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Pat:
What are today's hottest issues in customer experience and what are experienced CX leaders buzzing about today? Well, last week we had a front row seat to find out.

Sheila:
They set the conference up really well with that targeted to the leaders within CX. Right? And one thing that I really appreciated, too, is that it seemed to be very forward thinking, like what's next? And maybe what got us to this point isn't what's going to get us further along.

Pat:
Recapping the CX Leaders Advance Conference 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. Today I'm the guest host for The CX Leader Podcast, filling in for Steve Walker. And I'm glad you're listening. We say it all the time. It's never been a better time to be a CX leader. And on this podcast we explore the topics and themes to help leaders like you deliver amazing experiences for your customers. You know, we have mentioned the Customer Experience Professionals Association countless times on this podcast and with good reason. The CXPA offers excellent resources, support services and most importantly, networking opportunities for CX professionals. Well, one of those opportunities is the CX Leaders Advance Conference, which was recently held in Orlando, Florida. The event offered CX leaders an opportunity to discuss today's most pressing challenges that CX leaders are facing. Well, as a company that likes to consider itself a leader in the CX community, we at Walker couldn't pass up the opportunity to have some of our own people attend the event, and they are here to report back. Sheila March is a vice president and our client services group and Dr. Troy Powell is a VP of Strategy and Analytics, both No Strangers to The CX Leader Podcast they've been on before and they're going to recap their time at the CX Leader Advance Conference. Sheila, Troy, welcome back to The CX Leader Podcast.

Sheila:
Thanks, Pat. Great to be back.

Troy:
Always good, Pat.

Pat:
All right. Well, it's great to have both of you. Gosh, we have been involved in the CXPA well, since the beginning, since 2011. But it's gone through an interesting time over the last few years. So this is you know, they they thrive on people getting together, sharing ideas and so forth. And but this is the first time they have had a conference of any size since before the pandemic. So to start off, give me a feel, what was the energy like, Sheila, what do you think?

Sheila:
I thought the energy was amazing. I've been to three conferences prior to this one. And I mean, me personally, I almost forgot how much I enjoyed being in a room with these CX professionals. I think the big thing was just this was our chance to have that that connection with others that have the same passion around, you know, that work to just to make things better and improve experiences for customers all around. And I think there was just an overall feeling of excitement and just everybody was really happy to be there.

Pat:
Yeah, it is a spirited group. Troy, anything to add?

Troy:
Oh, I'd say it was very good. And this was kind of my first in-person conference since COVID, really. And it was nice. It was a smaller one. So you didn't feel too overwhelmed. And you do realize how much socializing all day does take some energy nowadays. But it was great. And I think everybody really appreciated the face to face time and just the random conversations you get by bumping into people.

Pat:
Yeah, well, and this one was a little bit different and I kind of acknowledge that the CXPA, rather than jumping back into this and doing a come one come all thing, it was a little more focused on kind of a more senior level audience, people that probably the majority of them were certified customer experience professionals or CCXPs as we call them. So the topics were probably a little bit different. Maybe you can give kind of an overview of some of the big themes or the structure of the event. Troy do you want to take a shot at that?

Troy:
Yeah. So really was focused more on people who were kind of leading CX in different organizations who were in there. And and so each session was quite a bit longer than normal, about an hour and 15 minutes for most of the sessions. And they were very clear, kind of up front with presenters that about 30 to 45 minutes of that time they wanted it to be, you know, interactive. So we're the group is discussing some topic or doing some activity. So I think that was really helpful because this tended to be a group who really wanted to engage and learn just as much from their colleagues as from the people presenting. So those were some and you know, and even at the meals and, you know, during some of the keynotes, they also had some times for people to really interact. So a lot of focus on that interactivity and discussion and learning from, from others, which was very helpful.

Pat:
Yeah. And yeah, I think CXPA has always put an emphasis on kind of sharing ideas and everything. Did that work pretty well, Sheila, that the way they structured that?

Sheila:
Yeah, I thought so. All of the presentations that, that I was able to attend there was that time where the presenter told us their story and some of their best practices and what, what they've been able to accomplish and maybe how they did that. And then there was time for that additional collaboration, which I think even back in my practitioner days, I always thought that that was the most helpful was learning what other people were actually doing in their programs. And it was always a little bit different from company to company and leader to leader, but then it just kind of helps get in your head as far as, okay, well, I might be able to do this and in my everyday work or change these things around and accomplish this. And so I think it really starts to get people thinking about what they can do.

Pat:
Yeah, it, you know, as the old saying goes, I've heard our old chairman, Frank Walker, say before, everybody wants to know if they're normal. You know, so so they're interested in, well, what are you doing? What are you doing? And so out of that, great ideas, great best practices, you know, come along and it gives you some perspective. And a lot of times it, you know, hopefully you walk away going, well, maybe I'm not too far behind. I think I'm doing okay.

Troy:
So I'd say one one piece of it that I think was a struggle for some people was because the sessions were longer, you know, they tried to do more of them at one point in time because you could only get three sessions in a day plus a keynote. And so… So I think it was hard, you know, there were six other options at any point in time, and you might want to do two of them, but could only do one. So I know I missed a number of interesting topics that would have been interesting to go to. So that's, I think, one of the struggles which you always have, but especially at this event with a lot of high caliber speakers and presentations that you you did miss a lot, which you don't, you know, get a chance. Now you can go on the app and look at the presentations, but not quite the same as seeing it in person.

Pat:
Yeah, so much good content. It's you just can't take it all in I guess that's a I guess that's a good thing. I'm curious, were there any, like either common themes or common topics that kept coming up? You know, were they talking about listening approaches or taking more action or getting more return on investment or the advancing technologies? What were some of the hot issues that you had discussions with people about?

Sheila:
Yeah, I think, you know, they set the conference up really well with that targeted to the leaders within CX. Right? And one thing that I really appreciated too is that it seemed to be very forward thinking, like what's next? And and maybe what got us to this point isn't what's going to get us further along moving forward, whatever that quote is. Right. But, you know, there is a big focus on CX leaders having that business acumen, right? Like that. Understanding how CX connects to financials, how CX leaders really are change agents, whether we have that title or not, there's always that piece of it. And then one that I really appreciated too, which can be sometimes more challenging than others depending on your situation. But being that C-suite advisor and being able to engage, you know, your C-suite and your stakeholders and being able to to speak their language and not necessarily your CX language or being able to translate that. So it starts to land with the business too.

Pat:
Yeah. Troy, what were some of the key conversations you were buzzing about?

Troy:
Yeah, it seemed like, you know, some of the more hotly attended sessions and some of the, you know, that definitely kind of repeated themes and sessions were definitely around kind of ROI, action, getting more value from CX. You know, it was kind of a definitely this big underlying theme that everybody was pretty interested in saying, Okay, it's great to listen. It's great to have these programs, but how can we impact, you know, the business, How can we move CX forward to, you know, to being that kind of a business discipline. So I think that was something that you saw from a lot of different angles, which was helpful.

Pat:
Yeah, Yeah. All the you can do, all the surveys in the world, all the analytics in the world, but it's got to connect back to growth. Was cost savings or profits and all that. And that's it's tough to line all that up. So that's always a relevant, relevant theme.

Pat:
Themes of the future are a big topic in CX today, just as Troy and Sheila have been highlighting. Well, timing is perfect because Walker has come out with a new report called "CX Now," where we highlight eight themes that are driving the evolution of CX. We have both a podcast series and a booklet with blogs and lots of information. So check it out. It's at walkerinfo.com/cxnow.

Pat:
How about from each of you a favorite presentation you went to. Troy, You want to take a shot at that first?

Troy:
Yeah, I would call out to maybe that I enjoyed. One was Megan Burns had a really nice keynote on the second day that really, you know, I always like sort of the higher level thinking of, you know, she was tracking CX sort of over time from the beginning to where it was this sort of like what we call like a break fix mentality. And I think she called it, you know, be less bad focus. It's like, okay, so is about like, stop sucking so bad at certain things. Right? And to to this view of, you know, as we've grown or at least, you know, some some level to now a little bit more of a focus in the industry on like how do we be consistently good, you know, and find the places where we need to be great. So that was kind of just a real interesting, you know, piece of evolution. And then on Brian Sander from AAA had a nice presentation on ROI from a from like a sea level perspective, like how do you get attention? And it was very simple, like some very simple rules and some, you know, just kind of trying to really connect it in and then gave people a bunch of chances to be like, All right, what are you struggling with, making an ROI case to your leadership? And, you know, let the group kind of work it out amongst themselves and you come around and help out. So I think that one was very interesting to both be a part of, but then also to hear, you know, other people's struggles and making kind of the ROI or the impact case.

Pat:
Yeah, those both sound interesting. Yeah. Sheila, what about you?

Sheila:
I was going to say Troy, those are those were a couple that I jotted down preparing for Pat's questions. And I agree. Like I in Brian's session, that that slide that he had of the the alien and then Clark Kent, you know because I'm big on like knowing your audience like who who are you speaking to because that that gauges exactly how you're going to deliver whatever story you're trying to tell. And he made the point of, you know, when you're talking to the C-suite not showing up in your alien CX language, but then you're still you're still that alien or that that hero. Right? But you show up as Clark Kent and one of them and you speak their language. And then so that kind of that's that slide just sticks in my mind. I don't know. But I definitely agree with you. And I thought Megan Burns was great as well. Um, another session that I really enjoyed, Leslie Pagel and Jen Stevens, they they talked about getting that initial buy in from your stakeholders and walked us through an exercise of how to think about that and how to go through and again, speak to your stakeholders. And, you know, they even went a little bit out think, think outside of their presentation for Jen to tell a story about how she was able to come in as a change agent and take the time to listen to what was happening. And that had a very positive impact on some outcomes for her. And I, I really enjoyed that session as well. It was very interactive and there were some kind of templates that we use, which was always like a good template, right? So, so I thought that was really valuable session as well.

Pat:
Yeah, Great.

Troy:
Yeah, I didn't get to go to that one, but I assume they're both of them are great presenters and champions and so I assume it was good.

Sheila:
Yes.

Pat:
So for, for those that are, you know, walking away from the conference, are there certain trends that you think they're kind of saying, yeah, these these are things I need to be thinking about? I know the theme was to kind of think about what's next, How is this evolving And do you think there were some things that they said, wow, you know, it's opened my eyes to know that it's going to be different in the coming years and I got to get ready for it. What what were some of those things?

Troy:
You know, think again, there's this consistency about the need for CX professionals to be a part of the business, to be connected to the business. You know, it's… It's not enough to run a program. It's not enough to, you know, kind of have your surveys. The really it's requires somebody who's a little bit more of a, you know, ambassador and interpreter or whatever it might be for the business, knows what the business needs and can fit CX, you know, as a method for delivering on the promises that the organization has to their customers. Right? So I do think that was a big piece of it. How do you talk to leadership? How do you understand the questions that are being asked of you and answer them in a way that's helpful? Full. How do you get action taken? You know that that was a very, very common theme that I kept hearing over and over again.

Pat:
Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like if they if they didn't get that already or maybe they've heard it five times, but the sixth or seventh time now, it's like, okay, you know, I need to get a little more deep into the business.

Troy:
Yeah. And I think what this conference did better than most is to not just give it lip service, but to actually provide like the templates that Sheila was mentioning. And, you know, the feel like a lot of the speakers were very much about like, here's how to do it in different ways versus just, hey, it's important and, you know, ROI, ROI, you know, it's like…

Pat:
Yeah.

Troy:
…instead like, hey, here's some actual ways to do it. Here's people who have done it and, you know, let's kind of keep moving in that direction.

Pat:
All right. Well, one of the other things I know, Troy, to put you on the spot, you had a presentation there. How did it go?

Troy:
Well, again, from my standpoint, it was probably the best session.

Pat:
Oh, okay.

Sheila:
Well, heard… I heard it was pretty good, too. Troy, I actually didn't even get to go to it. I had taken a call and I was a little bit late and it was standing room only in there. I couldn't even fit in the room. So.

Pat:
All right.

Sheila:
Yeah. And I had a couple when they saw the walker on my nametag, they were like, Oh, tell Troy that he needs to get his slides into the app. And I was like, I will.

Troy:
Yeah, that was one. I definitely struggled with getting my slides in the app. That was the biggest downside.

Pat:
Well, give us a snippet of what it was about and how it went.

Troy:
Well, so it was the title of it was basically advanced analytics for CX leaders. And I really credit that to being the draw. You know, I think one other takeaway from this is I think the session this session was the only one with analytics in the title. There were a couple others that, you know, kind of were around that and then some ROI sessions, and those tended to be the ones with kind of the most people selecting them. So I think that topic is one that's important to people. You know, it's like, okay, we've got data. How do we use it, right? How do we get insights out of it? And so, you know, took the tack knowing most of the people in the room probably weren't the ones doing the analytics. Some of them probably were because they're like one person shops, you know. But so really taking the tack of, you know, equipping them as kind of this I call them the analytics translators going back to an article from a few years ago. So the idea that, you know, their goal is to understand what the business needs, translate that into kind of analytics, you know, an analytic framework and approach that then analysts could take and, you know, run the actual details. They can manage that and then turn around and take the findings and, you know, interpret them for the business. So that role being really key in something that doesn't always have.

Troy:
And so we tried to equip them with just some frameworks and some approaches for how to do that, you know, what questions to ask, how to think about the analytics in a way that provides more value and push it up the value stack and then gave them a good amount of time to just talk through some of their specific questions that they're trying to address with their table mates. And so, you know, as we tried to cover a lot, anytime it's analytics, there's a whole lot of people coming for a whole lot of different reasons. So I'm sure some people walked out being like that was completely unhelpful because they were looking for, you know, discussion on the latest AI algorithms or something, which was not the point of it. But some people seem to get some value out of it. And so I think it is an area that we can probably do more in trying to help and equip, you know, the average CX leader with, you know, how do you engage with analytics to get those insights. But the point of all of it said probably more times than it needed to was your analytics need to inform a decision, right? Like you need to understand like how is the organization going to use this to make a better, faster decision before you do anything? So we kind of did a lot of that at the beginning as well.

Pat:
Well, it sounds like a really good perspective and a lot of good value that you were able to to share. All right. Well, we have come to that point that we do in every one of our podcasts where we ask you for the one tip. We call it the take home value. What's one thing that each of you took away from the conference that you can share? And ideally it'd be something that people can put to use right away. Sheila, you want to go first?

Sheila:
So many things. I think what I'll share today is fairly, well, kind of simple maybe, but I think. CX leaders, no matter how we think of ourselves, we are change agents, whether it's changing things for our customers, our end users, for our internal employees. If there's employee experience involved, which there there should be. Um, but I think it's really important to always take a step back and listen. Listen to how others view the situation. And that also that also can make you more of an empathetic leader as well and helps you to have those important conversations moving forward. Those conversations with your stakeholders, customers, other employees that you work with as well. So I think, you know, one of the things that I took away was from Ben and Leslie's presentation was that, you know, just take a step back and listen. Listen to what's going on in the area and how you need to start communicating, your plans and goals to help others and support them.

Pat:
That's great advice. All right, Troy.

Troy:
Yeah, I think your mine was a little bit broad or something I observed there that just reinforced for me the fact that there's still, so even though this was a select group, you know, and they tended to be people leading programs, there was still, I'd say, the majority of people who were shepherding a very new or immature program and trying to figure out how do I take it to the next level amidst all this specific peculiarities of my organization. And so you'll even hear where we would think there would be a whole lot more maturity and experience and really big programs. Still within CX we're just have a lot of starters. And whether that's, you know, they're just starting with CX or it's a program that's kind of been at an immature stage and now somebody's trying to bring it forward. So you know I asked that question one of the sessions even like, okay, you know, we're talking about some of these high level, you know, things, but how how if you're just starting out, what do you do? You say, hey, that's great, but I've got to get there before I can do some of the things we're talking about. And I think the feedback was great and that, you know, like, hey, talk to us. Like people have done this, right? There are mature CX programs out there. There are leaders who have built that. And so I think opportunities like this conference or, you know, CXPA has like local groups who can join or all sorts of digital options that aren't related to CXPA but find people who have done it and connect and learn and just continue to listen because there has been a path blazed. And while it's not maybe exactly the path you're going to be on, there's things you can learn from that to accelerate your advancement and maturity beyond what people could do before you. So it was a great example of getting to see some of that in action for a lot of people where light bulbs were going off like, Oh, I'm going to go home and do that. So I would just encourage everybody to engage in that activity.

Pat:
Yeah, yeah. There is a lot of knowledge out there and whether it's online through CXPA community or if there's a local group in your area, there's so much to learn from others that are going through many of the same things you are. Well, Sheila March is a vice president in our client services group and Dr. Troy Powell is the VP of Strategy and Analytics, both colleagues of mine here at Walker. Troy, Sheila, as always, thank you for being on The CX Leader Podcast.

Sheila:
Thank you.

Troy:
Thanks, Pat.

Pat:
And I know both of you are on LinkedIn. That's a great way to reach both of you if people have questions. And of course, if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or how Walker can help you with your business' customer experience programs, you know, 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 is going to help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listeners. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com. You can subscribe to the show and find all previous episodes, all 250 plus episodes. 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 is a great time to be a CX leader. So step back, listen and find others that can help you take your program to the next level, whatever that may be.

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