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Steve:
The great thing about doing this podcast is meeting CX professionals and learning about their careers. But we don't talk enough about your career.

Natalie:
If you are looking to either make a move or develop into the CX world, I would say just go out of your way to interact as much as possible with the customers that are driving your business, because at the end of the day, that's why you're around.

Steve:
Let's talk about growing your career in customer experience. 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.

Steve:
Hello, everyone. I'm Steve Walker, host of The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. It's never been a better time to be a CX leader and we explore the topics and themes to help leaders like you deliver amazing experiences for your customers. We've interviewed a lot of the guests on this show, probably close to 200, each with unique stories and backgrounds about how they evolved into being a customer experience professional. But we haven't often discussed how you can develop your own professional life. So how is your career growth going? Are you new to the profession and need some tips? Or are you a seasoned pro that could use some ways to spark some new creativity? How do you keep your career batteries charged? Well, I'm very happy that my guest today is going to have some advice on how to advance and manage your career as a customer experience professional. Natalie Onions is a VP of customer experience at Customer.io, a marketing automation platform. Natalie, welcome to The CX Leader Podcast.

Natalie:
Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here.

Steve:
Well, I'm delighted to have you on here and I think this is such a great topic. You know, a lot of people don't really decide to be a CX professional. They because of some talent or somebody notices them and kind of plucks them and puts them into this role. So I think this is a great topic. So thanks for being willing to come on and be a guest on the show.

Natalie:
Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's pretty much exactly how it happened for me, too. So.

Steve:
Well, yeah, that's I always like to start that way. In case people don't know anything about you, why don't you give us just a little bit of your CV, your background, and how you became a VP of CX?

Natalie:
Yeah, sure. So the brief way back background is that actually come from a performing arts background and.

Steve:
No way.

Natalie:
Yeah. And if anyone else out there…

Steve:
Do you know when I went to college to study Natalie?

Natalie:
What was that?

Steve:
Theater Art.

Natalie:
Really?

Steve:
Yeah, I wasn't. I was terrible. I was no good. So I wanted to be a radio talk show host. So that's why I started this podcast.

Natalie:
Will be pretty close now. Yeah.

Steve:
Yeah. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think that's great. You know, all business is show business, right?

Natalie:
Yeah, exactly. No, I was. I was pretty good. But you have to be next level good to to really make it and make it sustainable living in that industry. And, um, you know, I, I found out pretty quickly. So straight out of college when I when I was, I got my film degree, I sort of was let loose in the world. And I managed to get a job as closely related as I could, um, in corporate video. So marketing video. And it was, it was great. You know, I was in that environment where there were cameras and scripts and editing and all kinds of good stuff going on. Um, but I was very much at the bottom of the ladder, so I had to take the opportunities that were presented to me and try to make my mark in a different way. And it just so happened that that ended up being on the, the client side of things. So I found that I actually really enjoyed that side of the work interacting with the clients that were coming across. And um, you know, it actually led me to have more of a creative outlet outside of work rather than that being what my entire job was, was based around. So yeah, I ended up getting promoted through to director of client success in that job. And then we, we also started to branch out at that same time and we launched a SaaS product alongside our the video marketing side of things. And that's where I really got interested in in SaaS. So I was starting to see that I had some I had some skills and I had passion for the customer facing things, also getting really interested in SaaS. And so when I moved to America, I was just looking to start over and Customer.io just serendipitously I guess came across my radar and I applied for their first ever customer success manager job for the 2018 launch of their new premium plan.

Natalie:
So joined joined that company, extremely grateful for them. Kind of taking a gamble on me because it was my first fully fledged SaaS role or, you know, dedicated SaaS role. Um, and, you know, a bit of an experiment which we, we clearly got right. We were able to, to grow a really solid customer base there, um, and sort of, you know, took it upon myself, but also had some fantastic mentorship and opportunities presented to me from Customer.io. Um, that led me to really consider the entire customer journey. So not just that customer success part where, you know, a customer is delivered to me and then I work with them through their onboarding and make sure they've always got what they need. I started to actually think a little bit more about the, the, the bits of the puzzle that were going on outside there. So how did they get to be here? What was going to happen to them when it was time to renew their contract? How were they interacting with our product team or our engineers if things got really complex and we pushed them over there? And so just that that curiosity and consideration, I think, is what really helped me to grow into VP of CX because I gradually just started to absorb other teams in the business that were part of that customer journey. As soon as sales closes that contract, they're kind of in in my realm and, you know, crafting that entire experience is under one one vision umbrella.

Steve:
That's a great story. And you really have a unique background, I think. I picked up on the fact that you'd been kind of in the arts. And I think, you know, a lot of business people, you know, started in liberal arts or even in fine arts, but then they find a way to make a living doing something that's related. But your your journey to CX leadership is is certainly unique. And I think it's it's really cool and perfect for our topic here today. So, you know, based on that, you know, if somebody is already in a in a job and they'd they'd like to get involved in CX, what would be a great way to to do something within their current role that might help them get into CX?

Natalie:
Yeah. So I think, you know, when I'm, when I'm considering hiring at Customer.io, I, I focus more on how the person has been exposed to and has interacted with clients, customers. However you want to refer to them. I focus a lot more on that than on the industry that they're coming from because I always feel like you can you can teach somebody how to navigate your software or how to demo on board, whatever that specific thing may be, but there's almost something unteachable about that really high quality empathy and customer focus that people have. So if you are looking to either make a move or develop into into the CX world, I would say just go out of your way to interact as much as possible with the customers that are driving your business. Because, you know, at the at the end of the day, that's that's why you're around. It's it's that's how you create revenue to keep a company moving and it's why you're doing what you're doing as as well. So yeah do what you can to get involved from that stage but also try your best to understand the the business impact that the customers are having as well. You know, it's one thing to be able to talk to them at the right level and understand how they're using your software, but I think it's equally important to be really tuned in to how each customer, whether it's through revenue or brand or, you know, referrals that they might be providing, it's important to understand how that impacts your overall business because then you can really start to get a look at why your marketing team is doing what they're doing and why your sales team is having the momentum that they are in certain areas and know also start to get into a really strong habit of just being curious and asking, asking questions. So you just kind of got to got to throw yourself right into that, into the frontlines, as I like to call it.

Steve:
Yeah. You've thrown out a couple of good points here. I want to drill down on it a little bit. But, you know, your description of interacting with customers, they don't teach that in business school, really. And I've always loved people that have worked in restaurants because, you know, when people go out to eat, you know, they get pretty particular about their experience. And so anybody that's worked in a restaurant, particularly, you know, waiters or front counter or, you know, they have already proven that they can be successful at taking care of customers. And then I loved your point about curiosity. I think that's another characteristic of a CX pro is you almost have to be you almost have to have a thirst for change, you know, or be open minded to like, what could we be doing better? Or why does that sort of thing happen? So maybe talk a little bit more about the characteristics of what do you think it takes to be successful in CX?

Natalie:
Yeah. So I mean, going back to your point about, you know, servers and restaurant staff, I think that that's a fantastic background really for…

Steve:
It is.

Natalie:
…because, you know, you can have the most beautiful meal in the world. Similar to the way that you can have an incredible product experience. But if the person that's serving you, the person that you're interacting with, whatever stage it may be, whether it's paying the bill, whether it's getting started, whether it's just curious questions, if that person is not coming to you with enthusiasm, with empathy, with this thirst to make your experience great, it is going to sour everything else. And, you know, that's that's going to make this beautifully crafted product meal, whatever the case may be, whatever analogy you were going to we're going to run with, it's going to make that feel less special than it previously was. So, you know, the the CX folks do carry a lot of weight on their shoulders. That really does just mean that those those skills of of empathy, understanding, patience, they're so important. I think, you know, something that I really look for when I'm interviewing is adaptability as well. You know, we've we've got to do a lot of context switching in the customer experience world because you could be talking to a really high flying financial client one minute that's, you know, responsible for 5% of the company's overall revenue.

Natalie:
And then you've got to just be able to drop that and speak to somebody that's maybe an ed tech startup that is barely a drop in the bucket, but you've got to be able to just completely switch the way in which you're working and the outlook that you've got there. So adaptability is a huge one and customers can change the game on us. You know, you can. I've definitely been in positions in the past where I've spent a long time putting together a presentation and a slide deck for a certain call. I get on it and I'm really prepared and the customer asks a question that goes completely in the in the other direction, but you've just got to smile and forge ahead. So yeah, hugely important that they can maintain just this level of calm and continued appreciation for the customer that they're working with in the face of having to do all of that switching. You know, the way that I like to sort of put it to my my team members is that they're an extension of this customer's business. You should be able to get to know the customer that you're working with. You should know what their mission is, what their product is, how their business is doing, and serve them. With that take in mind.

Steve:
You know, you mentioned adaptability. It reminded me that, you know, our podcast is now, I think, five years old. But one of the first things we did is we did the Top Ten Traits of CX Pros. And I think that report is still available if people want to hit that. But you've mentioned several of them and adaptability was one of them. But anyway, just shameless plug for our old content.

Steve:
My guest on the show this week is Natalie Onions. She is the VP of Customer Experience at Customer.io, a marketing automation software firm. And she has a unique career trajectory to becoming a CX leader in his is quite an innovative leader. And we've really been talking about how a CX pro can really enhance their career. And you know, we say on the show all the time, it's a great time to be a CX leader. And I think Natalie's a great example of that. So, you know, you built a great career and ascended to be the leader of a CX function. And then actually, as you described, you started to gather in more of the operation. And really, I think CX has to be pervasive in the organization to really be truly effective. So once you get to be a CX leader, how do you try to build that staff? And particularly with the pace of change and lots of things that go on inside companies And and as you mentioned, you know, not you can't control everything. So change is the only constant.

Natalie:
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, 2022 was a difficult year for a lot of companies. You know, we definitely saw it with some of our clients and the, you know, in the pipeline stage as well. And then, you know, looking back to 2020, COVID affected certain people. So things there's, like you say, changes. The only constant there's always going to be some kind of adversity thrown our way. But you know, something that I really hold myself very accountable for is advocating to the rest of the exec team at Customer.io in terms of why we should continue investing in the CX department. You know, ultimately, when we're looking at any business and considering where to slow down in pace or where to potentially be making cuts, um, I advocate for the the CX department to be the last place that we look because we need to keep our customers happy. We need to keep them thriving and growing and remaining successful. And and so, you know, if, if we don't keep up that pace of growth alongside that, then ultimately the customers will suffer and that will have a business impact. So really advocating for how important it is is definitely something that I keep top of mind. But, you know, just just in terms of having that outlook on building a team, um, it really speaks back again to that, that flexibility and adaptability because, you know, you want your business to be as accessible as possible to anybody that you're trying to attract.

Natalie:
And so the things that we've really been focusing on when building the CX team is looking at time zone availability, language availability, um, different specializations on the team so that whenever we bring somebody new in, we're able to say we've got the perfect match for the people that you are going to be engaging with. And I think, you know, for our customers where English is a second language, being able to offer support from somebody that speaks their own language has been absolutely huge. So that's something that we've considered a lot, is just what can we do to make our product more accessible through the support that we're providing? And then speaking about to to what I said at the beginning about looking at that entire customer journey, you know, I asked myself the question very often just to I think my answer has changed so much, but I ask myself, what do I want the customer journey to look like? You know, where do we want to have touch points? Where do we know that there are going to be some hotspots along the way? And what do we need to do to bridge those gaps? And so it is it is just like building a bridge. You know, you've got your customer journey that hopefully will will run in a nice straight line.

Natalie:
Well, probably more like a roller coaster if we're if we're going to be honest with ourselves. But you need to put those posts that that keep them stable throughout. So, you know, that's that's where we sort of came up with the the delineation of when each team interacts with the customer and creating those discrete little worlds in which the customer always knows who to go to, They they know who they're going to be interacting with. And I can also communicate to my exec team when we're planning and things like that and say, you know, this this stage the the renewals or upgrades expansion stage of the customer journey is the one that's the most impactful to the business. So this is where we should never be limiting our headcount. We should be throwing as much as we can at this or, you know, hey, products and engineering. Wink, nudge, nudge. If you can give me a little bit of help to automate some stuff, it's going to make life easier for my technical support team. And so really just thinking about external experience for customers, what that journey is, what that looks like for my team to support and what we need to do to keep on building and growing those two things in conjunction with each other.

Steve:
Yeah, you know, we're both probably a little bit biased about the importance of customer experience given our professional backgrounds, But, you know, in my experience and I think that the profession and the discipline has evolved and is much more mature than it was at one time. But, you know, back in my career, I've seen like people just totally bag their whole programs. Like you don't need to have some sort of customer listening function to run a business. If you blow it up, it'll just recreate itself in a way that, you know, you might not want it to because people want to go out and they want to get feedback from customers and they need that information to run their business. So I think it is quite a statement of where of how far we've come and and how important it is. And I think just the whole recent interest in this topic, I don't think I've ever seen senior execs as attuned to customer experiences as they are today. And actually it's it's pretty much the way most companies differentiate, too. I mean, you know, we used to differentiate on price or technology, but now it's much more about the experience. So you have to have some approach there. So you've done a great job with your organization. How do you keep things fresh? What are you what are you trying to do or what do you what do you see as the ways to keep things continually innovating?

Natalie:
Yeah. So I think it's important to lean on the fresh energy that you get whenever new hires come in, right? So just because somebody maybe hasn't been around for every single product, iteration or, you know, whatever, if someone's been if someone's joining your your company and they're a month or two in, they've just gone through onboarding in the same way that your customers are going through it. So I always lean on our newer folks to hear from them. You know, what was it like? How are you doing? I encourage my team leads and managers and directors to learn what they can through that feedback and, you know, to to welcome any ideas and suggestions that those new folks have got. So, yeah, really leveraging that energy is exciting, something that I think we've definitely gotten much better at in the past couple of years is having a really tight relationship with the products and engineering teams. You know, the thing that our customers get most excited about is when we release new features, that's that's what they love when they get to do more or they get more capabilities. And so, you know, with the CX team really being the champions of that, they're the ones that are pushing the product team. They're the ones that get to deliver the really good news as well. Having that really strong relationship where the CX department knows what's happening behind the scenes with the product team, you know, they they get to just keep things fresh as well because they they have that element of excitement in terms of I know that I'm going to get to make a lot of customers really happy in a few weeks or a few months when we release this.

Natalie:
And oftentimes they they get slapped up as well for ideas and feedback and early testing. So that relationship has been, you know, in my opinion, vital for the creativity and the excitement that's on the team. And finally, I think something that I really enjoy is looking at things like, you know, such as ideas and suggestions without limits. So I think it's it's really great to to have the team all come together and brainstorm and make suggestions without anything else in mind, you know, tell me tell me what you think we should build next. But don't, don't think about the the size of the team. Don't think about money. Don't think about that one customer that's not like front of mind. Just be creative. Be be wacky. Don't. Don't put any limits on yourself and kind of embracing that environment where just say what you think is great. Because a lot of the time what starts off as something that maybe really out there and is, you know, never realistically going to happen, that trickles down into a really solid and feasible idea. So I'd just like to embrace that idea of let's start big, give me what you've got, give me all that creativity and then we can maybe pare it down as we need to and present something that that came from something way up in the moon.

Steve:
I can see why you're a successful CX leader. You know, you're just you're enthusiasm is contagious and I can see how you would be inspiring to your team. And I, you know, I really liked your discussion of engaging the new people. I know I've seen that in my company, is that, you know, sometimes the people who come from somewhere else have experiences that no one in our company has. And it's just, you know, just really makes the environment rich and and prosperous. Natalie we've reached that point of the podcast where I ask every guest to give us their take home value. Kind of the concept is, you know, it could be a repeat of something you've already said or it could be something else. But the idea is something for our listeners to take back and that they could apply at their program in relatively short order and enhance what they're doing today. So, Natalie Onions, your take home value for this podcast.

Natalie:
Yeah. Number one subscribe to this podcast so you get all the new episodes but skipping skipping past that now that you've done it. Um, I, I would say look at some of the efficiencies that, that you could be getting that you might not be focusing on at the moment. Um, I think, you know, there's, there's always this tendency to look at every customer journey and because they are so unique feeling like you, you have to start from a completely blank slate every time. But you can make the, the team work more efficiently. You can make them happier if you're able to just look at some of their repeatable tasks or, you know, even repeatable insights that are sending out to customers and and try to make those more efficient and more enjoyable with automations, with reusable material and really just looking, you know, inwards at what what your employee journey looks like as well as that customer journey. Um, we know we, we did a really big investment in our tooling and automations over the course of 2022 and it's led to better productivity, it's led to better performance across the team. And you know, when your, when your CX team is performing at their best, the value is 100% being pushed back onto the customer. So yeah, that would be my take home value is just don't be afraid to step back and ask yourself on a regular basis what what are we doing and how can it get better?

Steve:
Great. Well, thanks again for being a guest on The CX Leader Podcast, Natalie. And in case anybody would like to continue the dialog, I know you're on LinkedIn, right?

Natalie:
Yes, that's right. I'm on LinkedIn.

Steve:
Can they find you at Customer.io on the website or…

Natalie:
Yeah, they'll be able to find me through there. But yeah, I love hearing from people via LinkedIn. That's probably the best place. And for any of the listeners out there that are, you know, maybe members of Chief, the female networking group, I'm also a member in there. So if you're listening to this and also a member, I'd love to hear from you through the Chief platform as well.

Steve:
Great. Well, thanks again for being a guest. I hope you'll come back and be on the show again sometime soon, Natalie.

Natalie:
Yeah, it'd be a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Steve:
Oh, it was a pleasure. You're delightful. And congratulations on all your success. If you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your business's customer experience, feel free to email me 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 help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value for our listeners. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show and find all our previous episodes, podcast series and contact information. You can drop us a note, let us know how we're doing or suggest a possible future episode. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. 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 so go out there, keep developing your career, look at what you're doing, challenge how it can be better. Thanks for being with us this week and we'll see you again next time.

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