Unf*cking Your CX #29: CX as a Program Is a Death Sentence

Let’s stop with the excuses.

Your CX strategy isn’t just broken—it’s actively working against you. Why? Because you treat CX like a program. A side project. A fluffy initiative that looks good in quarterly reports but does jack-all to drive real business results.

Here’s the hard truth: CX isn’t a department. It’s the system that should run your entire organization.

When CX is treated like a “team” instead of the operating system for your business, here’s what happens:

• Your customers feel the cracks. Disconnected experiences, unfulfilled promises, and broken trust become the norm.
• Your employees burn out. They’re stuck fixing problems caused by leadership’s failure to prioritize the customer.
• Your competitors win. They’ve figured out how to align CX with growth, while you’re still treating it like a clean-up crew.

CX isn’t just “part of the business.” It is the business.

So the question is: are you ready to unf*ck it? Or are you comfortable staying mediocre?

How CX as a Program is F*cking Your Organization

1. Your CX Team is Just a Janitor

Your CX team spends their days reacting—cleaning up after bad decisions, patching broken processes, and smoothing over failed promises. They’re busy fighting fires because leadership doesn’t prioritize prevention.

• Example: Marketing runs a Black Friday promotion. Operations can’t fulfill the demand. Support gets flooded with angry customers. CX has to fix it—without a seat at the planning table.

Reality Check: If your CX team spends 90% of their time apologizing, they’re not transforming anything—they’re just cleaning up your mess.

2. Silos are Killing Your Customers

Customers don’t care about your internal silos, but they feel them. Marketing says one thing. Sales says another. Support is left to explain why neither is true. It’s a customer experience disaster.

• Example: A SaaS company’s sales team promises seamless onboarding, but the product team hasn’t built the tools needed to deliver it. Customers churn, and you call it a “retention issue.”

Reality Check: If your departments aren’t aligned, your customers experience your brand as a chaotic mess.

3. CX Has No Teeth

Your CX team isn’t in the room when critical decisions are made. They’re not influencing product roadmaps, pricing strategies, or cost-cutting measures. They’re called in to “fix it” after leadership has already f*cked it up.

• Example: A retailer cuts costs by reducing return options. CX gets stuck explaining why “free returns” suddenly come with a $10 fee.

Reality Check: If CX doesn’t have veto power over decisions that damage the customer experience, it’s a powerless puppet.

What’s the Cost of Treating CX Like a Program?

1. You’re Leaving Money on the Table

Every time you ignore CX in strategic planning, you’re bleeding revenue.

• Example: Instead of fixing onboarding to reduce churn, you spend millions on acquisition campaigns to bring in customers you’ll lose anyway.

2. Your Customers Don’t Trust You

Every broken promise, every inconsistent experience, every hoop they have to jump through chips away at trust. And when trust is gone, so are they.

• Example: Your marketing team promises two-day delivery, but your logistics team can’t deliver on time. Customers don’t complain—they just leave.

3. Your Employees Are Exhausted

No one wants to work for a company where every day is damage control. When employees feel like their efforts are wasted on firefighting, they check out—or quit.

How to Make CX the Operating System of Your Business

1. Make CX the Filter for Every Decision

Every decision, at every level of the organization, should start with one question: How does this impact our customers?

• Example: Before launching a new product, ask how it fits into the customer journey. Before cutting costs, ask if it damages trust. If the answer is yes, don’t do it.

2. Smash the Silos

Your customers experience one brand—your teams need to act like one too. Break down silos by creating cross-functional pods aligned to customer journeys.

• Example: Build a post-purchase pod with members from marketing, logistics, and support. Their shared KPI? Repeat purchase rates.

3. Give CX Real Power

CX leaders need a seat at the executive table and the authority to veto decisions that hurt the customer experience.

• Example: A Chief Experience Officer (CXO) who oversees everything from product roadmaps to hiring strategies, ensuring every action aligns with customer outcomes.

Player Tips: How to Stop Treating CX Like a Side Hustle

1. Kill the Vanity Metrics

If you can’t tie your metrics to revenue, retention, or CLV, they don’t matter. Stop reporting NPS just because it looks good. Replace it with metrics that show real business impact.

• Example: Instead of “Our NPS improved by 10 points,” report, “That improvement drove $2M in repeat revenue.”

2. Fix the Friction Points

Focus on the moments that kill trust: returns, onboarding, delivery, support. Fix them, measure the impact, and repeat.

• Example: “Our updated onboarding reduced churn by 15%, adding $1.5M to annual revenue.”

3. Make CX a Leadership Skill

Train every leader—marketing, sales, finance—to think like a CX pro. Embed CX into every decision they make.

• Example: Train leaders to ask, “What does this do for our customers?” at every strategy meeting.

Frameworks for Transformation

1. The CX Accountability Ladder

• CX Leader: Sets the vision and drives alignment.
• C-Suite: Incentivizes customer-centric decisions.
• Department Heads: Own customer outcomes across silos.
• Frontline Teams: Execute with customer impact in mind.

2. The Customer Journey Ownership Playbook

• Assign cross-functional pods to key journeys.
• Align each pod’s goals to measurable outcomes like CLV or churn reduction.
• Review progress quarterly to ensure accountability.

Thought-Provoking Question:

"If CX isn’t driving every decision your business makes, what the hell is?"

CX is Your Business—Act Like It

CX isn’t a function. It’s not a program. It’s the backbone of your business.

Every decision should align with customer outcomes. Every team should own their part of the customer journey. And every CX leader should have the power to influence the entire organization.

Stop pretending CX is optional. Stop treating it like a side hustle.

It’s time to unf*ck your CX and make it the engine of your growth.