#30 | DCX - Perspectives and insights on digital customer experience
From Jr. Manager to CX Leader: A 5-Step Action Plan; Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning; Links to Industry news, ideas, insights, and the DCX Thought Leader of the week
From Jr. Manager to CX Leader: A Five-Step Action Plan
Are you a junior CX manager looking to take the next step in your career and become a leader in the field?
As a long-time CX executive, I've experienced firsthand what it takes to climb the ladder. When starting my CX career, I remember feeling overwhelmed and unsure of how to take the next step. But through hard work, dedication, and a willingness to learn, I was able to level up and become the leader I am today.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
Understand the business and your customers: As a CX leader, it's essential to have a deep understanding of the business and its goals and the needs and expectations of your customers. This will help you develop strategies that align with the business and deliver value to customers.
Build relationships: As a junior CX manager, you'll likely work with various stakeholders, including customers, team members, and other departments. Building solid relationships with these stakeholders is essential for success. Focus on building trust and credibility by being responsive, reliable, and transparent.
Develop leadership skills: Leading a team requires different skills than managing one. To level up to a leadership role, you'll need to develop your leadership skills, such as communication, collaboration, decision-making, and problem-solving. Consider taking a course or finding a mentor to help you develop these skills.
Demonstrate your value: As a junior CX manager, you'll need to prove that you can take on a leadership role. One way to do this is by demonstrating the value you bring to the business. Identify areas where you can impact and deliver results, and be proactive in sharing your successes with your boss and other stakeholders.
Seek growth opportunities: Look for opportunities to take on additional responsibilities and challenges that will help you grow and develop as a CX leader. This could include leading a project, speaking at an industry event, or taking on a new role within the company.
To sum it up, becoming a CX leader requires understanding the business, building relationships, developing leadership skills, demonstrating value, and seeking growth opportunities.
To make it happen, stay focused on your goals, be proactive, and don’t be afraid to ask for help when needed. You can achieve great things in your career with hard work and dedication.
This week’s DCX Newsletter is supported by:
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"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." - Bill Gates.
As a customer experience leader looking to improve your business and retain customers, you may want to consider the words of Bill Gates: "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."
But what does this mean, and how can you turn unhappy customers into valuable learning opportunities?
First of all, research has shown that unhappy customers are more likely to provide feedback. A study published in the Journal of Marketing found that customers who had a negative experience were more likely to share their thoughts.
Addressing the concerns of unhappy customers can not only improve their individual experience but also positively impact potential customers' perceptions.
So, how can you find unhappy customers’ feedback?
Surveys: Use surveys to gather feedback from customers about their experiences. Make sure to use open-ended questions to allow customers to share their thoughts and feelings in their own words.
Social listening: Use social media monitoring tools to track mentions of your brand and gather customer feedback to identify patterns and trends in customer sentiment and identify areas for improvement.
Call and chat transcriptions: Transcribe customer calls and chat conversations to gather valuable feedback and identify common issues and areas of your customer service process that may need improvement.
Customer callbacks can also be a powerful way to encourage unhappy customers to speak up and share their feedback. In addition, a callback allows you to give personalized attention to the customer, which can help to build trust and demonstrate that you value their business.
But why go to all this trouble?
Because unhappy customers can be a valuable source of information for your business.
A survey by American Express found that 78% of consumers have bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase due to a poor customer experience.
This shows the importance of listening to and addressing the concerns of unhappy customers to retain their business and prevent lost sales.
So, don't just brush off complaints from unhappy customers. Instead, see them as an opportunity to learn and improve. By actively listening to and addressing their concerns, you can turn their negative experiences into positive ones, ultimately benefiting your business in the long run.
Etc.
Links to Industry news, ideas, insights, and the DCX Thought Leader Linkedin Profile of the week
Moving past e-commerce to NeXT commerce | McKinsey
According to this article from McKinsey, e-commerce needs a significant upgrade grounded in a commitment to become indispensable to the customer through an exponentially deeper level of engagement online and offline. Delivering on this vision requires companies to put digitally driven commerce at the center of their organizations so they can orchestrate experiences that meet customers’ ever-rising expectations. McKinsey calls this next horizon of value NeXT commerce.
The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI (maggieappleton.com)
The dark forest theory of the web points to the increasingly life-like but life-less state of being online
A flood of Large Language Model (LLM) copywriting and content-generation products has come out in the last six months. These new models are poised to flood the web with generic, generated content. We're about to drown in a sea of pedestrian takes. Goodbye to finding original human insights or authentic connections under that pile of cruft.
Bad experiences are driving customers away—faster than you think
Imagine losing one-quarter of your customers in a single day. For good. Because that’s precisely what could happen after just one bad customer experience. In the U.S., even when people love a company or product, 59% will walk away after several bad experiences and 17% after just one bad experience.
This week’s DCX Newsletter is Supported by:
DCX Thought Leader Linkedin Profile of the week
Every week, I share a person's profile from Linkedin that I think will benefit your life and career.
This week, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, co-author of Empathy in Action.
Dr. Natalie Petouhoff is a senior advisor to the CEO at Genesys, Tony Bates. She is the co-author of Empathy in Action, How to Deliver Great Customer Experiences at Scale.
A customer and employee-obsessed leader, Dr. Natalie is leading a revolution in bringing empathy into the executive suite. She is deeply committed to inclusion and diversity. She has been voted top 250 Most Influential Women & Top 50 Customer Service, AI, CX, Field Service, Online Communities, Social Media & CRM Professionals.
Natalie and I recently talked about the book, her desire to make a difference, and how she turned to CX from particle physics.
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