The top skills CX teams need to deliver your 2025 strategy

The CX Network Weekly is the LinkedIn Newsletter from CX Network. Each week we share our take on a key development in experience management, with links to CX Network resources that can inform, inspire and help your organization’s response.

This week’s edition looks at the key CX skills in a rapidly changing trading environment and explores how you can train and prepare your team to deliver the results you need them to deliver next year.

Your big plans for 2025 may be set (for now) but have you planned how your approach to team management will need to adapt to deliver on those plans? Have you assessed the skills those around you will need to possess for your targets to be achieved? If not, it’s time to set some New Year resolutions around how you will manage your people in 2025.

In the rush to set and communicate our plans it’s easy to forget those who facilitate their successful execution. Whether those people are in support or operations or on the shop floor, CX teams bring CX strategies to life.

Earlier this year, during our research into the Global State of CX, we asked our network members which skills they trained their teams for in 2023. We gave them a list of 10 choices and asked them to select all applicable options.

The results showed that CX leaders are focusing more on internal product knowledge and soft skills than rushing to arm their teams with the latest knowledge on how to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

The full Global State results also demonstrated that data was the top CX trend, yet despite this, training around data utilization and management emerged as the fourth most selected skill to train teams on.

Here are the results for all 282 practitioner respondents: ?

But these aren’t the only skills CX teams (and leaders) need. According to Stan Swinton, founder of NPSx, in a hi-tech, fast-paced trading environment it’s all about the figures. In contrast with how things were done previously, the top skills for the job of a CX’er are no longer qualitative focused, but quantitative.

When we put the skills question to him in August, he said: “Much more comfort with numeracy, quantitative data with business financials and definitely an understanding of how to use big data and technology to derive insights. The ability to work with product and engineering teams is also critical.

“Contrast that with what we used to have, it was frontline customer service, market research, background, qualitative focused. I think that's going to be one of the big shifts here,” he continued.

Training can overcome many of the challenges that come with managing a CX team. In fact, in the links below Annette Franz lists seven common EX challenges and explains how training is the solution for four of them, including cultural disconnect.

Whether your strategic aims for next year are to boost sales on a lower marketing budget or reduce call wait times, if you want buy-in from your teams and great results for your reports, a fresh approach to training is required.

Here’s something to inform you…

Here is something to help you…

Here’s something to educate you…