How to become a future-fit leader in customer experience

According to David Hicks, chairman of XM Coach and facilitator of CX Network’s Masterclass, CX is maturing, which means there is a new need to deliberately design all experiences for all stakeholders. CX is also expanding to encompass more business functions and people than ever before. But while this is happening, some business leaders are losing faith in CX altogether.

In this interview, David explains what it all means for CX practitioners and how a fresh focus – and more sleep – could be the answer.

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CX Network: CX has always been talked about as part of the wider total experience (TX) ecosystem, but recently we have seen the CX function and role become much broader than just customers and it now encompasses more elements of TX. In your opinion, why is this happening?

David Hicks: I agree with Gartner’s analysis of this and there are two sides to it. As the marketing textbooks state, every product has a lifecycle that starts with a period of real growth, followed by slower growth and finally a decline.

In the field of experience, CXPA was started 10 or more years ago now, some of the first CX papers from Forrester and Gartner were published 15 years ago. We need to watch out for when CX is going to mature.

Typically, when something matures, there is consolidation in the market, for example vendors, and we are already seeing that in CX, and performance flattens as we are seeing with NPS scores. There is quite a lot from a product lifecycle perspective that suggests customer experience management (CX) is starting to mature.

What is also happening post Covid-19, is colleagues – especially 20-35 year olds, the very people you need to be agile – want to be part of something with purpose, if not, we’re seeing that they leave. That means employee experience (EX) is starting to become an effective way to drive retention and business results. If you are not deliberately designing your EX, when people experience your CX, it feels pretty hollow; it is not very authentic. That is now coming into sharp focus.

Looking ahead as bots become even more central to experience, I think people will start to question what is real, especially when talking to agents.

As this maturation happens there is a need to deliberately design experiences for more than just the customer. An experience must be deliberately designed for customers, colleagues, partners, indeed all stakeholders. This deliberate design is to ensure you optimize business outcomes from the emotional side of the equation as well as the rational.

CX Network: What is the difference between TX and XM?

David Hicks: Qualtrics acquired Temkin Group in 2018, after which they expanded the stakeholder group involved in CX. Prior to 2018, CX was only about making sure the experience worked for your customers, but XM bolted that customer and colleague experience together to create experience management (XM).

Coming up to date, Gartner says total experience (TX) is a realization that, as a leader, you have to lead business outcomes from experience delivered to all of your stakeholders – your suppliers, partners, customers and colleagues – and deliver an emotional outcome to all of them and that requires deliberate design.

I do see an evolution happening.

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CX Network: As you have explained, total experience is broad but CX has challenges in breaking out of its silo. Therefore, if CX leaders have to bring in or consult with new stakeholders, is there a risk CX could be marginalized in favour of a position that has more visibility across the business and can orchestrate that cohesive leadership piece? Or do you think CX leaders could see these additional experiences put under their leadership because they are the only people who understand experience?

David Hicks: That is a wonderful question.

One of the challenges leaders face is that there are some really interesting tools, approaches and solutions in the market and the more conferences and CXPA breakfasts you attend, the more interesting the discipline becomes. But with all this, people lose sight of the fact that none of it matters unless it is driving improved business outcomes.

It cannot just be the CX practitioner who understands experience and how to use these tools and approaches. You need to evolve and you will need to equip other people in the business to use these tools and approaches, too.

They will not be interested in them for what they are, but they will be interested in these tools and approaches if there is a critical business project happening. Someone’s career will be pegged on that and if you say “I've got some tools here that will help you accelerate and de-risk your program. Are you interested?” They will embrace it.

Then you drop in mapping, metrics and so on, because it will be useful at that point.

Post Covid-19, people want to be part of something with purpose. That means employee experience (EX) is starting to become an effective way to drive results.

You have got to be ready to change the way you work. It cannot just be you who is the expert, or the smartest person in the in the room. You have to be prepared to hand these tools across then your role becomes one of a coach, who advocates and champions rather than being an expert.

Doing that is not easy and a whole bunch of people either cannot or will not do that. For those who do, you will best be an irritant, at worst, you will be ignored.

We have already seen a lot of top CX roles at big brands being made redundant, so you need to listen hard to what the priorities of the business are and support their delivery, because it is going be even harder for the next year or two.

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CX Network: CX is already a fast-moving area of business without the additional career challenges and XM expansions you have outlined. Our Global State of CX research for 2023 found that one of the biggest challenges for practitioners at present is competing priorities. How should practitioners prioritise their targets and their workloads right now? And in a fast-moving organization, what should be prioritised?

David Hicks: I am asked this question half a dozen times a week now.

I think CX leaders are looking at the world through a particular lens and that lens needs to change. For them to be effective as a leader, they do not need to “see” like a leader but to operate quite differently as an individual.

What is coming into sharp focus is the importance of starting at home. You need to be in the best possible shape as an individual and you need to surround yourself with a support structure before you start to try and work out what things you should be spending time on. Start there, get the right amount of sleep, be focused on the number of hours you allow yourself to work and you will do a better job leading this agenda in your business.

Your role to lead experience in an organization requires that you are collaborative, perceptive and it requires you to be very, very discerning around the things that you put your time into. Otherwise, your efforts will get dissolved across all of the things that you can do in an organization. That starts with how you see yourself and how you see your role. Consider:

Empowerment: You need to give trust and freedom in return for responsible action and accountability from every co-worker and partner. XM leaders need to emphasize continuous improvement, endorsing process excellence initiatives as the cornerstone of growth and reinvention.

Collaboration: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. XM leaders need to find that inner balance – dare I say selflessness – as they make every part in the ecosystem seamless and ultimately successful. 

Evangelizing: Leaders must lead with purpose, contributing to the greater good – this is paramount to intrinsic motivation, doing something for inherent satisfaction rather than for consequence.

Nurturing: You need to build and foster a nurturing environment, supporting each employee's professional and personal development. Employees will in time realize that it is not just that work makes them feel good but that they feel good about themselves.

Energizing and growth: As an agent of change do not underestimate the power of personal energy. You are only as good professionally as your ability to be ready personally.

By the very nature of CX, you cannot pick a single task and use that as your priority, you need to have another plan, a strategy. If that strategy is rooted in the well-being aspect and preparing yourself as a leader, I think a lot of people are going to take that on board and hopefully find it useful.

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