EX drives CX. How you can make it rock.

It is such an interesting time in the world of customer experience.

Everyone has seen this quote: “The only war to win is the one for the customer.”

We all know that every CEO is saying (slight irony here) that how they will win that war is via the differentiating customer experience they will offer.

But let’s look at the facts:

• We’re seeing scores continue to drop. According to Forrester, “Though brands are catching on to the fact that high quality customer experience correlates with business growth, it’s alarming that progress on improving CX has stalled for the third year in a row”
• There are more CXOs/CCOs/SVPs of CX than ever before. When I first got the title in 2007, there were literally a handful of people on LinkedIn that had the words “customer experience” in their title. Trust me, I looked. As of this month, there are over 15 million people who have the term in their tile. 15 MILLION.
• Employee engagement continues to stagnate. As a matter of fact, 85 percent of employees globally are “actively disengaged” or “not engaged”.

Your employees drive your customer experience. And you can’t win at one without the other.

When I built the “No Customer, No Culture” program in 2016, I knew we were on to something. There is a very specific roadmap that we follow at Chief Customer, and we know that it works. We’ve seen a 30 percent improvement in employee engagement and 200 percent improvement in client health scores in as little as 6 months using our approach. And, our clients who have implemented it consistently receive top marks for employee engagement.

What I find so interesting, though, is that so many companies continue to miss the mark on their employee experience (#ex). We’re seeing people pay more attention to the fact that their employees DRIVE the customer experience (#cx) that is delivered, but we’re not seeing changes in engagement scores. Why not?

I think it is because of three reasons:

• You may be listening to your employees but you’re NOT taking action on what you hear.
• You are still cutting every penny you can out of your contact centers.
• You are trying to be someone else. And your team knows it is disingenuous. Zappos. Amazon. Nordstrom. Salesforce. Those are already taken, people. You need to harness your own DNA + VoE (Voice of employee) + VoC (Voice of customer) in order to carve out your own differentiated space.

The solutions are simple though. Three things you can do:

1. Listen and ACT on VoE, and talk LOUDLY about what you’ve done. Town halls, the internet — even bulletin boards work! Employee experience is based on listening to, acting on, and valuing the ideas of the people who serve your customers.
2. Go spend a week at your contact center. Listen. Learn. Watch. Don’t say a word. You’ll see people stretched to the point of breaking and associates “closing” items that aren’t really closed. Make the business case to give them a second to breathe — and to really research something. It will save you millions in call backs, pissed off customers and rework.
3. Build your CX strategy. If you need help, we have a five step process we can lead you through. It takes time, but it works.

Then — and only then — can you truly offer a differentiated experience.

Remember: no culture, no customer. No customer, no need for your role.