Here's how you can enhance your strategic thinking and decision-making as a Customer Experience executive.

Initially, I had an aversion to working with data and struggled with understanding numbers, feeling mismatched and disconnected. However, as I immersed myself in data analysis, I became fascinated by uncovering patterns, behaviors, and trends. These insights have become invaluable for planning and making informed decisions. By leveraging data-driven approaches, we can mitigate risks and ensure our strategies are based on reality rather than assumptions. Unlike the early days when communication was primarily face-to-face or on paper, modern technology and tools like surveys (NPS/CSAT) have made data analysis more accessible and exciting, encouraging a deeper embrace of data-driven practices.

Being up-to-date and having the experience of going through the customer's journey every day and understanding correctly and instead of the customer's needs and concerns can be the main issue, changing the perspective process, as well as using games and tasks that help us to make better decisions in the development of creativity. To solve the problem, using neutral people around to give opinions and provide concerns and experiences

Data is incredibly valuable and its importance depends on where it comes from. It helps improve processes, deal with unhappy customers, and figure out what to automate. Analyzing data lets you understand what happened and predict what might happen next. While many customer experience teams still rely on surveys and ratings like NPS and CSAT, there's a trend towards using AI tools to look at actual customer interactions, which wasn't possible just a few years ago.

It seems simplistic, but I find that organizations still remain very ego-centric. How does this impact our revenue stream? How will it impact our bottom line? We have to start thinking about things in another way: How will this decision impact the customer experience with our product? Our company? If we do this, what is the domino effect on other decisions that impact the customer? I challenge my team to ask the hard questions up front - how does this impact the customer? And if the answer has any negative connotation, we go back to revisit the solution until we can minimize that impact, and ideally, make it a positive one.

Stay upto date Do market research Understand the market gap Know your customer Understand the season needs before launching any product or campaign

Stay Updated: Regularly update yourself on the latest industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in customer experience. Engage in Professional Development: Invest in ongoing education through courses, workshops, and conferences that focus on CX advancements. Join Professional Networks: Participate in online communities and forums where CX professionals exchange ideas and experiences. Embrace Lifelong Learning: Develop a mindset geared towards continuous improvement to enhance your strategic thinking capabilities. By committing to lifelong learning, you improve your decision-making as a Customer Experience executive and keep your company competitive.

It is critical to possess a growth mindset - this means not only keeping on top of the latest CX trends, but also tagential topics. I am currently reading a book about How Emotions are Made - a critical component to really understanding people and humans.

Organiza Focus Groups con aficionados para profundizar en temas específicos. Estos grupos permiten discusiones más detalladas y te brindan una comprensión más profunda de las necesidades de los aficionados. Recopila y analiza los datos obtenidos de las encuestas y los grupos de enfoque. Identifica patrones, tendencias y áreas de interés comunes entre los aficionados. Esto te ayudará a comprender mejor sus necesidades y expectativas. Realiza un seguimiento de las conversaciones en las redes sociales relacionadas con tu área de aficionados. Esto puede proporcionarte información valiosa sobre lo que les interesa, lo que les gusta y lo que buscan.

Furthermore, fostering a culture of curiosity within your organization can lead to invaluable insights and breakthroughs in the CX domain. Encouraging cross-functional collaboration and knowledge-sharing sessions empowers teams to learn from diverse perspectives and adapt swiftly to changing customer expectations. Embracing a mindset of continuous improvement not only enriches individual skill sets but also propels collective innovation, driving unparalleled success in delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Staying updated on industry trends and evolving industry insights is critical. Reading books, attending events can contribute to knowledge of best practices. I've also found talking to customers, even if they're not your own, can give a real world glimpse and some powerful insights into how the customer actually experiences the journey.

Collaboration starts with curiosity in what other leaders and teams are up to across your organisation - book in 30mins catch ups with leaders across the organisation: find out what they are up to or join one of their team meetings - start connecting the dots: what are the common priority themes? how customer-centric is each service? - deliver value: have your ‘customer experience pitch’ ready for people and teams you meet What is the ‘pitch’? It’s how you articulate the value of you and your customer experience team within 60 seconds - identify one or two stakeholders who seem open and aligned to working with you team, this will help create momentum Keep building relationships. Repeat.

In some companies people can perceive it is the "CX Department" who works on CX and improves - this could not be further than the truth, as EVERYONE whether customer facing or not plays a role in the experience. This is why collabration across the organization to create awareness as to what is customer experience, your role as well as why it is important is a key component of any CX strategy I have developed. Experiences are rarely ever contained in a single department but intentionally or unintentionally designed across many - so it is vital to partner with our colleagues to understand the true E2E experience of our customers/employees to impact improvement or highlight successes.

In my experience, a major mistake that companies make is not fostering collaboration across departments. Customer experience (CX) should not be viewed solely as the responsibility of one department—it's a collective effort that involves everyone from the CEO to the sales team. Collaboration is not only beneficial professionally but also personally. Since many departments interact directly with clients, whether on the front line or in back-office roles, it's crucial to gather their viewpoints and feedback to enhance the overall customer experience. This collaborative approach ensures that insights and ideas from various teams are considered, leading to more comprehensive and effective CX strategies.

Undertake a properly devised, structured and focussed (on your Customer Pain Points) Customer Closeness Programme. Take ALL the senior Exec team on this journey - "feel" the journey that your prospects/customers have to endure. Make the changes in conjunction with your front line staff.

To the eye of the customer, everyone represents the brand. Everyone has a role to play in customer experience, just like with marketing. Delivery gone wrong? impacts the customer experience, impacts the brand. Payment struggles? impacts the customer experience, impacts the brand. It’s important to opt for a holistic approach to customer experience, just like marketing.

This is a step that I feel is too often skipped. I have found using a simple tool such as start, stop and continue is a great technique that can be used to reflect on what worked well and what should be continued or stopped. As a team we can call ourselves out on items to remind each other what worked and what did not, this helps us grow and continously improve.

Moreover, fostering a culture of reflective practices encourages a growth mindset within your organization. By regularly evaluating past decisions and their impacts, teams can identify areas for optimization and innovation. This introspective approach not only promotes accountability and learning but also cultivates resilience in navigating future challenges. Embracing strategic reflection as a cornerstone of decision-making empowers individuals and teams to adapt, evolve, and thrive in an ever-changing business landscape.

Given my role in assisting customers with innovating their processes using generative AI to automate and improve their customer experience, I may be biased. However, it's noteworthy that successful leaders and executives often achieve their career milestones by embracing calculated risks to drive innovation and transform business practices. While technology frequently plays a pivotal role, innovation can manifest in various forms, spanning processes, management strategies, and any initiative that significantly enhances value delivery.

Customers are constantly evolving and we should be too. This means being couragous enough to throw out the bold ideas. Our competitors or even new disruptors are definitely looking at ways to take over marketshare - hence we should never get to comfortable but always looking for ways to improve or do things differently.

Furthermore, embracing a culture of fearless innovation empowers teams to push the boundaries of what's possible in the realm of customer experience. Encouraging experimentation and embracing failure as a stepping stone to success fosters a culture of continuous improvement and breakthrough innovation. By challenging conventional wisdom and embracing emerging technologies, organizations can stay ahead of the curve and deliver truly transformative experiences that captivate and retain customers in an ever-evolving landscape.

My message is clear: future success requires breaking free from constraints and reimagining the guest experience. While some concepts may seem farfetched initially, push thoroughly to explore your full potential.

I like to reflect on Google’s innovation principle that ‘innovation can come from anyone and anywhere’. I take that to mean stay humble, keep an open mind and be curious.

Many leaders become very empathetic to their team and in hopes of making things more efficient or avoiding scope creep, start making decisions based on their emotions towards these things instead of the bigger picture. This is why data driven decision making is a crucial skill for CX leaders, yet we do need to strike a delicate balance. We need to imagine ourselves as the customer and how the experience would feel but we also need to consider how our strategy impacts the teams we collaborate with, the business impact and how it fits within overarching business goals. We need to be customer-centric while driving business goals forward.

Data is critical to CX decision making, in my work in this area I have found it is important but not always the case that project participants consider incorporating tools that go beyond basic metrics. Techniques like sentiment analysis and journey mapping can reveal deeper customer emotions and pain points within the data itself. This allows the team to move beyond averages across consumer cohorts and identify specific (micro) customer segments with unique needs. By combining emotional intelligence with objective data, you can make truly customer-centric decisions that resonate on a deeper level.

I believe that if we only use emotional metrics we wont lead to anywhere. Using metrics as data in CS is esential to know our path. If we try to use both metrics like data and some cuestionaries that we had sent before hand to our customers, that will help us thoroughly.

I think the three Human Centric Design principles articulate this well. Ideas need to be Desirable: Do Customers want it? Feasible: Can we build it? Viable: Is there a good business case?

One way to think more strategically is to view the organisation as a subset of capabilities I’ve designed a customer experience blueprint that is centred around four over-arching capabilities: 1. Understanding your customers 2. Creating a customer centric culture 3. Developing your CX strategy 4. Designing your organisational architecture Spend time thinking and evaluating the maturity of each one Start developing an organisational view of these capabilities - which is your weakest? Which one are you going to prioritise? Where is the investment needed?

Developing strong relationships with key stakeholders, both internally and externally, can help support strategic initiatives. Understanding needs, expectations, and perspectives and actively engaging them in the decision making process, can give your CX initiatives a better chance of success.

Start with a review of the company brand (values, vision, focus areas, values). Are they clear? Are they still relevant? Do they provide guide strategy and trade-off decisions? A lot of time can be wasted on doing things that progress Strategy and simply don’t add value. Objective-Key Result (OKR) planning helps here

Effective communication and collaboration are vital for successful CX strategy implementation. CX executives need to foster open lines of communication with both internal and external stakeholders. This includes regularly sharing insights, updates, and progress with the executive team, employees, and customers. Collaborative tools and platforms can facilitate seamless information sharing and teamwork across departments. By building strong relationships and fostering a collaborative environment, CX leaders can drive collective ownership and accountability for customer experience outcomes.