CX Day 2024: Our Most Important Customer Experience Lessons
Customer experience is full of twists, turns, and plenty of “aha” moments. It’s a journey where we’re constantly learning—whether it’s from a tough challenge that makes us rethink things or a big win that confirms we’re on the right track. Every day in CX offers a chance to pick up something new, and it’s those lessons that really shape how we approach making experiences better for our customers.
As we celebrate CX Day on October 1st, we wanted to take a moment to look back at some of the most important things we’ve learned along the way. So, we asked our members to tell us about the biggest lessons they’ve picked up during their CX journeys.
Here’s what they had to say:
Don’t Start with the Customer
Clare Muscutt, the CEO and Founder of Women in CX, offers what might be a surprising lesson: in CX, it’s often best not to start with the customer, but with the business itself. "Mine would (ironically) be not to start with the customer at all," Clare shares. "But to start with the business and to treat senior stakeholders as customers in discovery, to understand thoroughly what the business is trying to achieve strategically."
“Start with the business and treat senior stakeholders as customers in discovery, to understand thoroughly what the business is trying to achieve strategically.”
Through her experience, Clare has learned that aligning CX initiatives with the strategic goals of the business can create powerful outcomes. She also emphasises the importance of treating employees as internal customers. "Listen closely to their views on what needs to change in order to improve customer experience and business outcomes," she advises.
By starting with the business and its people, Clare has successfully secured significant investments by linking CX efforts to broader organisational goals rather than focusing solely on ROI from isolated initiatives. "Once you have your customer insight, you can present a far more informed and holistic picture of what you propose to do and why, linking your efforts back to organisational goals, rather than just ROI of an initiative in isolation."
Keep It Simple, Stupid
Carolyne Gathuru, a Strategy Consultant, Corporate Trainer, and Public Speaking Coach at LifeSkills Consulting, has found that the most important lesson in her CX career is the power of simplicity. She’s seen how easy it is for CX efforts to become overly complex with new strategies, models, and roadmaps. "Very often as CX grows and morphs over time, there's a bid to take on new and complex strategies, models, blueprints, roadmaps [...] and complexity is jetting in," Carolyne reflects.
“The simpler the thought process, the simpler the execution, the more delightful the outcomes.”
However, she believes that simplicity in thought and execution leads to better outcomes. "The simpler the thought process, the simpler the execution, the more delightful the outcomes," she says. For Carolyne, CX should always come back to the fundamental principle of treating others as we wish to be treated ourselves. "CX is not complex… it rides on the basic tenet of 'do unto others as you wish done to you' or 'provide unto others as you wish provided unto you.'"
"The secret to CX success is to align to the design principle of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)," she adds, stressing that simplicity can lead to a win for everyone involved—both internal and external customers.
The Power of Empathy
Lina Yahya, a Customer Culture Certified Practitioner, highlights that empathy is the cornerstone of effective CX. For Lina, understanding customers’ emotions, pain points, and motivations is crucial for building lasting relationships. "In my opinion, one of the biggest lessons in customer experience is that empathy is the foundation of lasting relationships," she says.
“One of the biggest lessons in customer experience is that empathy is the foundation of lasting relationships.”
She acknowledges the unique challenge of creating empathetic experiences in the digital realm but insists it’s vital to understand and predict customer needs and emotions. "It gets more challenging when creating experiences digitally, so it is important to be able to work on anticipating user behaviour, emotions and needs through user-centred designs, technologies, and most importantly ‘communication’," she explains.
Lina emphasises the importance of personalising technology to make sure customers feel valued and understood, even in automated interactions. "Basically, humanising technologies so customers feel connected and understood even when no direct human interactions are made."
Understand the ‘Why’
Nina Hoeberichts, CX Lead at SHERPANY, emphasises the importance of understanding the reasons behind customer behaviours. In her experience, especially in the SaaS industry, it’s not enough to rely solely on metrics like NPS and CSAT. "I'd like to emphasise the importance of UX research and qualitative research methods, such as contextual, in-depth inquiries, that help us understand the 'why' behind the behaviours that customers and users exhibit," Nina shares.
“People don't always behave the way they say they would.”
Nina reminds us that while metrics provide valuable data, they often don’t tell the whole story. "People don't always behave the way they say they would," she notes, highlighting the need to dig deeper into customer motivations to create more effective, user-friendly experiences. "In CX, we tend to focus a lot on CX metrics such as NPS and CSATs, but they don't tell us often what customers do (i.e. behavioural studies, such as usability test) as well as why they say certain things (motivations and needs)."
By combining CX with UX, Nina believes businesses can design experiences that truly add value to the end user. "Especially in SaaS businesses (which is my background), it's so important to combine CX with UX and work together as closely as possible to better understand the user and the customer to ultimately design a user-friendly experience that adds value to the end-user."
Join the Movement
At Women in CX, we’re all about learning from each other. These lessons from our members show just how much there is to discover in CX, whether you’re new to the field or have been in it for years. Want to share your own lessons or pick up more insights?
