CX Leaders On The Frontlines
The great irony of customer experience is that the team most responsible for customers - the #CX Team - never interacts directly with customers.
Sure we do research with customers. And yes, some CX teams include customer support teams, and so do have customer-facing employees in their midst. But that's not the norm.
The vast majority of CX leaders are behind-the-scenes and don't get the visceral sense of serving customers.
But that reality for most is not the reality for all. In this edition of the #CX Patterns podcast and newsletter, I'm talking with Beth Karawan ?? & Scott Gilbey - two customer experience leaders who actually are on the frontlines delivering experiences to customers.
What would be different if you served customers directly?
Everything. Well, to hear Scott and Beth tell it, getting back in front of customers is life-changing. For them, it reignited their passion for the importance of customer experience. The potential to make someone's day. The potential to save someone's day. The potential to connect in a moment with another human. I think we know all of that happens, but it is easy to forget when we aren't ourselves having that visceral experience.
Seeing the true state of the employee experience for customer-facing colleagues will be sobering.
What else will be different?
You will understand the vital importance of a good employee experience like you never have before. The realities of the physical labor - being on your feet for an entire shift at Home Depot. The heat and hard work that comes with waiting tables.
The arbitrary rules. The processes that are inefficient and ill-conceived. The persistence of frustrations that seemingly won't be fixed. All of this is the realities faced by our customer-facing colleagues. Imagine experiences that first-hand.
We've All Been On The Frontlines - Just Not Recently
Almost all of us started our work careers on the front lines. My first paying job out of the house was as a babysitter. I am sure I didn't know it at the time, but I had the complication of a multi-person client relationship - both parents and kids evaluated my performance.
Before 21, I had worked in several other customer-facing jobs, as I'm sure did most of you reading this. It's a rite of passage. But after that? Well, if you're in CX, you moved away from the frontline.
Without that direct, customer-facing experience, we don't see the nuances of the challenges and possibilities that are part of our customer experience.
So if you agree, that getting direct, customer-facing experience on a regular basis would be beneficial, what can you do about it?
My advice would be to start small:
This frontline experience will sharpen your CX game.
Chief Experience Maker: from customer obsession to revenue ? Global Leader in CX & Marketing ? ex-LinkedIn, AmEx, AIG
1 周Insightful! My last paid customer facing roles were in high school working retail; for the past two years I have been volunteering with our local food cooperative where I intentionally seek out customer-facing shifts like checkout in order to have a direct opportunity to learn from and serve others. It would be impossible to replicate the experience from an office.
Daily tips for AI & automation.
1 周It's refreshing to see such an insightful perspective on customer experience. Sam Your discussion on the disconnect between CX teams and direct customer interaction truly highlights the importance of empathy in our roles. I'm eager to listen to the podcast and learn more from Beth and Scott's experiences. Thank you for sharing this valuable content!
CX Exec & Thought Leader || Complex Problem Solver || Tough Question Asker || Unabashed Truth Teller
1 周Beth Karawan ??Scott Gilbey Sam Stern Great points and absolutely correct. The majority of CX teams may speak to customers and talk about what the research tells them, but few actually spend time servicing customers (like a frontline employee). The same holds true for most non-frontline roles, that support the fontlines, create policies and procedures - most might be able to speak about the customer but few actually have first hand experience delivering to the customer. As you put it "The arbitrary rules. The processes that are inefficient and ill-conceived. The persistence of frustrations that seemingly won't be fixed" WHY because they have not lived it!
30 Years Marketing | 25 Years Customer Experience | 20 Years Decisioning | Opinions my own
1 周Sam Stern I am confused. How can a 'team most responsible for customers - #CX Team - never interact directly with customers'. For me, responsibility implies actually interacting with and helping them get their jobs done. That is why they are interacting with you in the first place. This shows clearly that CX is neither responsible, nor accountable for interactions with customers, (marketing, sales, service and operations are), but merely involved or consulted about them, if they are lucky. So if the CX team isn't accountable, and worse, never even interacts with customers when they are trying to get the jobs done, isn't it just a ceremonial role, a bit like the pretty candles on a birthday cake that are blow out and then discarded so that you can focus on eating the cake. Best regards, Graham