DCX # 129 | The One Question That Will Transform Your Customer Experience
Your biggest breakthrough might be hiding behind the idea you haven’t dared to entertain. It’s time to throw out the rulebook and rethink everything.
A new eCourse for CX professionals who lead, manage, or simply want to be heard—this is your playbook for building unshakable influence.
—Welcome to the DCX Newsletter—
Alright, let's shake things up a bit this week.
Think back to a time when you heard, 'That's impossible.'
What if everything you've ever thought was impossible for your customers was actually within reach?
That's the kind of thinking that redefines industries, and that’s exactly what we’re aiming for here.
Now, imagine you're the one who proves everyone wrong.
Are you ready to throw out the rulebook and rethink it all?
What would that mean for you, your team, and your customers?
OK, so here’s the question:
What would be an impossible experience for your customers?
It’s good, right? Makes you shake a little in your boots?
How would it feel if you could redefine what they expect from you entirely?
Picture that for a second—what if you could be the one to set the new standard?
I get it—'Impossible?' It sounds ridiculous, right?
Take a moment—jot down the first impossible experience that comes to mind.
What would totally blow your customers' minds?
Then, share it with your team to see what sparks.
Don't hold back—sometimes, the craziest ideas are the ones that lead to real magic.
Every major breakthrough started as an idea someone thought was impossible.
That’s why it's worth asking.
If you're not pushing boundaries, you're just standing still.
Don’t get caught up in the practical details right away—instead, use the question to push your mind to the edge, question rules you didn’t even realize you were following, and spark transformative breakthroughs.
It’s what you get when people stop saying, "That’s just how things are done," and start considering, "What if it didn’t have to be that way?"
Why Ask Impossible Questions?
Asking an impossible question feels strange—and that’s normal.
We're all trained to stay inside the boundaries of what's practical.
But stepping outside those boundaries is where breakthroughs happen.
This isn’t about playing it safe or taking baby steps—it’s about shaking things up, being bold, and changing the game.
The ideas that sound absurd at first? They’re the ones that change everything.
Consider companies like Tesla or SpaceX.
Affordable electric cars and reusable rockets were once seen as impossible, yet they redefined entire industries by challenging limitations and starting with impossible questions.
In customer experience (CX), we’ve got to think just as boldly.
Your customers don’t care about your operational headaches—they want an experience that blows them away.
So why not start asking those big, bold questions?
Even if you don’t get it perfect right away, you’ll end up creating something that’s leaps ahead of what’s out there today.
Impossible Ideas Made Real
To get you in the impossible idea mood, let’s look at a few examples of innovations that broke the rules and set new standards just in our lifetime. They all seemed impossible at the time but are now part of our everyday lives.
The Cell Phone
In the early 1980s, carrying a phone in your pocket seemed impossible.
Mobile phones were bulky, expensive, and limited. By the 2000s, companies like Apple reimagined the mobile phone, creating the smartphone—an all-in-one device for communication, computing, and entertainment.
Today, smartphones are essential, revolutionizing daily life.
The Internet: Before the 1990s, the concept of a global, interconnected network where anyone could access information seemed far-fetched.
Yet, the birth of the World Wide Web transformed how we live, work, and communicate, and now it's impossible to imagine life without it.
GPS Navigation
There was a time when the idea of pinpointing someone's location anywhere on Earth seemed impossible.
With the advent of GPS, initially for military use, and later made available to the public, it’s now a standard feature in every smartphone, guiding us through daily commutes and global adventures alike.
Bold Moves that are Redefining Industries
Retail: Imagine a retail experience where customers could enter a store, take whatever they wanted, and simply leave—without waiting in line, scanning anything, or even taking out a credit card.
It sounds impossible, right?
Well, Amazon Go made it a reality by leveraging cutting-edge AI, sensors, and machine learning to create a truly cashier-less shopping experience.
They didn't just ask what would make checkout faster—they asked how to remove checkout entirely.
Healthcare: Just over ten years ago, gene editing being used to cure previously untreatable genetic conditions seemed like science fiction.
But today CRISPR technology, driven by companies like Editas Medicine, is making it a reality.
In 2020, a patient with sickle cell anemia received a CRISPR-based treatment, effectively reversing the disease.
This kind of genetic editing, which was once thought impossible, is now a groundbreaking healthcare innovation that holds the promise of curing countless genetic disorders and is rapidly becoming part of the new medical frontier.
Transportation: The notion of car ownership is deeply ingrained in many cultures, but what if there was a way for people to have guaranteed, on-demand transportation without owning a car?
Companies like Uber and Lyft began answering that question, but what if it went further?
Imagine a world where no one owns cars, yet everyone has exactly what they need when they need it.
Not just a ride, but access to electric, self-driving vehicles that pick you up based on your schedule, know your preferences and are shared in a way that benefits the environment.
It’s a big leap from where we are, but the seeds of that idea are already here.
Shifting Mindsets
Why Playing It Safe Just Won't Cut It
Asking impossible questions isn’t just about innovation—it’s about shifting the mindset of your entire team.
It’s about building a culture where challenging the status quo is not just accepted but expected.
The exercise itself fosters resilience because grappling with the impossible requires you to rethink long-standing assumptions.
It’s an exercise in humility, creativity, and perseverance.
We stick with small improvements because they're safe.
They don’t shake things up too much.
But asking impossible questions—that's what forces us out of our comfort zones, and that’s where the real magic is.
When something feels out of reach, it pushes you to dig deeper, think differently, and that’s when breakthroughs happen.
The Ripple Effect
Once you start regularly asking impossible questions, you’ll see the effect ripple across your entire organization.
Your teams become more collaborative and more creative, and that kind of shared energy is what drives real innovation.
It gets people excited to come to work to be part of something visionary.
Teams become more engaged because the work they're doing feels purposeful and visionary.
Your customers begin to feel the difference, too—suddenly, their experiences with your brand are unlike anything they’ve encountered elsewhere.
Think about Apple’s iPhone launch in 2007.
A phone without buttons seemed impossible, and many doubted it would work. But Apple asked, "What if we made a phone that’s nothing like a phone?"
Today, that concept has become the norm.
Your 'impossible' might not change the entire world, but it could completely change your customer's world.
And for them, that means everything—turning an ordinary moment into something extraordinary.
It could make their day smoother, their lives easier, or turn their experience with your brand into something they’ll never forget.
And often, that little bit of magic is all it takes to turn a customer into a lifelong fan who talks about your brand with that glimmer in their eye.
Challenge for the Week
So this week, I want to challenge you:
Gather your team, sit down, and ask them to contemplate the impossible.
What are the crazy ideas you’ve had that you dismissed too quickly?
Which ones did your team think were out of reach?
What would customers never expect because it's supposedly impossible?
What’s that one experience no one else in your industry would dare to promise?
Then, break, and schedule a one-hour session with your team to generate at least three impossible ideas.
Share them. Debate them.
Pick one that you can prototype or test next week.
And don’t stop there—share it publicly.
Post about it, tag your peers, and see what kind of conversations start.
Let's get uncomfortable together.
Push yourselves out of your comfort zones.
Even if it feels ridiculous, even if people laugh or roll their eyes, lean into the discomfort.
Remember, the greatest innovations often start as ideas that others doubt.
I remember back in 2001, when I was at YourMobile/Moviso (later acquired by Infospace), we took on what seemed like an impossible idea—selling simple, single-note melodies, known as monophonic ringtones, to cell phones for $0.99 each.
It sounded crazy at first, but it eventually brought in hundreds of millions in revenue and kicked off the rapid evolution of the phone as an entertainment device.
The best innovations often start with a laugh, followed by, 'Wait a minute... what if?'"
You might be surprised how those "impossible" ideas start to morph into bold but achievable goals.
Even if you don't get there overnight, you’ll have pushed the boundary of what's possible. And that's how you leapfrog the competition.
So go ahead and give it a shot.
What’s stopping you from being the one who changes everything?
You might just find that your next great innovation isn’t as impossible as you thought.
Let’s create a movement—what impossible questions are you coming up with?
Drop them in the comments or reply back.
Let’s inspire each other, push our limits, and generate ideas that could revolutionize our approach to customer experience.
Imagine if we did this together—how much more could we achieve?
NEW from DCX: How to Turn Every Department into “Team Customer”
Want to build a true customer-first culture? The CX Leader’s Guide to Organizational Buy-In is your blueprint for getting every department—whether it’s customer service, sales, product, tech, finance, or HR—aligned with customer-centric practices.
Packed with actionable strategies, this guide shows how aligning team goals with customer needs drives real, measurable success. No fluff, no filler—just proven tips to get everyone on the same page. If you’re ready to turn theory into practice, this is the roadmap you’ve been waiting for.
The Impossible Question Workshop Toolkit
Ready to shake things up?
This toolkit is here to help you and your team rethink what’s possible and break out of conventional CX thinking. Use it to run an 'Impossible Question' workshop, with simple steps and prompts to guide you.
Step 1: Get Different Perspectives
The more variety, the better the ideas. Invite people from different teams—CX, product, marketing, operations. Make sure everyone knows it’s a no-judgment zone. All ideas are welcome, no matter how wild.
Step 2: Define Your Goal
Start by setting a clear, customer-focused goal. Something like, “How can we create an experience for our customers that no one in our industry would believe possible?” Keep it broad and centered on the customer to open the door to disruptive thinking.
Step 3: Ask the Impossible Question
Craft a question that challenges the norms in your industry. For example:
Retail: “How can we make shopping entirely frictionless?”
Financial Services: “How could we create a banking experience with zero paperwork and zero wait times?”
The goal is to push beyond existing processes and technology.
Step 4: Use "Yes, And" Thinking
Now's not the time to critique. Use the "yes, and" technique from improv to build on each idea—no matter how out there it is. Creativity works best when it’s free from limits. Let the ideas flow.
Step 5: Find Feasible Elements
After you’ve got a list of impossible ideas, pull it back a bit—what elements can you test or pilot now? You don’t need to realize the whole vision right away. Small steps can still be transformative.
Step 6: Prototype and Test
Pick one idea to prototype, even if it's just a rough version. Test it, get feedback, and iterate. Often, taking that first step opens up new opportunities you didn’t see before.
Use this worksheet to get started on your prototype.
Next Steps
Schedule a Workshop: Block off an hour to explore impossible questions with your team. Use our agenda template to stay on track: [Agenda].
Define Your Goal: Keep it customer-focused.
Generate Ideas: Use 'yes, and' to explore possibilities.
Extract & Prototype: Pick one element to test this week: [Download Worksheet].
Iterate & Reflect: Gather feedback and keep refining.
This toolkit is here to help you and your team break free from the usual thinking, take bold risks, and revolutionize customer experience.
Dare to dream big, challenge the impossible, and create a CX that truly stands out.
Sundays are for Catching up and Learning
DCX Links: Six must-read picks to fuel your leadership journey. Dive into the latest edition now!
👋 Please Reach Out
I started this newsletter to help customer-obsessed professionals deliver better customer experiences — and to have more conversations with friendly and interesting people exactly like you! 😊 If you ever...
have feedback for me
have a question or a problem around customer experience/strategy/team building or more
want to say hello
...then please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you!
— Mark
www.marklevy.co
Follow me on Linkedin
Are you looking to get in front of 1K+ Customer-obsessed Leaders? Sponsor The DCX Newsletter
Thanks for being here. I’ll see you next Tuesday at 8:15 am ET.
👉 If you enjoyed this newsletter and value this work, please consider forwarding it to your friends and colleagues or sharing it on social media. New to DCX? Sign Up.
PS.
I want to share some of the exciting content and programs that I have created for your personal and professional growth:
Transform Your Influence, Transform Your Future
30 Days to Greater Influence is an email course that will help you become the go-to expert your colleagues rely on for critical decisions, get executives to champion your customer-centric initiatives, and leave work each day knowing you’ve made a real, tangible difference for your customers. And more!
SPECIAL FOR DCX READERS: For a limited time, get the best-selling CX course for 70% off.
DCX Executive Coaching - 1:1 coaching for customer-obsessed leaders (Mention DCX for 50% off the first three months)
The Daily Challenge SMS Service - Daily text messages designed to uplift your spirit, remind you of your worth, and inspire you to keep going, no matter what.
7-Day FREE Trial
365 Days of Accountability - Accountability Books, Journals, and Exercises
I hope you find these programs useful. Let me know if you have any questions or need any further assistance.
Love the content today. Research shows that human creativity peaks at around 5-6 years old. We go from talking about flying cars and other creative ideas to being told to focus on the possible. Thinking creatively requires people to let go of bounded constructs which can be disconcerting. Think in