Interview With Lynet Owuor, Winner of CX Professional of the Year

Lynet Owuor-Okoth is a leading Customer Experience and Human Resource Expert with seventeen years of progressive working experience in the Technology, Banking and Logistics sectors. She is the Head of Customer Experience at the National Bank of Kenya, but also volunteers as a mentor with Thrive with Mentoring, an international mentoring program for women, and participates as an Awards Judge and Steering Council member for the International CXA?.

Lynet has consistently outdone herself and organisations she has worked for have always been recognized for Service Excellence both locally and internationally. Some of her achievements in NBK include:

• Best Bank in Customer Satisfaction Tier 2 Banks - 2nd runners up by Think Business Banking Awards, May 2021.
• Customer Satisfaction and Happiness Award in the Global Banking and Finance Awards, 2020
• Best Bank in Customer Service at the International Business Magazine Awards 2020.
• Overall winner in Tier 2 banks in Kenya - Most Customer Centric Bank by Kenya Bankers Association Awards, 2019
• Most Customer Centric Banks in Kenya - 2nd runners up by Think Business, 2019.
• Most Innovative Award in Internal Customer Engagement by Institute of Customer Experience Kenya (ICX-K), the pioneer professional body for Customer Service practitioners in Kenya, October 2018
• Most Customer Centric Bank, Tier 2 banks - 2nd runners-up by Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), December 2018

Lynet is passionate about identifying talent and growing leaders who are energetic and flexible in embracing everyday challenges and using their gifts and talents to live a purposeful and impactful life. When she is not putting smiles on people’s faces and empowering teams at work, Lynet is belting out tunes and you can catch her on you tube enjoying her other great passion, the passion of music.

We had the pleasure of talking to Lynet and hearing her words of wisdom. Read the interview below to learn more about Lynet's unique business and customer experience insights.

1. Tell us about your beginnings in customer experience? When did you become aware of its importance, and why did you decide to pursue CX as a career?

Seventeen years ago, after completing my bachelor’s degree, I was recruited as a Customer Service Officer working in the front office of a bank. Being a people’s person with a lot of energy, the hiring manager was certain that the role fit me. My excitement suddenly came to a halt when I began receiving complaints and requests throughout the day and all week long. Over the next few months I wondered what kind of career would be formed from Customer Service. “This is draining, everybody seems to want something from me, notwithstanding the complaints, goodness!” I thought to myself. At the end of my first year in the role, I got a Managing Director’s award for contributing to the bank’s success in sales and service and that’s when it dawned on me that my role adds value to the bank’s bottom line and that my efforts are also appreciated. That award defined the next years in my career as a Customer Experience Professional and I began to explore upskilling and job opportunities in this area.

2. You mentioned in the entry that, for you, customer experience is also a lifestyle. How would you rate the state of CX today? Are businesses aware of its possibilities?

Indeed, CX is my lifestyle and not my career. This realization came about when I started to relate how we communicate to each other whether socially, professionally or business wise. It doesn’t matter where someone comes from, what age they are or what they do. We as human beings want the same things; that is to be treated with respect and care. We want to feel appreciated. CX is truly at the core of humanity. In the world today, successful organizations are those that have paid attention to this core human need; the need to be respected, cared for, understood and feel appreciated. Organizations that have invested heavily in CX are reaping huge profits and the reason is simple - they have become a trusted partner in the eyes and hearts of their customers who keep going back for more because of how well they are treated.

Though there is awareness by organizations that a superior customer experience equals to good business, many organizations have adopted this only on their strategic documents but hardly exemplify CX behaviors in their day-to-day operations. Many organizations say they are customer centric, but their staff attitudes and customer journeys say otherwise leading to customer frustrations. Therefore, whilst there’s awareness, for many organizations, the challenge is what they say and consistently do differs. The aspiration is to get into a space where everybody within the organization regardless of their role becomes obsessed with their customers. This obsession will be evident in employee attitudes, behaviors, processes and operations and this is when customers will acclaim and say, “this organization, truly meets and exceeds my expectations! I love interacting with them”.

3. Over the years, you've achieved tremendous results for your organization. Can you tell us something more about your process: how do you approach a new CX project? Where do you start?

A quote that has always motivated me is by the late Steve Jobs who said, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!” This attitude has enabled me to excel and be recognized in every organization I have worked for. Whilst the truth is, I have always been hired for the superior skills showcased over the course of my career, I have come to realize that organization cultures differ and I always start on a fresh page taking cognizance of the prevailing organizational culture, objectives, capabilities, gaps and aspirations. Starting with the “foolish” attitude helps me open my mind and rid myself off stereotypes that enables me to buy trust amongst my internal and external customers and then we build together towards achieving the set objectives. Teamwork is a key ingredient in achieving a superior CX offering. Services must be seamless across all touch points, all journeys, all processes, all functions, all roles and most importantly, all minds. As you can imagine, this is not a walk in the park but reaps big rewards as it has for me. I am about teamwork and ensuring we move together. As we say in CX, a great Employee Experience (EX), leads to a great Customer Experience (CX). I spend a lot of my time empowering and supporting teams through engagements. It’s about Winning together! Employees Win and the Customer also Wins!

4. In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge for CX professionals today? What "barriers" do they need to overcome so they can be true leaders in customer experience?

In my view, the greatest challenge for CX professionals today is the fact that CX is still misunderstood as a collection of front office personnel aiding external customers. It has been localized to a department, captured in a strategic document and a CX manager is asked to run with the agenda; an agenda that everyone in the organization assumes they know to run because by the time you were hired, in most cases, the CX structure has been drafted for you and CX department reports into a function whose agenda and CX are conflicting or competing. The challenge is that most CX professionals start on the wrong foot and must make do with what’s presented to them. Kind of like trying to fix a square in a circle and we wonder why so many CX strategies fail. This is because, Strategy follows Structure. One may have the best strategy but if the structure of the organization is not enabling the achievement of a customer centric culture, then achieving CX objectives become elusive. To overcome this challenge, CX professionals must be bold and drive the CX agenda in every activity of the organization. This is to “un-localize” CX to not only be driven by the CX department but cascade this agenda to be driven by every single person in the organization regardless of their roles and measure it’s Return on Investment (ROI) by correlating CX initiatives with the bottom line (Profits). It is more like being in every one’s business but in a good way, re-directing minds to think “Customer”. Only then will this myth be eradicated when more and more employees begin to take full responsibility of the Customers Experience.

5. What advice do you have for this year's entrants? And why would you recommend ICXA? '22 to companies and individuals who want to get recognized for their CX achievements?

Entering ICXA ’22 is a sure way to benchmark with organizations across different industries globally. It is also an opportunity to take stock and showcase great initiatives that have been executed within one’s organizations and raise the bar on CX initiatives. This means that for one to be outstanding, there’s rigorous preparations and amazing outcomes that have been realized. For the winners, the pride of being recognized globally comes with endless possibilities. Having won last year’s ICXA ‘21 CX Professional Award, has not only validated me as an unparalleled global CX professional, but also opened doors for me to mentor and coach upcoming CX professionals, speak in conferences (I have spoken in forums across Middle East, Europe, North America and Africa) and marketed my skills globally. At the end of the day, all who participate regardless of whether they win or not, are winners! The amount of ingenious insights and knowledge that one leaves with is truly worth it. ICXA to me is a gathering of outstanding CX professionals across the globe and offers an opportunity to meet the greatest brains in the world. The camaraderie, the energy, the fun that comes with the meeting of similar minds is not to be missed. As I mentioned earlier, just by investing in this process, the opportunities that come thereafter are endless for both organizations being represented and individuals. I am looking forward to yet another year of meeting the greatest brains in this year’s ICXA ’22. I will be participating as a judge.

Find out who all the ICXA '22 judges are here. And if you want to learn how to enter this year's programme, go here for more information.