch club with friends?

  • What difficulties have you had in recruiting for your CX teams to date?

I’m fortunate to have a complete team after recruiting back in 2023 following an expansion of the CX team. Thinking back to the recruitment process, we saw a huge number of applications, however there were only a small number of shortlisted candidates. During the process we did see candidates withdrawing, even as last minute as an hour before the interview.

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

I think we have an exciting year ahead. The top things I’m anticipating are the continued deployment of bots and automation, with voicebots becoming far more prevalent. I’m also excited to see Augmented Reality being used to help resolve customer queries.

Customer journey mapping has always been a staple in any CX professional’s toolkit and I think this will evolve so we’re looking at more advanced journey analytics, visualising online and offline journeys much more easily with tracking made possible through omnichannel platforms.

Overall, I think CX professionals will work even more closely with Employee Experience professionals and a more joined up Total Experience discipline will evolve.

January Newsletter – an interview with Michelle Laramy

Welcome to our launch edition of the CX Talent Ltd Newsletter.

We’ve thought long and hard about what would be a useful monthly write up, and we’ve decided that as well as continuing with our usual postings, you might find it useful to hear from Senior Customer Experience Leaders with their views on CX, the successes and challenges they have had, and their advice for career development in this space.

We will interview a new voice every month. If you have any questions you’d like us to put to our guests – please do drop us a line at contact@cxtalent.co.uk.

We are delighted to introduce our first guest for 2024 – Michelle Laramy – Director, Customer Experience of Canary Wharf Group.

Michelle joined Canary Wharf Group as Director, Customer Experience in February 2022 with responsibility to develop the strategy for CWG’s customers and to support its ambition to better understand diverse customer profile using data and insights.

Michelle joined CWG from the Crown Estate where she was the Head of Customer since 2015. At the Crown Estate, Michelle was accountable for the development and delivery of the customer strategy and roadmap across the £14bn UK real estate business. Previously, Michelle was the Head of Customer Experience at Santander for over four years.

Michelle Laramy Director of Customer Experience at The Canary Wharf Group

Michelle you’re currently Director of Customer Experience at the Canary Wharf Group plc.  What does that entail?

I have been a CX practitioner for several years working across a range of industries. Starting my career in retail for John Lewis, moving into banking and then into Real Estate.

I joined Canary Wharf Group as Director of Customer Experience 2 years ago.  Canary Wharf Group is the developer of the largest urban regeneration project in Europe.  It is a vibrant mixed-use destination and over the past 35 years, we have developed a diverse community that includes over 17.5m sq ft of offices, 2,200 homes, 1.1m sq ft of retail and leisure, 16.5 acres of green spaces and waterside living.

My role was created to continue to evolve Canary Wharf Group to a customer-centric business and my remit covers all end users of our estate. So that’s shoppers, office workers, residents and the wider community that visit Canary Wharf every day.

What do you enjoy about it most?

I love the variety the role brings, from leading technology transformation projects to meeting customers, I get involved in so many interesting initiatives and projects, and it’s great to see these projects benefit customers and employees.

Can you tell us about some of the successes you’ve had in terms of your CX initiatives at Canary Wharf to date? 

Digital transformation is an important priority to Canary Wharf Group and it’s integral to how end users of our space want to interact with us.  My team led the development of The Canary Wharf App, which is an estate wide app for the estate.  It is a one-stop shop for finding out everything we have to offer from shops, restaurants, leisure, offers and more. The app has over 40k regular users and has supported our strategy to understand our customers and bring us closer to them.

In January my team also launched a new concept called Wharf Connect.  Wharf Connect is a dynamic community designed to empower the next generation of professionals in Canary Wharf. It brings together future leaders, encourages office engagement, and fosters an environment that will encourage the retention of early career professionals as they feel a part of a wider Canary Wharf ecosystem.  The network aims to create an environment that values inclusivity, connection, and collaboration; qualities all extremely important for the next generation.

At Canary Wharf and previously at The Crown Estate, you have had a huge range of customers from leaseholders to office workers to day visitors.  What are the main challenges that that breadth of customers creates?

It is a challenge, as you have a lot of different customer types, and they have a different set of outcomes from the relationship they have with us. So, we need to carefully design experiences to meet their needs and expectations. A one size fits all does not really apply.

Do you think that coming into commercial real estate from a different sector, financial services, has been beneficial in your career? 

CX professionals can easily move been sectors, their skills and capabilities are very transferable. I learnt a lot in financial services about technology, apps and platforms, all of which have been useful skills and knowledge to bring into real estate.

How do you see AI impacting on CX in the property market?

AI has an enormous potential to reshape real estate, prop tech has already laid a foundation for this, however, the understanding of its capabilities is still low. There are some interesting pilots taking place across real estate, but the industry has a long way to go.

What skills do you think candidates in CX should be looking to hone for the future?

Having a data-driven mindset, CX professionals must understand the business data, as you can’t seek to improve what you can’t measure.

A strategic outlook is vital, as anything a CX professional does should align with the overall objectives of the business they work for.

Project Management capabilities can also set professionals apart, as the role is much more digital-led, so you need to understand how to lead projects cross functionally.

CX is also not a department, it’s the way a whole business interacts with its customers, so you need to have brilliant communication and relationship building skills.

What difficulties have you had in recruiting for your CX teams to date?

In smaller businesses, you sometimes require a more generalist CX practitioner and not someone who is very specialist in one thing, so this can be a challenge. Bigger companies need vast capabilities and require a specialist for each specialist area, so it depends on the company’s requirements.

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

CX has changed a lot over the years. COVID accelerated the use of digital customer experience, pushing brands towards self-service and automated services, and this will keep evolving with the evolution of Al. However, all brands need to get the balance right between digital and human-to-human contact.  I believe CX Practitioners have a big part to play to get this balance right.  At Canary Wharf we have advanced in the digital space to make things easier for customers, but we also recognise when companies are telling us that face-to-face and building a sense of community is critical for their business to thrive.

What advice would you have given to your younger self in terms of career development?

Here are my top tips!

Don’t worry if you don’t have it all figured out, sometimes success is a bumpy road and it can take you in all different directions.

Try and find something you love, this will help you really drive your career and ambition forward.

Don’t hesitate to take risks, if an opportunity presents itself grab it with two hands and don’t talk yourself out of it.

Build a strong professional network, networking helps with your career trajectory and some of the amazing people you meet along the way help you support and guide your career path.

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

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

At CX Talent Ltd – Jo and Kate 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!

What’s Happening At Cx Talent Ltd Now? Highlights And An Update!

At CX Talent Jo and I have long been interested in the whole end to end world of recruitment and what best practise should and does look like – we love the whole process. Here are some of the highlights, as well as news on our latest developments.

 

We start with the business problem – discussions with the hiring manager around what sort of skills and experience the client is looking for to solve their challenges or move them forward. We need to really understand that in order to be able to find the right talent, and it’s always an interesting and inspiring part of the job.

 

The candidate experience – this is so important! We are transparent about the opportunity and the salary banding from the word go, and of course we do all the due diligence we can to make sure that the role is real, signed off and ready to go. Candidates invest their time, effort, experience and skills in each and eery application (as do we), and we respect and support that. We try ago make sure that the process moves smoothly. momentum is maintained and feedback is timely. This isn’t always in our power, but we try!

 

The shortlist. Our shortlists are just that – having gone out to our network and had lots of conversations, we usually present between 4 an 6 excellent candidates for consideration – usually within around a week. We are able to do this because we’ve spent over 8 years building up our network of CX professionals and we know who we want to talk to about each role almost straight away. The way CVs are presented in the first place has evolved – many companies now ask for names and DOBs to be redacted and some go even further. We love getting involved with helping businesses act to reduce even unconscious bias in this space.

 

The result! A happy Client who has quickly and efficiently filled their role from a carefully and expertly curated shortlist so that in the quickest possible time they are up to speed with their brilliant new recruit in place. Their other applicants had a decent experience and their business brand is stronger than ever. And the right Candidate is in the best next job for their career!

 

Alongside the nuts and bolts of recruitment are the associated issues of employee wellbeing, rewards an benefit packages, bonus structures and so on – and working with HRs to advise on expectations and build the right package is another important part of the job. We’ve definitely see that changes emerging over the last few years have been accelerating in this aria. Overwhelmingly now people want some flexibility in how and where they work – and they are absolutely looking for this to be a permanent change post Covid.

 

This is partly what has led Jo van Riemsdijk (CX Talent co-founder as or course you know) and her architect husband Hans to develop their new business, Modulr Spaces Ltd. Modulr Spaces offers a premium, architect designed, plug and play office that can be delivered to almost the smallest of outdoor spaces and provided a comfortable, secure, sound proofed, ergonomically optimised office. It’s aimed at businesses to buy or lease for their staff, and we hope it will fill need for people who are continuing to work from home to be as productive an comfortable as possible.

 

So at CX Talent we are very much involved with launching and placing this hugely exciting new product and I am sure you will hear more about it! You can find out more from either of us and/or the link at the end of this article, and any feedback is gratefully received.

 

The core business of Customer Experience Specialist Recruitment, and the offering of our Magic Hour personal job search training sessions, continues as normal. We are currently recruiting in London, the Midlands, Europe and Japan, as you may have seen on other posts, and we hope to be busier than ever next year, so please stay in touch!

Need Some Help Or Support With Your Job Search? Where Do You Start?

There is a LOT of help for job seekers available at the moment and it can be confusing to navigate.

Where do you start?

Definitely with the free stuff! A quick google search for hints and tips for jobseekers will bring you free advice on curating and styling your CV and LinkedIn profile, writing cover letters, practice questions for job interviews, tips on how to approach them on Zoom and much more.

Whose do you use?

Much of the information is common sense based and overlaps, some is specialist to particular industries – all of it is obviously generalised. Go to websites of recruiters you know, media outlets that are particularly relevant to your industry, or the large jobsite websites. Read around and find a source that offers advice you find helpful.

Many different people are offering paid-for services in addition to free help. Access to these can be as simple as buying a book on the subject! They also include specialist recruiters like us, career coaches, CV copywriters and others – we all offer different services and niche resources.

The different models:

There are different models to choose from – from one-off CV writing to subscription services. One-off copy writing services can be helpful but a word of warning here – make sure that your CV and cover letter read as authentically you – this is especially tricky now that documents need to be ATS friendly and be free of most formatting.

For a bit more of a financial commitment, subscription services give months of coaching together with access to supportive online communities which can be useful for networking as well as maintaining optimism and resilience through your search. Don’t forget that you can and should find and build your own community on LinkedIn too. If you are job-seeking, you should already be active on LinkedIn by engaging and commenting on posts and even posting yourself.

If you have more of a budget, you can align with a dedicated career coach to take you hand in hand through a personalised process and there are some very good people in this space. This can be expensive though, so try and get a personal recommendation, and be prepared to research a few so that you are sure you have the right fit for your personality and experience.

Which is going to offer the most value to you?

What do you need it to achieve? This obviously depends on your own personal requirements and needs. None of these options are a quick fix to ‘get a new job’ – this is all about supporting you in your process of finding the right one.

Like many other recruiters we at CX Talent Ltd offer a combination of free and personalised advice. There are hints and tips on our LinkedIn feed. We publish regular blogs on our website in the hope that they will help as many people as possible. We also post frequently on our Linkedin page – job tip reminders and encouragement.

What we offer –

If you want or need more focussed, personalise and individual advice – we offer a service called The Magic Hour. This is a purely bespoke and one to one deep dive look at your CV and LinkedIn profile, your jobseeking plans and your strategy. We don’t write your CV for you but we work through your experience with you to make sure that you are presenting your best, most hire-able self. We get your jobseeking self in its’ strongest possible shape and we support and encourage you in your search. It’s an opportunity to have a sounding board about a future direction and some no-nonsense feedback from a team who have been recruiters, hiring managers and of course candidates ourselves.

We’ve had some great feedback –

“It was really great to speak with you yesterday, I found the conversation, tips and guidance extremely useful and it has given me the boost and motivation to focus my efforts in a constructive and disciplined way to search and secure that new opportunity which is out there somewhere for me!”

“Speaking with Kate and Jo has been invaluable in understanding how to best position myself in the job market. Really deep diving into my CV and LinkedIn profile has placed me in a much more confident position regarding any future job hunt! Kate and Jo have a wealth of amazing experience and they chat with you openly and honestly, a great team to have in your corner.”

This may not be right for you at the moment – if you are on track with your collateral (CV etc) but need ongoing support, look to LinkedIn for a largely helpful community – find the relevant groups and get involved with conversations begun by leaders in your field.

If you are thinking of a career change, you may want to find a specialised career coach to work with you over a period of time.

For general good advice, use our free materials and those of other reputable recruiters, jobseeker websites and media outlets.

And of course, if you feel you could benefit from our one-to-one personalised advice to help you get started or to re-boot you on your job seeking journey, give us a call!

Why Customer Teams Are Now Business Critical

Customer Experience – A Business Critical Team:

In your business – where do you feel that RIGHT NOW there are business critical hires to be made?

If you are not thinking about your Customer Teams you could be making a costly mistake!

As we teeter on the edge of a second wave of this awful pandemic – shouldn’t you be really thinking about how to keep as many of your customers as possible? To do this – you need to: understand how they are feeling, what they need, how they want to be treated. Overlooking the importance of this could lead to huge swathes of customers going elsewhere. They will look to other businesses who are putting their needs at the heart of what they are doing. RIGHT NOW is the time for organisations to swiftly change and adapt their offerings to meet the needs of their customer bases.

ALL businesses serve customers – they are there and survive because of the customers who buy the product or service. This is irrespective of sector and whether you are B2C or B2B organisation.

Listen to your Customers, get Customer Programmes underway NOW:

If you don’t listen to your customer – how will you ensure that you are doing the best for them? You need to make sure that their needs and requirements are at the centre of strategic business decisions. If you aren’t doing the best for your customer – they will go elsewhere. New customers are a lot more expensive to find than the retention of existing ones! Existing customers often make recommendations to friends and family and businesses get more long term custom because of this. So – this is surely one of the most effective ways of marketing and one that is cost effective!

Businesses have become so process orientated – but those processes often aren’t to benefit the customer. They are to benefit the business – making it easier for the business to function. It does not necessarily make things better for the customer!

Investing in your customer teams and enabling your employees to really listen and understand what the customer wants will help organisations stop and think about whether implementing or changing something operationally will ultimately make the experience their customer has with the business better.

Meet and Exceed your Customer’s Expectations:

Since the first wave of this pandemic – when so many organsiations were – not to put too finer point on it – caught with their pants down! We have become acutely aware of how businesses need to adapt, meet and ideally exceed customer expectations at the moment in order to survive. Do you think that NOW might be the time to consider investing in those teams or customer projects?

Organisations investing in Customer Experience will surely be able to navigate their way through this and live to tell the tale. Please Don’t leave it too late or to chance. Invest in your Customer teams. Don’t leave recruitment of these individuals to chance. You need the very best people for your organisation and we can help find you the right person quickly, efficiently and effectively. We have spent 8 years growing and developing our candidate base. Whatever your sector, whatever the maturity of your CX programme, whatever level of individual you need – WE KNOW THEM and can get them into your business making a difference FAST!

CX Talent Ltd is an Independent Customer Experience Recruitment Specialist. We have candidates at all levels. We are only interested in putting the right person into the right role. For all your Customer talent requirements – please contact us today. We are ready and here to help! www.cxtalent.co.uk

Customers Are The New Market Makers?

I’m seeing this more often as new insight is getting published, and I REALLY hope we can make it true.

Two examples from last week – 1. the restaurant of an adventure park. One way system in place, fine.  We were seated and had to order food on an app and then pay for it. It took half an hour to be delivered, we were with children, it was boring. We had to order drinks separately (and pay on the app again but in a separate transaction) – they took 20 minutes to come. If we wanted pudding, we had to order again and pay in a 3rd transaction. The menu was limited to 3 deep-fried options and there was not table service. This was set up to be easier and cheaper for the business with fewer staff needed and restricted food options, at the cost of the ease of the customer – and that’s what it felt like. We cancelled supper for the second night there.

And – 2.  A rural pub in Norfolk for another family meal.  One way system in place, fine.  A warm welcome when we were seated.  They had obviously taken on additional (friendly) staff so that all orders for food and drinks were efficiently taken and delivered by table service as we couldn’t go to the bar, a wide menu of fresh food and the bill (and big tip) at the end.  This business was thinking about their customer experience and making changes aimed around putting that first and it really showed!  It was a safe, lovely experience and we recommended it to friends and went back for another meal. It was the Wiverton Bell if anyone wants a recommendation for a North Norfolk meal, by the way!  Have the crab salad!

I really hope people will be active about sharing and talking about their good experiences and helping those businesses who are rising to the challenges we are all facing, and being true to their brands and themselves.

Whether you are a village pub or a global B2B organisation or anything in between – CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MATTERS!!

Is The Sun Setting On Traditional Recruitment Agencies?

It’s true, COVID has had a devastating effect on the recruitment market. Understandably as the worst recession was recently announced – organisations are battening down the hatches and doing what they can to protect the staff they have. Jolly good for them for doing so! Great staff are literally worth their weight in gold! So is the sun setting on traditional recruitment agencies?

Is Anyone Recruiting?

Are, or will organisations be recruiting for new staff? In some cases yes and in a lot of cases no! Very, very generally speaking that depends on the sector and the discipline. It also depends on the strategy of any individual business. Will companies be recruiting directly rather than using agencies – same as above – in a few cases yes and in a lot of cases no! In house resourcing teams will be under pressure to reduce costs and in a lot of instances that will mean not using agencies.  Sadly – it will lead to the demise of several of the recruitment agencies we all know. It will be a survival of the fittest for sure.

The Dawn of a New Era for recruitment?

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. The positives as an industry should be that we can change recruitment for the better. Many of the sharp practices that have become synonymous with recruitment consultants (some totally unfounded and unfair by the way) will have to end. The great agencies who offer over and above client and candidate expectations will prevail and rightly so! Recruitment has the chance to really clean its act up and together with the hiring organisations we can make a difference and improve the current inadequate processes.

If you don’t use an Agency are you REALLY cost cutting?

In terms of cost cutting – many of the roles that will need to be filled are likely to be business critical. In other words – super urgent! In those instances, resourcing teams would be well advised to seek out a specialist agency. Those roles need filling fast! You need to be efficient with your time and resource. The cost of employing an agency who already has a huge network of candidates in the relevant space is totally counteracted by getting the right person into the business quickly and efficiently.

Use a Specialist Agency:

Specialist Agencies know the people in their market – it is their business to do so. They know who has what skills, experience and their availability. They know how to get in touch with those brilliant candidates quickly and easily and most importantly – efficiently. In the instance of CX Talent Ltd – whatever level candidate you need from CXO to CX Manager – anywhere in the country – we would be confident of getting you someone brilliant within a week to two weeks. Obviously – things can take rather longer on the client side with aligning diaries etc.. but as an in house resource , you could completely leave it up to us to find you someone whilst you get on with other tasks.

Getting candidates into business critical roles – especially now, quickly, is cost saving in itself!

So Sunset or Sunrise?

To conclude – though things are a bit grim at the moment, they won’t be forever! In House Resourcers and Recruitment Agencies will continue to work together. Relationships between agencies and companies should be strong and mutually beneficial. We should be using this time to make sure that all candidates as well as clients have a good recruitment experience.  This will improve recruitment for all (genuinely – please believe me on this!) – but that’s a whole new subject for another day!

Those agencies who continue behave well, add real and tangible value, treat candidates with respect and try to help wherever they can – will prevail!  I am certain of that – even in my darkest hours (and I’ll be honest there have been quite a few as job after job gets pulled) – I have never considered the prospect of CX Talent disappearing into the ether. So – best foot forward, chin up, and keep on keeping on!

 

 

For any Customer Experience or customer related roles – please do get in touch with us at CX Talent Ltd. We care about finding you the right person for your role and the right role for our candidates. Get in touch today. www.cxtalent.co.uk. jovr@cxtalent.co.uk

 

Magic? Spells? – Finding Your Next Role

How and Why did we come up with the idea of The Magic Hour?

You may have seen us posting about our new service – which we’ve called The Magic Hour. The name was coined by one of our candidates who we helped with some coaching and advice earlier on this year.

Essentially – The Magic Hour is an individually tailored, one to one coaching session where we review your CV and make recommendations on how to improve it, how to make it ATS friendly and how to show yourself off to the best advantage. We also look at your LinkedIn profile and make recommendations on how to change it and how to post to improve your visibility on the platform. We explain how recruitment in the UK works and how to navigate your way through it. We encourage you to work out and articulate what you enjoy about your role and home in on what exactly you are looking for next.  We also give some general advice around job searching and your individual job search plan.  We believe that it gives candidates a sound base from which to launch their job search and helps them secure their next role more quickly.

My Own Experience:

The idea for this came from my experience of being made redundant a few years ago. I felt like I had been cast out to sea – with no direction or understanding about how to best go about finding my next role. It left me feeling very vulnerable and exposed and the experience of this has been one that has been long lasting in my professional life. I wanted to be able to help candidates by providing a useful service to help them take back control of their job search in these very strange and unpredictable times. I wish I had had something similar – it would have saved me weeks / months of floundering about like a mad woman (read my redundancy post!).

In the normal run of things when we are briefed by a client for a role, we start by having a chat about which candidates on our database and network would be a good fit for the position, and who from that list might be ready for their next move.  Then we’d schedule a conversation and go through a very similar process to the Magic Hour, but obviously tartgeted to the new brief.  So we coach candidates through aligning their skills and experiences as closely as possible to the role profile to make sure that the most relevant strengths are easily apparent to the client.

At the moment we have very few ‘live’ briefs on the go!  But we want to keep talking to people and helping candidates to be as strong and focussed as possible in their job searches, so in order to be able to keep doing that we’ve streamlined and focussed our experience and advice and come up with The Magic Hour. This is a fixed fee service we have priced at £150 incl VAT.

We have talked to candidates across the private, public and third sectors in the UK and internationally – consultancies, agencies and in-house clients – and we have seen what works.  We’ve placed candidates in huge complex global businesses and smaller, owner managed companies, and we’ve been doing this successfully since 2012.  There are thousands of professionals on our database and we’ve talked to them all!

A Complete 360 degree view of recruitment:

Before becoming recruitment consultants we have both been candidates (obviously!) and hiring managers, so we really do have a 360 degree view of the process and we have consistently had positive feedback from our sessions.  In fact our business has grown precisely because our candidates often become our clients as they move through their careers and grow their own teams.  So we are confident that we add value.

We are partnering with some clients at the moment and working on some fantastic opportunities and our network of candidates can absolutely rest assured that we will be actively in touch about those as and when appropriate.  The idea is that you do not need to be a candidate for a specific role in order to benefit from our help and advice, or even a CX professional – The Magic Hour is relevant to candidates across any discipline and industry.

Those who do not undertake The Magic Hour will be at no less of an advantage for future roles with us as we are ONLY interested in fitting the right candidate with the right job. That approach will never change at CX Talent Ltd.

The Magic Hour is there to help keep you going in your job search. If you decide you’d benefit from our in depth advice and book a package – you’ll be helping us keep going too!

Here are some recent testimonials:
‘I’d recommend THE MAGIC HOUR, 100%. CX Talent Ltd care, that shows in the EPIC service they provide!’ –

“I found the conversation, tips and guidance extremely useful and it has given me the boost and motivation to focus my efforts in a constructive and disciplined way to search and secure that new opportunity which is out there somewhere for me!”

‘I loved my magic hour, it was not only informative it also motivated me to do things differently…. a real breath of air. Thanks Jo & Kate’.

The Magic Hour

 

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