DYK # 23: Did you know ... we just turned 2!? 🥳

Kia ora! 👋 This month we’ve got a birthday special in our “Did you know…?” (DYK) series as we’ve just turned 2 earlier this month!

We’ll recap and look under the hood of our consulting business with our DYK # 23 “Did you know … we just turned 2!?" 🥳

The last 2 years have been a whirlwind, and an absolute joy ride, with many ups and downs. We all know that the economy has been very slow and we were in a recession in New Zealand for the majority of my 2 years in business. It really didn’t make my job easy, but the fact that we made it to the 2-year mark is a real testimony to our work and the value we delivered to our clients. A huge THANK YOU to all our amazing clients and the support I had from my community. I couldn't have done it without you. 🙏

Running a business

One thing I noticed early on is that running a CX consulting business isn’t just about the consulting work. There’s a million other things you have to do on top of that.

Let’s explore some of the “hats” you have to wear as a business owner

From Finance, Accounting, Legal, Brand & Marketing to Business Development and Sales, turns out, the beloved Kiwi DIY approach isn’t ideal for all of them!

While I greatly enjoy Finance, Brand and Marketing activities, Business Development and Sales are a new skill set for me, and one that I’m still working to enhance. Accounting and Legal were 2 areas that I happily outsourced (who wants to get in trouble with the taxman or the law!?).

Marketing must be the one “hat” I enjoy wearing the most, mainly as I am super passionate about maturing CX as a business discipline and educating the market to raise the bar for our industry. I greatly enjoy being part of the conversations about what CX and VoC actually are, and what great looks like. I love writing content, and helping my audience better understand and intentionally design customer experiences and voice of customer (customer feedback) programs. It’s something I’m incredibly passionate about.

Website and Services

And then there are other areas that aren’t always on your mind, but do cross your mind at certain times.. For me, that was getting a website launched. I started with DIY and then realised that I knew nothing about website design or SEO, and got some help for that.

I really enjoyed the website design process, to be honest. It helped me gain clarity on my own offerings - despite having been in business for 18 months already at that time.

We all know the “Our Services” tab every website has.. I started off with Consulting and listed all my consulting services for broader CX work and more specific VoC work: strategies, roadmaps, journey mapping, maturity assessments, tech advisory and RFP support, etc.

But something was amiss. And it was this process that forced me to think about it and get clear on what we're offering.

We now have 3 Services listed: Consulting, Thought Leadership, and Fractional Support.

We added Thought Leadership, as that was already part of my work, I just hadn’t really thought about it as a Service. We offer content, speaking engagement, and moderations. This category is mainly relevant for CX tech vendors (or event organisers), which I also hadn’t considered my clients until then. It’s a way to utilise my knowledge and expertise as a CX leader to help vendors tell their story and highlight the role they play in creating great CX for organisations.

Fractional Support is a new one for us, and I started offering this service as a continuation of consulting projects, where clients can benefit from either my advice, or hands on support over a certain period of time, after a consulting project has come to an end.

So a great learning process for myself!

What we've delivered over the last 2 years

The majority of our work is Consulting projects and Thought Leadership and I wanted to share a little bit about the great work we delivered over the last 2 years.

Thought Leadership

GenAI driven CX Transformation

Technology, GenAI in particular, has had a tremendous impact on our work in the CX space. While technology should always be seen as an enabler, it plays a crucial role in shaping what we can achieve.

I've spent some time earlier this year to outline some of the changes in detail in a 2-part series on GenAI driven CX transformation (published by Ecosystm):

• Part 1: Feedback Disruption: Breaking down Silos with GenAI

• Part 2: Unstructured Feedback Analysis Technology

• TL;DR here's the summary (on LinkedIn)

I also featured in the NZBusiness magazine with an article specifically for smaller businesses to harness AI in CXs.

• 3 Ways SMEs can use AI to improve their CX (page 35)

Insights to Action (I2A)

While technology is important, it's what we do with customer feedback that matters. Acting on feedback isn't always easy, but it's essential to continuously improving experiences and driving positive business outcomes.

So we've spent some time creating resources specifically on Insights to Action:

• I featured as a CX expert in the Tethr eBook “How to be a CX action hero”

• I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Justin Stafford for his Customer Smarts Podcast on the topic of insights to action at the recent Qualtrics X4 event in Sydney.

• And here’s a 3-minute excerpt on the Insight to Action framework from the above mentioned podcast.

• We’ve published a resource on “3 distinct ways to act on feedback” on LinkedIn

• TL; DR, here’s the LinkedIn summary of the above

Maturity Models

• I was a guest at the Australian Customer Experience Association (ACXPA) podcast where we discussed what CX Maturity actually is, why it’s important, and what the key drivers are. Check it out here (audio only) to learn more.

• In 2022, Thomas from the InMoment team and myself had a great XI Cafe Podcast conversation about VoC maturity. What defines maturity, why it's important, and some tips on how to mature your own VoC program.

Consulting projects!

Aside from the thought leadership, we delivered some great client consulting projects over the last 2 years. I'm particularly proud of those, as I always enjoy working with clients to find ways to help and deliver value. I can truly say "I love my job!" ❤️

Here are some of the projects we delivered:

• Designing a B2B VoC program from scratch to implementation readiness

• VoC Strategy

• VoC program review and Maturity Assessment

• End-to-End feedback activity map

• CX journey mapping (current and future state)

• CX principles

• Technology evaluation & RFP support

• VoC platform migration

• And some more 🙂

Again, a heartfelt THANK YOU to all of my clients who put their trust in me, and worked with me during these challenging economic times.

What's next / coming up

Future CX Summit

If you haven’t got your tickets yet, check out this year’s Future CX Summit! Held in Auckland 23-24 October, and a great way to learn, network and share ideas all about CX. I’ll be there to moderate the keynote panel on the topic of “Harnessing AI and Data Analytics for Enhanced Customer Experience”. And you’ll also find me moderating an interactive breakout session on the hot topic of “Leveraging Unsolicited Feedback to Drive CX Improvements" 🔥

Judge at the International CX Awards

I’m in the middle of scoring the written entities for my category at the International CX Awards! It’s such a great program and what I’ve read so far is really interesting! The live online scoring of the finalist’s presentations takes place early November. Unfortunately in the GMT time zone! It’ll be a long night...

Wrap up 🎁

So much has happened over the last two years, and I can’t believe it’s been that long already. As they say, “Time flies when you’re having fun!”.

Here’s to many more years to come 🥂

If you enjoyed this read and would like to learn more about Melanie Disse Consulting and how we can help you deliver great CX, don’t be shy to get in touch 🗨️

#celebration #CX #customerexperience #VoC #customerfeedback #runningabusiness #consulting #ThoughtLeadership