This CX Mini Masterclass explores how leaders can champion the customer mandate. Great customer experience starts with the goals, data and a vision. Special guest and CX thought leader Stephanie Thum shares practical tips on on how to kick start CX alignment and how leaders can be prepared for the most common hurdles along the way. If you’ve been looking for some fresh ideas on fostering alignment, or some food for thought that you can send to your business’s leadership team, then this episode is for you. 

Insights from a special guest

Stephanie has amassed deep expertise through her diverse professional background in the field of customer experience. While she’s often best known for her experience as one of the US federal government's first agency CX leads, she has also been a practitioner and consultant in the B2B world, working with small and mid-sized companies and was one of the founding members of the CXPA. She's a CCXP and has remained active with the association, even spending some time as part of the association's HQ team. She's written an ebook, Where Customer Experience Practices Haven't Landed in Business. If you'd like to get in touch, connect with her via LinkedIn or Twitter.

Stephanie Thum, CCXP

The starting block for great customer experience

Data and metrics are a logical place to start. Many organizations live and breathe "the numbers", so leaders are already primed to pay attention. Plus, most organizations are sitting on mountains of data. The next step is to identify how this data can be used to understand the customer and foster organizational accountability (e.g. as KPIs - see episode 53 for a deep dive on KPIs). 
Next, leaders should foster awareness and rally department leaders around these figures. Easier said than done, but Stephanie shares the story of a manufacturing CEO who started a weekly stand-up meetings with his plant manager, HR leader, and lead customer service rep to go over the data. The company's customer experience management efforts evolved from there.
Once leaders are begin supporting CX, they can take the message to their teams, sharing results and helping individuals understand how their day to day responsibilities impact the bigger picture of CX. 

6 expert tips

Great customer experiences may start at the top, but rallying the rest of the organization, won't be without a few challenges along the way. Stephanie provided her insights on what to look out for, and how to respond:

* Get comfortable being uncomfortable * If the numbers aren’t great, get comfortable explaining the reasons why * Align your management teams * Present CX as a triage tool, not a policing mechanism* Keep going, no matter what* When the numbers are great, celebrate! When the numbers aren’t so great, don’t point fingers

If you'd like additional insights from Stephanie, be sure to read her full article on this topic. To be published October 1st...watch this space!

Want to keep learning about CX?

If you’d like to checkout more of these CX Mini Masterclasses or listen to my longer format CX expert interviews,