Ascending the CX ladder in a SaaS technology company
The career path of Angeleen Rohda, CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional), is a blueprint for those looking to advance in customer experience (CX) roles within their current organization. In eight years at Alarm.com, a software-as-a-service provider of home automation and security systems, Angeleen ascended from technical support representative, to marketing support specialist, to customer experience team manager, to the newly created program manager for customer experience programs.
“Every role I’ve had has developed out of a need,” Angeleen explains. “The latest one represents our department and company growing in our sophistication and our desire to be a leader in providing exceptional services.”
Increasing responsibilities
Angeleen joined Alarm.com in 2011 as a technical support representative. “I was the ninth employee hired for our support operations team, or what we call CORE (customer operations and reseller education),” says Angeleen. She provided technical support to the service provider partners, making sure that Alarm.com’s technology worked properly for the provider partner’s customers, the subscribers who use Alarm.com’s home automation and security systems.
This role gave Angeleen a direct window into what works and what doesn’t. “If you’re trying to find customer pain points, anybody in your service team can tell you because they have to fix it every time it breaks,” she says. “It really taught me to value that insight and how it can help higher-level CX goals.”
Next, Angeleen became a marketing support specialist. “I was essentially the liaison between our marketing teams and our support teams,” she says. It was her opportunity to begin working cross-functionally in the organization, which is critical to successful CX efforts.
“One thing I learned as a marketing support specialist is that without communication, everyone suffers,” says Angeleen. “We created communication pathways and processes between the marketing and service teams so that service would know when a communication was going out, and marketing would know how to craft the messaging.” As product developments were in process, for example, open and timely communication ensured that marketing messages did not imply that the technology could do something that it could not do. “I used to joke that I was doing my job right if there weren’t any problems.”
Angeleen’s focus on customer experiences – both inside the organization and within the marketing and service teams – led to her promotion to manage the customer experience team. Angeleen’s supervisor encouraged her to seek continuing education opportunities. “I looked for organizations that were CX-focused,” says Angeleen. “That’s how I found the CXPA (Customer Experience Professional’s Association). I hadn’t even realized there was a dedicated organization for CX. I was really excited.”
Angeleen joined the CXPA in 2015, and began attending activities and following the online discussions. “I’m kind of a message board lurker,” she chuckled. “When I have a question, I search for who has asked it recently, and I read those threads.” After about a month, she noticed that many members who were sharing good insights had CCXP after their names. Certified Customer Experience Professional is a designation for practitioners who want to be recognized for their expertise and skills while defining customer experience standards and best practices. “Considering the goals I had with our team, it made sense to pursue the certification,” says Angeleen.
She not only earned the designation; she actively brings into the workplace what she has learned. “Having the certification and even just being a member of CXPA has helped me develop the skills I need,” says Angeleen. She even attributes her last two roles with the improvements she has championed since joining the CXPA and passing the CCXP exam. “They’re kind of like my compass,” she says. “I’d listen to others in the CX community and I would think, ‘Hey, I think we need this.’ I’d bring the ideas to my supervisors and they’d say, ‘Yes, that’s a great idea. That will help us.’” She’s also quick to acknowledge that she has highly supportive leaders and an open-minded organization, for which she is grateful.
Implementing CX at Alarm.com
While managing the CX team, Angeleen launched journey mapping and voice-of-the-customer initiatives. “We completed service provider partner journey mapping, and we’d like to do it for subscribers, as well,” she says. Through journey mapping, they identified a recurring issue where subscribers had trouble accessing their online system. “What we found was, some of our service providers were handling the questions on their own, and in other cases subscribers were coming to us thinking that we were their service provider.” Recognizing this hindrance, they explored ways to make the experience better. “We’ve tried a couple variations to make it easier for subscribers, but we haven’t seen the volume of questions go down dramatically in the way we were expecting. Sometimes CX is also about what you don’t find, and being willing to keep trying.” They are testing iterations of the process to identify and correct the root cause.
In the CX manager role, time for CX was a challenge. As Angeleen grew the CX team from one direct-report to eight, “I had to balance managing the associates as well as managing CX initiatives,” she explains. “A lot of what we did was short-term – let’s get feedback on this … let’s talk to these service provider partners about something they asked their sales team.” She initiated longer-term projects, but had limited time to work on them because she was responsible for her team’s daily interactions, scheduling and employee development. “Now that I’ve moved into my new role, I’m an individual contributor again.”
Excited about her new role, Angeleen is working on:
- Surveys – “We’re pulling together all of our surveys and making them better and more unified.”
- Metrics – “I’m doing a lot of data analysis. The biggest metrics we pay attention to are NPS (net promoter score) and CSAT (customer satisfaction) scores. We get these from both written and phone surveys, but I think that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” She also plans to expand closed-loop feedback and to explore adding an effort score.
- Voice-of-the-customer and journey mapping – “I started these initiatives in my last role, and now I have more time to develop them.”
- CX Council – “I started working closely with groups like marketing, technical account management, training and sales,” she says. “We hope to grow that further, and to start a CX Council.”
Angeleen’s latest promotion is the result of skilled team-building and her ability to sell her ideas to both leaders and colleagues throughout the organization.
CX professionals and CCXP hopefuls, take note: Angeleen’s ascension at Alarm.com is proof that she is adept at spotting opportunities. She intuitively focuses on customer experiences, looks for ways to improve, seeks education and resources through the CXPA, and brings back to her organization tools and strategies that deliver outcomes.