Bringing a long-term vision to CX

As the person who oversees the Voice of Customer program for Australian supermarket chain Coles, Claire Cunningham understands what customers want. 

Passionate about data – and inspiring that passion in her colleagues – Cunningham has spearheaded a number of breakthrough initiatives that have notably improved CX for customers online and in-store, which she shares in this video interview. 

As she joins the CX Network Advisory Board, Claire explains why customer service is close to her heart, why CX practitioners need to adopt a long-term perspective when  proving the value of their work, and how she brings her corporate experience to supporting start-ups and SMEs to improve their CX.

Don't miss any news, updates or insider tips from CX Network by getting them delivered to your inbox. Sign up to our newsletter and join our community of experts. 

Learn More

CX Network: Tell us about your work at Coles and The Customer Connexion.

Claire Cunningham: I've worked across a few different areas at Coles. Currently I oversee the Voice of Customer program; primarily using customer feedback to look for problems and solutions across our stores and online customer experiences. Previously I directed the customer experience strategy for store checkouts across both tech and customer service. 

In addition to Coles, I run my own CX consultancy, The Customer Connexion. I primarily work with start-ups and small businesses to see their customer experience through fresh eyes to understand where their gaps and pain points are. Mainly we work on building customer-centric cultures that lead to a higher ROI with simple changes in processes, communications, and through service workshops. 

CX Network: What’s the most rewarding or exciting aspect of working in CX today?

Claire Cunningham: The most rewarding thing is always seeing a customer-centric or customer-obsessed organization thrive! I LOVE to see businesses that put their customer at the heart of everything they do, grow and accelerate. Honestly, it always feels like a great "I told you so," especially when they smash their competition out of the playing field. 

When a company is so focused on building the best experience or product for their customer and they are rewarded with profit and growth it just feels so right! 

For me that is the reason I'm in CX – to see businesses make money from providing something amazing that people like and enjoy. That's the whole goal. 

CX Network: CX is a broad field that can draw on many specialties. Which area of CX are you most passionate about?

Claire Cunningham: To be honest customer service is so close to my heart. That's where I started out and I think it's the most prevalent pain point for a lot of customers and the easiest thing to fix. 

First and foremost it really speaks to the employee experience and how that impacts the customer experience as a whole. Happy employees give great service. Great service means happy customers. Happy customers come back again and again. It's really the human interactions that make such a difference. 

I think a lot of places overthink customer service and overcomplicate it or conversely don't give it the attention it deserves. For the remaining pieces of the journey that still rely on the human touch versus artificial intelligence (AI) or automation, I think it's more important than ever to make sure the people who are working in that space are supported and happy, so they can make your sure your customers are supported and happy. 

CX Network: What do you see as the biggest challenge CX faces?

Claire Cunningham: To me the battle is always demonstrating a return on investment. Whether it's AI implementation, investing in insights platforms, or training and upskilling teams, CX is  inherently a long-term strategy and has a lot of "touchy feely" elements that don't translate neatly into immediate financial metrics. 

It's much easier to show short-term wins by cutting a service, reducing headcount, or finding a cheaper way to make a product. It's easy to celebrate those things in the heat of the moment when that's the new cool program everyone is excited about. 

Long term growth and human feelings aren't as sexy. That's the challenge a lot of CX practitioners bump up against, showing the financial gains one to five years later because of a change in process, or an internal recognition program that highlights employees who do a great job. 

CX Network: What is the best professional advice you've ever received?

Claire Cunningham: The best professional advice I've ever received came from Jaqui Scammell, one of the most service-oriented CX practitioners I know. 

We were talking about how difficult it can be to make a tangible impact inside a large corporation such as Coles and she said to me, 'Find the one thing that you want to be famous for.'

It completely changed my directional approach at work. Not long after, I found that 'one thing,' spearheading the removal of the front-facing on-screen 'cameras' at the checkouts.  It was complex and time-consuming, but the results were worth it. That advice really helped me on where to focus my energy in a large place with a lot of competing priorities. It's now something I'm happy to say I've been able to pass on to others who want to make their mark.

CX Network: What do you believe to be the most important thing happening in CX right now?

Claire Cunningham: Honestly the most important thing happening in CX right now is that... it's finally happening! So many organizations are finally standing up their first CX teams and building proper strategies. They are sitting up and taking notice of their competitors and realizing that technical efficiency alone isn’t enough to win. The companies pulling ahead are the ones investing in understanding their customers. 

We're now at a point where we can point to so many companies that didn't evolve to meet their customer needs. 

They were industry behemoths and were too comfortable with their position in the market. They didn't listen to what their customers wanted and over time they sank. 

The short-term initiatives were not enough to save them because they didn't invest in the long term. That is changing now and we're seeing a lot of startups take over giants because they are so close to what their customers are saying. Hooray for CX!!

Quick links

• Why CX leaders should build a "yes" culture
• Ebrahim Hyder of Michael Kors builds a customer-centric call center
• Employee engagement 101: Rethinking EX in the age of declining trust