CX Week

Organizations understand the impact a customer’s experience has on overall business success, leading companies to invest in better understanding the customer journey. Customer experience (CX) is derived from how customers use and value product, but also from other foundational essentials including process and people. ?Teleflex operates under the belief that CX is strongly shaped by the Employee Experience (EX) and how that employee can have an impact on the customer. ?

We recently sat down with Matthew Boretti, Director, Strategic Programs, Global Customer Experience at Teleflex to better understand how Teleflex builds a culture of customer experience by continuously simplifying process and by educating its employees on customer-centric behaviors.

Teleflex: Can you provide an overview of the CX function and its focus at Teleflex?

Matthew Boretti: The Customer Experience function was established with two main goals in mind; one to simplify various touchpoints with our customers and, two, to build a culture where we’re focusing on the customer experience.

In the Americas alone, there are 54 touchpoints where we interact with customers. This includes order processing, tradeshows, packaging, digital channels, shipping, etc. As a CX function, our job is to determine which of these interactions are most important to our customers and to truly evaluate, and if necessary to improve, how Teleflex is meeting expectations. Over the years, we have simplified processes across the business to include things such as same day shipping in select regions, establishing myTeleflex.com as our eCommerce portal, and establishing a customer listening platform. This is an on-going and ever-evolving process.

On the culture side, we know that when employees feel more connected to the customer, they feel more fulfilled and engaged, and the customer experience reflects that. Seven years ago in 2017, Teleflex decided to set aside one week every year to celebrate our customers in what we call CX Week. CX Week is a week filled with opportunities to learn more about our customers and the patients they serve. We hold multiple sessions each day consisting of panel discussions with customers, introductions to business units and products, all with the intention of better connecting our employees’ work to the impact it has on the customers we serve.

Teleflex: What is the purpose of CX week and what does a typical agenda look like?

Matthew Boretti: The purpose of CX week is to bring the customer to our employees. Most of our employees don’t interact directly with the customer; rather, they are supporting those who are directly interacting with our customers. CX week is designed to help our employees understand how their work ties to the products and services we are delivering, and it is something employees want to understand.

To develop the agenda, we first want to understand topics that are impacting - or of interest to - our customers and employees. We reference our annual customer relationship survey which highlights insights or trends that are impacting our customer. And, we also look to our annual employee engagement survey, which can help us better understand what’s impacting Teleflex employees, which directs us on what they are most interested in learning. ?In 2024, we saw the supply chain as an area of opportunity, along with a desire to better understand the clinical education we offer customers.

With this in mind, we coordinated a session where we’ll highlight a customer who manages procurement and supply for their facility, so they can share what they seek in a medical device supplier. We’ll also hear from our Teleflex operations team to understand how we are investing in projects and programs designed to continuously improve the product delivery process.? We’ll also have sessions where we will highlight the various education programs Teleflex offers which support the safe and effective use of our devices.

One of the most impactful sessions I think we’ve ever had was one where we had a mother and her daughter share their personal patient experience with a Teleflex product. Being able to hear from the clinicians and the patients themselves and how they are connecting to Teleflex was amazing.

Teleflex: How do you see CX Week, and the CX function as a whole, helping to make a real difference in how customers interact with Teleflex?

Matthew Boretti: ?Customers who have participated in CX Week have been impressed that we dedicate a week to customer experience and are grateful we want the customer to be involved. Our employees are interested in understanding what challenges customers are facing and how we can better deliver for them.

Every year following the conclusion of CX Week, we send out a survey to employees so we can best understand what sessions were most impactful. We get a lot of positive comments, including comments like, “the presentations were very interesting and provided a better perspective how the customers do their jobs,” and “for me, it helps my mental state with work to be able to clearly see the good that Teleflex products bring to the customer.” We had one person state, “The customer presentation was touching and brought my job back into perspective.”

We want people to come away being energized and feeling that sense of purpose about their work. So, when they are sitting and looking at their laptop feeling far removed from the customer, they understand how their work at Teleflex positively impacts the customer, and ultimately the care being delivered to the patient.