"Titles have evolved since I first started, from Customer Management, to Customer Relationship Management, to Customer Marketing, and now to Customer Experience Management," says Chetty.
Chetty began his career in telecommunications. "I found my way into CX when I was managing customer retention in Canada and other countries," explains Chetty, who currently resides in Ontario. Chetty's interest in CX was piqued when he realized that "voluntary customer churn was and is being caused primarily by customer experience issues rather than price issues." Chetty notes that most telecom providers are still employing tactics like discount offers--rather than widespread customer experience improvement efforts-to retain customers.
As a CX professional with years of global experience, Chetty observes that there remain disparities in organizational--and even geographic--CX maturity. "Most companies in Canada are in the stage of mobilizing CX," Chetty explains. "Leaders are starting to embrace CX, brand values are being translated into customer promises, some employee engagement efforts are taking shape, customer insights are being distributed and acted on, but few organizations have dedicated CX teams to manage and generate value from their customer base." This stands in contrast to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia where, as Chetty notes, "CX is more in the alignment phase, where dedicated CX teams and structures are in place, VoC, employee experience, and digital experience programs are already being managed and optimized."
But when it comes to evolving CX maturity, a focus on creating a customer-centric culture is key. "In all organizations I worked for, attaining a customer centric culture was always a goal." Chetty says. Chetty sites his efforts to build Voice of the Customer and Voice of the Employee programs--along with work to socialize results and drive action--as critical to helping his organizations' customers achieve better outcomes and his business achieve better results.
Chetty is clear-eyed that CX activities must demonstrate return on investment to warrant further funding and focus in their companies. To CX practitioners, he offers some critical advice: "Choose a measure that will show the biggest positive impact of financial outcomes, ensure there is consistency in the period and method of tracking and sampling, and that there is validation of outcomes with customer behavior data found in operational systems."
Though the discipline of CX has evolved significantly since the inception of Chetty's career, he knows the change is just beginning, and that more will be asked of those in the field. "To generate actionable insights and tell stories from customer data, a CX practitioner will not only need analytical capabilities and a customer-centric mindset, but must also be able to handle innovative technologies and AI to understand and predict customer needs and behavior."
To read my full interview with Freddy, which includes more insights about building culture and driving organizational adoption and accountability, click here.
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