DYK # 27: Did you know that CX can be a verb as well as a noun?
This month we’re going to address a question I hear a lot in my line of work: “What is CX?”. Despite having been around for a while now, there’s still ample confusion around what we actually mean when we say CX.
Confusion?
I especially encounter that confusion when I start working with a new client and ask staff members from different departments across the organisation what they think CX is, and how they would define it.
It is usually something like “make customers happy”, “make it easy for customers to work with us”, “keep customers for longer”, etc. And that’s fair enough, given that the most commonly accepted definition of CX is something like “CX is the process of understanding and managing customer’s interactions with a brand to create positive experiences at every touchpoint.”
What’s less well understood, however, is what CX is as a Business Discipline. When I ask who’s responsible for CX, I often get the response that it’s “Frontline” or the “Customer Service” team.
That isn’t helped by the fact that many organisations started to label their Customer Service / Contact Center teams “CX Teams”, and Contact Center vendors call their solutions CX platforms.
CX as a Business Discipline
❌ So let’s start here: CX as a Business Discipline is not the same as Customer Service.
I typically differentiate CX as a “Concept” (i.e., making customers happy), from CX as a Business Discipline.
✔️ As a Business Discipline, it’s the job of the CX Team to set the foundations, and build the capabilities to enable the entire organisation (yes, all other teams within the organisation) to provide great experiences for our customers.
Check out our recent CX Magazine article on CX is a Team Sport, explaining in more detail why CX is everyone’s job.
CX can be a verb or a noun
I recently listened to Dave Seaton’s CXPRESSO podcast (highly recommend you check it out) where he spoke with Sean Albertson. Sean called out that CX can be a verb as well as a noun. And I really liked that explanation (despite me being utterly incapable of remembering which is which 🙄).
➡️ What most people think CX is, is the verb, i.e. creating great experiences for our customers.
➡️ How we do that, and what CX is as a Business Discipline, is the noun.
Finding Clarity
In my experience working with clients and spending a lot of time speaking with organisations about CX, I found this foundational piece vital to building clarity and gaining buy-in across the organisation.
Once we’ve clarified that, we can go about creating or maturing our CX practice and enabling all teams to create great experiences for our customers every day. It also helps to explain that it’s not just the job of the “CX Team” (or frontline) to “do CX”. It’s everybody’s job to create great experiences, and it’s the job of the CX Function to enable the rest of the organisations to do just that (e.g. by establishing an Insights Program, utilising Journey Mapping, developing an Insights to Action framework, developing Human Centered Design capabilities, etc.).
I hope that helps! If you’d like to have a chat about how we can create clarity for you in your organisations, and how to make sure everyone is buying into it, please get in touch!
We’re happy to help 🙂
#CX #CustomerExperience #CXTeamSport #CXTransformation