Creating customer-focused change and getting employees engaged in CX are two tough challenges for CX professionals. So it wasn’t a big surprise when these were the topics selected for discussion at the monthly networking breakfast of the CXPA Indianapolis Network.
We have pretty standard (and effective) routine. For over three years now we gather each month, select a topic, and discuss it over breakfast. We typically have 15 to 25 CX professionals attend and it’s a great opportunity to learn from one another. This month we changed the format slightly to tackle these two issues
We broke into four groups – two assigned to each topic. Groups were encouraged to consider common obstacles, the people most involved in these issues, and generate 5-10 ideas. It was fast-paced discussion and not surprisingly, great examples and stories emerged.
A representative from each table delivered a summary of their discussion and shared their ideas – each idea written on a large Post-it note. At the end of our meeting each attendee was encouraged to view the collection of ideas (see attached photos) and vote for three that best resonated with them. Below is a rundown of all the ideas:
Change management ideas:
- Understand the “why” in/for the change (13 votes)
- Communication – video, customer comments, humor (8 votes)
- Get a war room, “brand” a project, make it visible (6 votes)
- Early wins, pick “pilot group” carefully, look for good “champions” (5 votes)
- Do multiple things (at least 4) to create/reinforce change (4 votes)
- Broad team – executive, change master, early win group; “high credibility” (3 votes)
- Support for employees; culture (1 vote)
- Make it more personal; “personal touch” (0 votes)
- Communication and messaging (0 votes)
- Informal leader buy-in and involvement (0 votes)
Employee Engagement ideas:
- Build trust, awareness – job shadow, rotation, observe customers using products/services (11 votes)
- Find your influencers and make them allies/champions (11 votes)
- “What’s in it for me” stories (7 votes)
- Culture to learn – pilot – new CX design; Safe to fail, agile approach, start-lower risk (7 votes)
- Ease, low effort – “If it was easy, what would it look like?” (3 votes)
- Personalize the data (3 votes)
- Your contribution to CX; key drivers, insights, visual data, engage, put assumptions aside (2 votes)
- Cross-divisional CX affinity group of leaders (2 votes)
- ABSCX – always be selling CX (1 vote)
- Bring outside-in – fluid expectation of customer, age of the customer, consumer expectation to business (0 votes)
- Article shares to create ownership (0 votes)
- Positive language (0 votes)
- Celebrate individual successes
As you can see – great ideas emerged, regardless of the number of votes. Now that we have these on the table we agreed our next gathering will focus on going more in-depth on the top ideas so that we can consider how to bring them to life.
Did we miss anything? What ideas stand out to you? Do you have a story of something that worked well? Feel free to provide your input and we’ll include it in our next discussion in Indianapolis!
Pat Gibbons, CCXP
Principal/SVP,
Walker pgibbons@walkerinfo.com