Let’s Celebrate!

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Pat:
Happy day, everyone. It's a great time to be a CX leader. And we thought we'd catch up with one of our favorite organizations.

Greg:
In the early years, it was all about CXPA throwing a party. And what we realized over time is, is that customer experience and what customer experience professionals really need is an opportunity to meet and celebrate together, not just with their CX community, but also with their organizations.

Pat:
Let's celebrate CX Day by checking in with the Customer Experience Professionals Association on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Pat:
Hello, everyone. I'm Pat Gibbons and today I am your host on The CX Leader Podcast. And thank you for listening. You know, it's never been a better time to be a CX leader, and we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you develop great programs and deliver amazing experiences for your customers. It's the first Tuesday of October and many CX pros know what that means. It's a day where we take a moment to celebrate our profession and bring awareness to the benefits of a great customer experience. We hope you're celebrating with us as well. For more than a decade, Customer Experience Professionals Association, or the CXPA, has been dedicated to the advancement of the CX profession and continues to provide support for customer experience professionals around the globe. Greg Melia is the chief executive officer of CXPA. He's no stranger to this show. He's going to give us an update on CXPA and talk more about CX Day. Greg, welcome back to The CX Leader Podcast.

Greg:
It's a thrill to be here and thanks for getting up early to celebrate CX Day.

Pat:
Absolutely. It's you can't get enough on CX Day, right? So, you know, it's always been a pleasure to have you on this podcast. And you know, people can listen to our podcast at any time, any of our 200 and now 86 episodes they can listen to at any time. But the largest number of our downloads typically are on the day of release. So for those tuning in today, on the first Tuesday of October in 2023, happy CX Day to all of our listeners. You know, Greg, I would think many of our listeners would be familiar with CX Day and what that's all about. But let's assume for a moment there are a few out there kind of scratching their heads saying, what in the world is he talking about? Why don't you give us a little bit of overview of CX Day and what it's all about?

Greg:
Awesome. Thank you, Pat. Yeah, Many people, you know, might be familiar with customer service week or other elements that are there. But what people may not realize is, is that there was a US Congressional recognition in 2013 to establish CX Day, Customer Experience Day, and that is an opportunity for us to pause and reflect and to celebrate the people, the organizations and the commitments to making sure that individuals receive a great customer experience.

Pat:
So I know that a lot of different pieces and parts of CXPA and their membership do a lot of different things on the day. Any any things come to mind for you that organizations do?

Greg:
Yeah, I think you've got the right thing there, Pat, which is, you know, the very first CX Day and in the early years it was all about CXPA throwing a party. You know, it was about CXPA organizing webinars. And I think that you would see lots of things that were organized from headquarters. And what we realized over time is, is that customer experience and what customer experience professionals really need is an opportunity to meet and celebrate together, not just with their CX community, but also with their organizations. And so what's fantastic about CX Day is, is you really have three different things going on today. You know, from the CXPA itself. We'll have a great LinkedIn live at noon Eastern where we announce not only what we've accomplished this year and some news about the coming year, but also the award winners for our emerging leaders, our Impact Awards and a new award this year, the Collaboration Awards. But in addition to that CXPA program, you will also see CXPA networks throughout the world getting folks together, and you'll see organizations getting their staff together to celebrate CX Day. One that I'm especially intrigued and impressed by this year is the US government is actually holding a CX Day webinar to talk about their work and commitment to improving citizen experience.

Pat:
That is great. You know, we've actually had a couple podcasts on kind of CXPA and the government and what we all can learn from that. So I think it's it's excellent. And you know, our organization, we've been fortunate to be a member for a long time and I kind of have seen it from different perspectives. You know, we have had many of our clients do some exciting things on CX Day and many times they get us involved in helping with the programing. Here in Indianapolis, I've been a part of the the CXPA network here, and we've had our own events. And of course, at our own company at Walker, you know, we have one of our webcasts with the CXPA taking place and we're going to have a watch party and that'll be part of our exciting celebration today. So. So yeah, it really is kind of a neat recognition for the profession and bring attention to it and celebrate. Yeah, it I think it's it's a great opportunity.

Greg:
And you're in great company because there's celebrations going on in Romania and in Italy and in Asia and in Africa and in most of the major cities here across the US and and Canada as well. And the theme for this year is Good CX Delivers Better Outcomes for customers, employees and organizations. So people are taking that and bringing that alive in their organizations. And then also celebrating on social media, you know, so if you're not following along on on LinkedIn, go and look up the hashtag #cxday. I think you'll find a lot of activity and a lot of really neat celebrations going on.

Pat:
Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Well, now, you know, in a similar way to talking about CX Day, there may be a few people out there that are really not that familiar with the CXPA or maybe they're familiar with it, but they need a little bit of an update. Why don't you just give us a little background on the organization?

Greg:
Yeah, I think it's important for people to realize that CX is still a very young discipline. You know, I think the term customer experience was first used in the mid 90s, and even then it was a conversation. It was not yet a occupation or a career. So in 2011, thanks to the visionary leadership of Bruce Temkin and Jeanne Bliss and some other early founders, there was a recognition that people were starting to be given positions and mandates within organizations to lead this initiative called customer experience. And that's when Jeanne and Bruce came together to found the Customer Experience Professionals Association in Boston. And it's grown from that point to now have members in 72 different countries around the world to have active, involved folks that have come together to write a authoritative textbook, The CX Book of Knowledge. And I think we have I think I think with this CX Day we'll have 13 other publications now that we've added to that that list. And then also to launch and organize the Certified Customer Experience Professional Certification. You know, so we've really moved to a place where people recognize that not only is customer experience a neat and interesting idea, it is a discipline that has agreed rules and processes. It has dedicated career opportunities and it's making a difference for individuals, companies and customers along the way. So CXPA is proud to be the global professional association for anyone who works in customer experience.

Pat:
Yeah, that's a great overview and I have to admit it sort of takes me down memory lane a little bit as I've been involved in the profession for over 20 years. When I got involved, I really do not recall the term customer experience. If it was being used, it was not prominent. It was more often referred to as customer satisfaction measurement. And with a name like that, you might assume it was mostly out of the research department and and it was kind of lower level in the organization. But as time went on, it became more and more prominent customer loyalty became a big factor. And I do recall the first announcement of the association and I reached out to Bruce Temkin at the time like, Bruce, what's what's this thing that you're starting? And after a quick conversation with Bruce, we we signed up to be one of the first corporate members. And I've never looked back. We've always really benefited from the organization. Our people have benefited. I think we've probably had over 30 people that at one time or another got their CCXP and many of them stayed with our organization or they moved on to be on the client side. So it's, you know, we've benefited greatly from it as well. Well, let's talk about the profession where it is today and, you know, what are some of the trends and things that that you're noticing, Greg?

Greg:
Yeah, well, I think what's really neat about the customer experience profession today is is first and foremost, you have people who are growing up knowing somebody who is in the customer experience space. You know, we're starting to reach second generation customer experience leaders, and we're starting to have people who are coming out of school having been exposed to customer experience. You know, we did a little bit of a study about 18 months ago and had identified about 80 different colleges and universities that have customer experience in one or more courses. And of course, Michigan State University has launched a master's degree in customer experience. So these are all signs that the what was a movement is moving to become a profession. With that. I think we're also seeing that what was a passion is moving to a profession. And so one of the things that that I'm really proud of is, is that people are moving beyond the idea that customer experience is just about loving your customers. It is, but it's more than that. You know, customer experience is about making sure that people have great experience, have great customer service when they have a problem. It is, but it's more than that.

Pat:
Yeah.

Greg:
Customer experience really needs to be a structured business discipline and people are recognizing that that is something that many people who come into CX come out of one lens. They come out of the voice of the customer, or they come out of design or they come out of research and insights. And now folks are learning that to be a great CX leader, you need to be able to work across the organization and to leverage all of the different elements that go into planning a great experience for a customer so that they can have a consistent experience across the entire organization.

Pat:
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like just in kind of watching it and interacting with the people in the industry, I guess the quickest way to say it is it's gone from being an assignment to an aspiration. And what I mean by that is I think earlier it was, you know, somebody would be assigned or volunteered to say, you're in charge of the survey or you're in charge of this program that we're measuring. And now you talk to people and many of them have been guests on this podcast where they were in one area, but because of their passion, they were you know, they aspired to be a customer experience professional. And it had it now has a degree of legitimacy that it is becoming a respected profession that people want to get into. And I think that's really neat to see.

Greg:
Yeah, I appreciate that, Pat. One of the things that's been on my mind this year and I shared with our attendees at CX Leaders Advance, our conference earlier this year, was that the term customer experience is is widely used. As a matter of fact, in that keynote, I shared that if you did a Google search that you would come up with about 1.7, about 170 million results in under two seconds. Well, that number is now up to 282… 282 million results in under two seconds because people love talking about customer experience. But if you jump over to Wikipedia, you'll see that the definition of customer experience is marked as "needing improvement." You know, and I would agree with that. You know, a lot of people still think about customer experiences as one limited slice. And for a lot of organizations, customer experience is something they think of as a six month project or a two month project. But what we're seeing is, is that there are individuals who are adopting customer experience as a career, and they're going to establish customer experience programs in one, two, three. I think Tabitha Dunn is up to her sixth program that she's launching and or, you know, that we're seeing that folks are working to ensure that customer experience is part of the organization's strategic plan rather than just being a supporting pillar.

Pat:
Yeah, absolutely. Are there and you probably touched on some of these already, but are there particular challenges that you see as the profession moves forward?

Greg:
Yeah. You know, I think that one thing we need to recognize is, is that customer experience was born out of a number of different projects and areas along the way. And with that, sometimes that means that we try to define ourselves and differentiate ourselves against those experiences. So, for example, Total Quality Management was one of the first movements to talk about thinking about things in a system way or a holistic way. And when we move that into CX, there was a feeling that that was just a little bit too mechanical and engineering oriented. So we leaned heavy into the emotional side and said, okay, that stuff is okay, but we really need to focus on how customers feel. Well, I think the answer is you need to do both.

Pat:
Yeah.

Greg:
You know, and so that would be one element that that, that I would, you know, point out there as a challenge is, is that we need to define ourselves by what customer experience is, not by defining it against you know, what what something else is along the way. Um, another challenge that I think that we have with with customer experience is we were born out of voice of the customer. And, you know, I'm thankful to the work that's been done along the way to make sure that customers had a chance to give their voice. I think we're beginning to enter a chapter where people are saying, well, you're asking me for my voice a little too often and…

Pat:
Right.

Greg:
You know, how do how do we move to a more, um, a less interruptive customer experience element, You know, can we collect that data through analyzing operational data or passive indications? Like how long does it take before the person returns to the store to shop again? Or what's their countenance on their face when they're checking out by using visual representation? I think there's a lot of different ways that we can bring that in, but we must never forget the customer always wants to be able to give their voice. They just want to give it on their timeline.

Pat:
Right, Right. Yeah. It is interesting. I you know, I recall being at one of the CXPA conferences, this would have been before COVID probably by a few years. And I think we had a little exercise at at our display where we were asking a quiz about different ways to collect data and all that. And there were people saying, Oh, we won't be doing surveys in five years. Well, it's still one of the most prominent methods. And that's okay. It's, it is a valid way, but I think it's too often relied upon almost solely so.

Greg:
I think that word solely is the important one. You know, surveys are a fantastic tool for the right purpose, you know, and I like to think a lot in the iterative questioning area. And so one of the questions would be is what have we taught every CX professional how to do a survey after every transaction? And I think the answer would be that we drive our customers crazy, you know? And so, you know, I think that there are spaces where where we'll shift and we'll continue to bring in new tools. And, you know, and I think that the the key there is how do we make sure that we remember that the outcome that we're looking for is that it's good for the customer, it's good for the employee, and it's good for the organization. And so when we think about those through those three different lenses, we recognize that customer experience is not about making people participate in our customer experience program. It's about doing the right steps, the right strategic monitoring and the right design so that we can make sure that the customer is happy, that employees are happy, and that the organization is meeting its business goals and not to do too much more.

Pat:
So, you know, that's good highlight of some of the challenges that face the profession as we move ahead. Let's go back to CXPA. I know you guys have all kinds of programs and activities and priorities that you and the governing board have put in place. I want you to share some of those with us.

Greg:
Sure. I'd love to share with you. First, you know, just a little bit of shout out to the 1493 people who hold the CCXP certification, and that represents folks who are living and working in 65 different countries around the world. So if you ever wonder whether CX is global, look to the CCXPs and look to the CCXPs is a great tagline because if you look at cxjobboard.com, you'll see that that top companies are listing jobs as CCXP preferred or CCXP required. And so it's a great way to see those that have demonstrated their commitment and their knowledge. Speaking of knowledge, you know, today we will release four different publications. One, and this is good to put out there for clarity point is, we're at the one year anniversary of the CXPA CX Book of Knowledge. You know, more than 300 pages of processes and definitions to help people understand the fundamental structure of customer experience. Today we released the revised first edition. It corrects one error of wording and it recognizes…

Pat:
Just one?

Greg:
…you, just one. It recognizes a few people who we omitted in the first edition, and we made some changes so that the book will be easier to read both online and in print. So if you have the first edition, don't buy the first edition revised, you know, but it both of them are available to CXPA members to read free online or or you can purchase the digital download or print if you're so inclined. But the new books that have come together in each of these books was written by a committee of CXPA members who researched and wrote and also had a committee of CXPA members that reviewed to make sure that we're down to just one place we need to revise.

Greg:
And so the books that are coming out today, three of them are in our effective collaboration series. And each of these talks about how the CX department works together with another unit within the organization to deliver CX results. Because if you're going to lead change, you need to understand the terms that the other people on the other side of the table are using, whether that's your customer or that's your colleague. You need to understand their perspective. And so the three books coming out today, one is to collaborate with product owners and product development staff. One is to focus on folks who are leading business improvement within the organization. And then the last is to focus on data owners so that you can talk about the way that data is owned and managed throughout the organization. So these are really exciting. You know, these are really practical books that you can pull down, read online or pull down off of yourself before you have a meeting with these colleagues to say, okay, what is the key metric that a product development professional is going to use and how do I make sure that I help them see that I'm not just coming in talking about my goals, I'm coming in understanding their goals, understanding my goals and suggesting that we come up with a path forward for for the business as a whole. So really excited about those three. And then we've got one more.

Pat:
Yeah, those are highly relevant topics. I mean, really important. And you know, I know that one thing that you're proud of and you're always anxious to tout is just the number of volunteers that make all this happen. You have a terrific staff, no doubt, but the volunteer involvement is really noteworthy. And I just want to throw you the softball question to be able to comment on that.

Greg:
Yeah, I have to I have to agree. You know, it's a thrill to work together with my staff colleagues. I think that we're a total of eight that work together in staff in one capacity or another. But the real magic with CXPA are the 300 volunteers that come together across the globe, whether they're helping to serve on the board of directors and governing across the organization or serving on one of the ten regional leadership councils leading a local network. Serving on the CCXP committee. All there's so many different opportunities for folks to be involved. And as a matter of fact, the last publication that we have coming out this day…

Pat:
Do tell. Do tell.

Greg:
Yeah, it was directly from our Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee, and we challenged them last year and we said, you know, we're putting together these knowledge resources for the field and we think that there's an opportunity for CX professionals to look at our own work and to say, how can we make customer experience more inclusive and how can we use customer experience to help our organizations serve all of the potential audiences that we want to serve? And so the book is called Building Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into a Customer Experience Ecosystem. And it was written by 16 different volunteer members from across the globe. And what we're really excited about this is, is they've I think it's 82 pages long and it gives you a tremendous amount of resources and examples that you can pick up and use in your organization. And it's available free for all members to download as a PDF or to read online.

Pat:
Yeah, wonderful. CXPA, the organization is always coming up with something new. So you are you and your staff and all the volunteers are to be commended for that. Those are outstanding programs. Greg I know one of the other things that, you know, I'm always curious about is your events, because I always find the people in CXPA a wonderful group to be around. What else is planned as far as events?

Greg:
Yeah. So we continue to do a lot of online networking. You know, what we found is, is that more and more people are working remotely or a limited schedule in the office. So we've adapted and we've adjusted. So most of our programing is accessible to folks through Zoom and online. And in addition to that, if you look at find your network at the top of cxpaglobal.org, you'll see that there are many city events and folks can get together in person for something as simple as a cup of coffee or a glass of beer, or as complicated as a conversation about how to move CX forward in their area. But for that real top level experience, we're really excited, our conference this year, many people had known about the CXPA Insight Exchange and our conference this year took it to another level. CX Leaders Advance was a redesigned, reimagined conference. Really thrilled. We scored over 80 on our NPS, which I think most people listening probably knows puts you in rarified air.

Pat:
Right?

Greg:
And we did that by making sure that every speaker at the conference was willing to sit down next to you at the table and to talk about how you were going to use that information when you went home. And so it was really focused on saying, how do we come together and advance together? You know, one of the core values from from CXPA. So that was tremendous. And we're going to do that again for 2024. So mark the dates April 30th to May 2nd and plan to join us in Denver, Colorado for 2024 CX Leaders Advance.

Pat:
Fantastic. That's great to hear and I look forward to it. And Greg, I know there's so many programs within the CXPA. I know we could go on and on. I would just encourage well, first of all, if someone's not a member, they should truly consider it. There's just a lot to be gained. And, you know, there's just a lot of resources. And you mentioned the website cxpaglobal.org – a great place to to find all these resources. That said, we've come to the point of our podcast where we ask the take home value question. That is kind of the hallmark of The CX Leader Podcast. Greg, we're asking you to give us kind of one tip for today, one thing that CX professionals can do and put to use right away.

Greg:
Awesome. Thank you, Pat. And you know, I think the tip that I will share is one that came from Tabitha Dunn. CCXP, our current chair and lead of Global CX at Hitachi. And Tabitha actually was the inspiration for our CX Day theme this year because Tabitha said if you're going to choose projects for your CX team to advance and move forward, you need to make sure that they're good for your customers, they're good for your teammates and they're good for your organization's bottom line. So it is not about quick wins, although quick wins are great. It is about making sure that you have solid, well-rounded wins. And so that would be my tip or takeaway is when you're in your next meeting and you're considering a CX initiative or an intervention, use that prism to make sure that it's well balanced and advances all of the constituencies and goals that you want. Good for the bottom line, good for employees and yes, great for customers.

Pat:
Yeah, great advice. Great advice. Greg Melia is the CEO of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. Greg, thank you for being on The CX Leader Podcast once again.

Greg:
My pleasure. Happy CX Day, everyone.

Pat:
Absolutely. Let's celebrate. And if you want to talk about anything you've heard on this podcast or how Walker can help with your business' customer experience programs, feel free to email us at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Remember to give The CX Leader Podcast a rating through your podcast service and give us a review. Your feedback will continually help us to improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you our listener. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show, find all our previous episodes, podcast series and a link to our blog which we update regularly and our contact information so you can let us know how we're doing. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. And you can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, it's a great time to be a CX leader and happy CX Day.

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