What is "The State of CX" in 2020? Where is #GoodCX?

or...."What is “The Current Vision of the CX Industry”

(Before we start, and now that I have the obligatory ‘2020 Dad Joke’ out of the way, this is a rant that may rankle a few feathers within those who describe themselves as “Customer Experience Practitioners.” That being said, I’m always one who isn’t afraid to express a well thought out opinion publicly – so apologies to those whom I might “offend” – but, from my viewpoint, it needs to be stated. 

If nothing else, in the hopes that it spurs some type of conversation that will hopefully help all of us in the CX world in the long run – especially given the current sad state of affairs in CX within global companies these days. I will also not be indulging in any “predictions” of what is going to happen in CX over the next year in this effort either – if you want something like that, please feel free to read the catalogue of prior LinkedIn posts – most of them written four-plus years ago and the issues discussed in them still plague the CX community to this day – which says something in itself I’d say. With that out of the way, on with the show…)

So here we find ourselves in 2020 – where the “CX industry” seems more focused on congratulating itself on events like appearing on year-end “Top ‘X’ lists” and achieving obscure certifications that those outside the industry have no comprehension about -- then actually moving CX forward and tackling the continuing “big issues” at hand that having been screaming out for help for a number of years. 

Rather than being focused on providing the greatest outstanding need in the industry – valid, hard-earned CX experience that drives some type of value across the scope of an entire company – it seems CX has slipped into a field of irrelevance for far too many companies and their leadership groups (beyond the usual publicly-expressed lip service uttered about how “important” customers might be – without viable action behind the words.)

The CX space seemingly is adopting the next wave of behaviour that engulfs ineffective and bloviating industries like “modern advertising” – where it becomes all about self-congratulatory circle jerk actions, and “winning” virtually meaningless awards for the PR value -- rather than driving verifiable results and providing long-term and obvious significance to our companies and/or clients.

We can pretty much all acknowledge that there are a number of stark and outstanding issues in the CX space that should concern us as a collective going forward. 

For one, there have been several high-profile failures with Chief Customer Officers being appointed in global companies over the past few years – and summarily being quickly marginalised/dismissed as they can’t realistically display a level of value & need within their organisation that makes their presence required in the C-Suite. (Listed here are some of the reasons that is it difficult for a CCO to fit in a large organisation and how they have a tough time wading through all the potential problems – using a famous Drucker quote as its basis.)

I personally spend a lot of time speaking with CEOs and senior executives for global companies (or trying to do so – it’s getting more difficult to get their attention on the topic of Customer Experience given its continuing waning value in corporate boardrooms) – and CX continues to be seen as a “nice to have” requirement for a large majority of them (at best.) (Listed here is some of the reasons why it is important to target the CEO when you are trying to discuss Customer Experience in an organisation.)

In no way do most senior executives feel, at this current time, they need to “transform” their business to orientate it towards the needs of their customers (other than in a temporary public relations effort, when required. “Paying lip service” to an idea continues to be a powerful tool still these days.) 

CEOs and Board Of Directors (BOD) seemingly tend to see it as not conducive to the goals of their organisation because it takes “too much” – time, money, effort, etc. – and they haven’t been shown the value of what good CX can bring to their own “unique” situation (for a variety of different reasons – some of which I’ll get into later…and some in which I’ve discussed at somewhat great length in previous posts.)

Despite the success of companies like Amazon who as we all know have CX truly at the core of every facet of the company (and Jeff Bezos driving every employee to consistently demand that it remains that way going forward), CEOs don’t seem to want to invest either the time of the company (or their personal time either), budget or effort in truly aligning the needs of their customers with the companies they run. It is seen as something they can put off – for months at a time – and never really addressed as a “core issue” for their company to work on.

But you can see some of the reasoning behind that – without the right set of people who are focused on providing a constant state of value and not only solving problems, but preventing major issues from ever occurring, and showing the inherent value that is derived from “Good CX”, the consequence of CX investment remains sketchy to that particular audience, despite the obvious benefits if done well (that caveat being critical to the argument.)

As always, you have large global consulting companies selling “snake oil” of the Customer Experience variety to their clients – that makes it difficult for the entire CX industry as well. 

“Like what?” you may ask yourself. Let’s start at something like Bain and NPS – for example.

(Before I start in on this seemingly thorny issue, I’m going to get into more of an overall takedown of stupid wastes of time and money in the CX world like NPS in the next couple of weeks. I wrote three pages on the subject in my latest whitepaper last year – and that was apparently just the tip of the iceberg. I think I’ll delve a bit further soon enough so we can put it to bed – hopefully six feet under on a permanent basis.)

Of course, history tells us that Fred Reichheld was "kind enough" to create “Net Promoter Score” as part of Bain Consulting back in 2003 – and one can understand the basic simplistic reasoning behind it. 

Something akin to the thought process of “let’s make it really easy for companies and their executive suites to understand a process by making it a stat that goes from -100 to 100 and we’ll jam “loyalty” as the reasoning. 

The whole process won’t include much detail or relevant information, won’t show what the root of the many problems is exactly, and it definitely won’t tell clients how to fix the outstanding issues – but otherwise, it’s the “perfect system.” That way it will be easy for us to sell as something they need going forward – everyone can understand 0-100 – and even negative numbers too! How avant-garde of us….”

It created a great sensation for those in the loyalty/customer satisfaction/customer engagement/customer experience world. “Here is a ‘standard’ we can all get behind, and it’s set to a basic numerical criterion too!” is pretty much what I envision most of those who hock NPS would say to the “new standard” – and pretty much continues on today.

But at the heart of NPS – it must be considered a vanity metric, at best. Sure the “system of NPS” (because of course, now it has now “evolved” and is considered a “System”, not just a “Score”) might be the next thing next to godliness in the “Customer Loyalty” arena – but, for one, the foundations of what it is built on are laughable – especially when it comes to interjecting the needs of actual humans. 

“NPS experts” will, of course, insist that the foundation is unshakable – but for some reason, it is so easily gamed that it is possible to make a company look like the “Best NPS” company…or the worst…in just a few simple steps depending on how the individual wants to use the information at hand. 

These same NPS “experts” will say it is the fault of the human interaction with the System – again, the “System” of NPS – but it is amusing that the system is built on measuring the human interaction of people with companies – but shouldn’t consider how those same humans might want to manipulate the “System” to put themselves in a potential better light when given the opportunity. Skipped over quickly is the fact of it being far too easy to allow for that consideration (especially when it comes to tying improvement of NPS scores to year-end bonus payments – for one example.)

Perhaps the biggest indictment of NPS would be that Amazon – the bloody gold standard in Customer Experience across all measures of how to conduct an effective, long-standing and profitable relationship with a customer – has a currently estimated score of “-8” in 2020. That’s a hell of a “System” Fred and Bain created there…epic work!

Now the reason I mention NPS – but promise more is that it has to do with the next bit I want to discuss…

Wasn’t sure how I wanted to frame the next component – so we’ll use a somewhat tired CX standard phrase to discuss the next bit:

"Customer experience is not a department"

(To finish off the thought that accompanies that credo -- rather, in a “fully aligned customer-centric company”, there is no need for a ‘CX department’ as it should be deeply ingrained in every aspect of a company – its executives, its products, its decision-making process, its business processes, its customer interactions, its communications, etc.)

It is true, and it is a very worn statement at this point – and it clearly hasn’t resonated with most CEOs and BODs – as it continues to be a department…. If that, within a vast majority of large companies – far too commonly residing in a single “solo” within the corporate structure.

I personally relate best by using real-life examples in the anecdotes I try to relay to potential readers – so I’ll mention one company’s journey with Customer Experience here in the UK. 

It comes from my personal interactions with them and their leadership regarding their “attempts” at improving Customer Experience over the past few years. (I was going to do two examples originally – the other example being a large UK-based retail chain -- but due to excessive word count already, I may have to do a “Part II” at some point down the road if someone feels the need to glean more from this subject...)

So, let’s look at the trials and tribulations of CX at a large UK-based financial services provider. They appointed a new CEO a few years ago – and, in their first public statement in the new role, they publicly touted that the customers were going to be their top priority (we’ll skip over the “increasing shareholder value of every publicly traded company” as the true priority of every FS company for the time being.)

Like most CEOs, they had a “favourite” global consulting company – and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the aforementioned creator of NPS – Bain Consulting (ed note: it doesn’t really matter that it was Bain to be fair. A number of large consulting companies all have the same weaknesses – particularly in regard to Customer Experience in that their main goal seems not to solve the problems at hand, but soak up hefty consulting fees and proposing the next effort to do so – to keep the “gravy train” consistently rolling. The fact that it was Bain, in this case, is just simpatico to the story to be told.)

Hordes of Bain junior consultants were parachuted into the institution across the scope of the company with the marching orders of increasing the NPS scores as the main driver – given “carte blanche” in order to achieve their goals.

I had my first interaction with the CEO about a year after his appointment when I was giving a CX keynote at a big conference and had asked him to provide some context into the notes I was putting together for the engagement.

In addition to providing me some valuable feedback, the CEO was kind enough to give me some introductions to their colleagues across the scope of the institution to have a few discussions with them -- and see where it may lead and how my firm may be able to help out and assist in some of the “blind spots” missed.

At that initial point it was about a year or so into Bain’s appointment as well, and it was relayed to me that the executives were letting them get on with the work at that point, and there had not been any results shown as of yet in terms of Customer Experience and/or any improvement in the “NPS score.”

Hold up! A year-plus into the engagement and they haven’t shown any value for being onsite with an army of well-paid consultants? And apparently this is not a problem for leadership. *** Hrm…warning bells going off left, right and centre. ***

About three months after that initial meeting, they appointed a new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO.) It was suggested to me that it might be a good idea to chat with them – once they were settled in. Meeting about six-eight weeks into the tenure, there was not much information to be conveyed at that point given the relative “newness” of the post – but I had done my homework on the new appointee through talking to various people in my network, and they were known to be a “straight shooter”, so I was encouraged by at least that information. 

The CMO and I reconvened about six months later to chat again – in that time, the CMO was handed the reigns to “The Customer” by the CEO’s office. All things customer-related were now going through the CMO and their team. (Of course, another warning sign to achieving CX “success” going off by letting it be solely marketing-driven…)

At this point, they were still letting Bain get on with the work – there was no direct feedback on the work that had been done over the previous 18 months – no improvement in anything NPS-related (of course.)

To add to that bit of predictable news, regular news reports on almost a daily basis started up about the problems that customers were having with the institution.

(If we fast forward a bit – and take the collective years from the appointment of the CEO up until the end of 2018, during this time, this particular institution lost the most customers relative to their competitors during this block of time – by a fair distance. 

As in millions upon millions of customers across all their brands – and losing billions of pounds during this time too for a variety of well-documented reasons – and no one could fault the customers for leaving given the circumstances. Now back to our regularly scheduled “story time” here…)

I’m not exactly sure on the timing of all of this as I wasn’t privy to the exact details in every case – and I had a number of other things happening during this time – but the CMO held onto “The Customer” designation (and all that came along with it) for somewhere in the 12-18 month time period. 

After that stint in marketing, responsibility for CX was shunted back to the separate divisions within the company – and each division was responsible for dealing with their own customer base again. So much for the “Single Customer View” potential contained within that potential set-up – it was now once again “Every person for themselves!”

Before the dissolution of that version of “The Customer” set-up though, I had an opportunity to chat with the CMO yet again – and this is where the first rumblings of dissatisfaction with the work that Bain has been conducting over the past two years were expressed to me. 

The CMO expressed interest in getting my team in to look at how to improve the results and value because they weren’t getting much at all from Bain. Alas, the “Customer Portfolio” was removed from their responsibility before serious discussions could take place – and replaced with general disarray of no one taking direct responsibility for CX. 

I was very lucky though -- I had a central point of contact (appointed by the CEO) during this entire process who was very kind to offer various types of advice and keep me apprised of potential audiences to have relevant discussions with. As an aside, they were also an incredibly kind human being too – rare in this current business world.

They suggested I approach one of their biggest divisions – and there was a “Head of Customer Experience” in this particular department too. (Bonus!) I held a series of conversations with one individual over the course of a few months (I tend not to push too hard on people in terms of getting work….think it is something I need to work on personally…but I digress.)

Included in our discussion was some of the feedback I had garnered from the CMO about the work Bain has been doing (or, in retrospect, “not doing” given their lack of success in anything Customer Experience-related.) 

They agreed that there needed to be something better out there – and they would have to work to figure out how to move budget being paid to Bain and free it up to get some of their goals as a “CX department” (there’s those words again) met.

Of course, in that time period, the “Head of CX” in this division shifted roles to a new role to be replaced by the increasingly popular…. the infamous ”No One.”

That’s correct. 

The role and its responsibilities went into “the ether” with the elimination of it in the corporate structure – a huge win for advancing the cause of CX there! Apparently, there was no indication to senior management that the role was required within the current corporate set-up – so they just eliminated it all together – it being surplus to requirements.

Around that time, I decided that the entire scenario that had played out over the previous four-plus years would make an interesting “case study” on how deploying Customer Experience in a large organisation could be a dismal failure in so few steps.

So, condensing the notes I had from all the previous interactions (phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.) I tried my hand at putting something together that included not only the journey of CX in the organisation over the past few years, but potential ways to repair some of the damage, get the current CX initiative back on track, and provide a potential roadmap on how to successfully deploy Customer Experience across the organisation on a long-term basis.

I ended up with about a 20-page document after my first draft – and asked my initial contact at the FS company if he would mind having a look at it and share his thoughts with me. After reviewing it, they thought it was great and advised me to send it to a few senior people in the organisation to gather their feedback as well.

I sent it to a dozen people or so (mostly MD-level types) across the organisation -- in all areas (technology, strategy, marketing, legal, product, etc.) and got feedback from approximately half of them. The feedback I received was that the ideas mentioned in the document were well thought out and it was the kinds of ideas the organisation needed to get a suitable return on using Customer Experience as a driver for their business.

The main issue (and of course it was) was that none of the people who provided me feedback wanted to put forward the document to their superiors – for the simple reason that the culture the company had created over the past decade was that the best course of action for employees was to keep their heads down and not create too many waves.

As it was explained to me later by a person who recently left the company, employees who seemingly drew attention to themselves for any reason – be it proposing a new way of doing things or trying to “right a wrong” in the business tended to find themselves not employed in the organisation not too long after that. (Yes… another massive warning sign for the entire CX effort – from the Employment Engagement piece this time.)

In a bid to show some initiative on my part, I decided to re-engage directly with the CEO again. I used the feedback to improve the document I produced – making it more relevant and touching on some issues that I previously hadn’t had insight into (although not getting into some of the more sensitive specifics learned throughout the years) – and packaged it all together and sent it and a finely-crafted email to the CEO.

Success!

The CEO asked me to get in contact with a divisional CEO to chat and see how it might all work. 

Within a couple of weeks of this occurring, the group CEO then publicly announced that they were leaving the institution – and that they had a 12-month waiting period until their contract was up and that they would move on. The search for a new CEO would begin “immediately.”

(ed note: Why me!)

But the meeting with the divisional CEO was set up for the following weeks (getting a mutually agreed time in the diary proved to be a bit of a challenge) – but we finally met up and had a frank discussion. They informed me that they’d finally fired Bain after 5-6 years of working with them, and it had been a colossal waste of time and money to keep that relationship going as long as they did. (Shocker!)

The “NPS Score” never improved, the relationships with customers was as bad as it had ever been -- and in the act of getting rid of them, things had improved on their own with the involvement of Bain.

Now, despite all the mutually agreed “love for CX” displayed in the meeting, I still had reason to be concerned. The divisional CEO was the same one who eliminated the senior CX role in his own organisational chart -- stating it was unnecessary. But hope springs eternal, right?

Well perhaps not… the meeting happened…and then nothing happened. I attempted several times to elicit feedback from the divisional CEO – and none was forthcoming. “No news – and no timeframe on next steps at this point” was what I received from both the divisional CEO and his team over a few months.

The new CEO (ed note: new “Head CEO”? I’m not sure how companies have more than one CEO, to be honest) was named though after a lengthy search – and everyone apparently felt very optimistic about the future (at least publicly.)

If we fast forward to the present day, the new CEO (not the divisional one) has publicly stated in their statement upon their getting the role that “customers will be at the forefront of how the company operates going forward.”

Seems hauntingly familiar. The new corporate strategy is planned to be unveiled next month (one cynic who I spoke with before the most recent holiday break, and is still employed by the company, has dubbed it “The New Valentine’s Day Massacre.”)

Summation and Parting Thoughts

Why did I mention this institution in relaying the story of the status of CX? Because it is a microcosm of scenes that play out in large corporations the world over regarding meeting the requirements for successful Customer Experience. It is not an isolated case in any sense. 

I truly believe that there are a few select CEOs out there with the best of intentions to introduce/grow/”supersize” their CX efforts (especially given the potential payoff across the board.) 

But I am also fully aware that the mechanisations of the modern-day global company can side-line those aspirations of CX success in a million different ways. It takes a purpose of Herculean efforts to keep the focus on something as wide-ranging as successful Customer Experience requires. It’s one of the reasons there aren’t a million companies following the “Amazon model” to success (despite what their NPS numbers say, I've heard they are doing all right for themselves at the moment...)

In this particular instance, the original CEO of the FS institution had a number of complicated issues (most of them leftover legacy from previous leadership, and not of their creation) to deal with over the course of their term – so they outsourced “The Customer” to the wrong party. A party that was clearly ill-equipped to handle the responsibility in a multitude of ways. 

But using another tired business credo – “No one gets fired for hiring IBM…” (or Bain in this case.) it was a “safe pair of hands” to get the work done.  The flip side is that rarely doesn’t any corporation glean something positive by outsourcing critical work to a third party that is so ill-equipped to handle it.

The UK institution finds itself today no better off than when it started the effort – other than lighter by a few million £££ in consulting fees. The NPS score under “the system” got no better. Customers are still leaving, and those who stay seemingly stay because they can’t be bothered to set up a relationship with a new institution – but still don’t feel that they are “cared for.”

As a discipline, in a vast majority of big companies, Customer Experience continues to be relegated to a department – if it exists at all – within the typical corporate structure – usually under the purview of marketing or operations. It is not something that CEOs tend to concern themselves with as it seems to have had “it’s time in the sun.” It is regularly punted around the corporate structure like a “hot potato” – no one exactly sure what to do with it – or how to make a triumph of it either.

That being said, myself and a few others continue to try and raise the profile to the appropriate levels. But as mentioned, it is getting more difficult given the constant undercutting of wasted time, budget and efforts in earlier (or on-going) efforts.

Customer Experience itself seems to have undergone rebranding now too – how very modern advertising too – where everyone is talking about “Customer Success” these days. 

Which seems to be about eliminating the difficult parts of CX (the “heavy lifting” piece – where real, actual change can occur), borrowing the latest Silicon Valley vibe (taken from SaaS companies) and making it seem all so easy to accomplish – because who doesn’t want “Success”, right? Take it as “CX Light” (or “CX Lite”) for these heady days.

Will there be a Phoenix-like rising of Customer Experience again? Or are we all just flogging a horse on its way to the glue factory?

So, what’s your take on where Customer Experience finds itself? Where do we go from here?

Thank you for reading this post, I hope you found it interesting and thought-provoking. In the age of social media and virality, if you would like and/or share it with your LinkedIn connections, I'd greatly appreciate it too.

I’d also love to hear what you think so please feel free to add your comments, suggestions or other ideas below. You can find more content here on LinkedIN or at www.ccoglobal.com/blog.

My name is Dan Collins -- CEO and Founder of CCO Global -- an international digitally infused Customer Experience (CX) firm. I’ve been working in the “digital” sphere and CX on a global level for several Fortune 500 companies for 25+ years.

If you’ve any questions about improving customer experience, digital efficiency, employee engagement or CX organisational effectiveness, please get in touch. I’m on +44 (0) 7799 803 195 or on email at hello@ccoglobal.com.