CX Core Competencies

The CXPA CX Core Competencies serve as the CCXP Exam Blueprint

The CCXP exam is based on the CXPA CX Core Competencies framework. You can gauge your readiness to take the exam by reviewing these Core Competencies to ensure that you are aware of all the topics on which you might encounter questions. If you find a particular area with which you are not familiar or comfortable, that is an area where you should focus your study or review.

The competencies are required knowledge for CCXP candidates. Each competency encompasses job tasks that should be known to candidates, as well as knowledge and skills or abilities that a candidate should possess.

The CXPA CX Core Competencies were developed based on an industry-wide job task analysis that was conducted by the CXPA in 2013, and updated in 2020. As part of this process, in 2020, more than 300 customer experience professionals provided feedback on the importance of job tasks covering the scope of the CX profession. The core competencies for CX were identified through the results of this analysis, and each area is represented by 19 to 22 questions on the 100-question exam. Within each competency, specific job tasks and key knowledge, skill, and ability areas were identified to serve as the basis for the exam items.

List of Competency Areas

  1. Customer Insights and Understanding (22%)
  2. Customer Experience Strategy (20%)
  3. Metrics, Measurements, and ROI (20%)
  4. Design, Implementation, and Innovation (19%)
  5. Culture and Accountability (19%)

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1. Customer Insights and Understanding (22%)

Job Tasks

  • Assess infrastructure mechanisms and methodologies to capture internal and external CX data
  • Design voice of the customer programs
  • Identify customer and employee touchpoints in the customer experience
  • Determine gaps and research strategies to address deficiencies
  • Collect experience feedback from customers
  • Collect customer experience and improvement feedback from employees

Knowledge of

  • Journey mapping
  • Process mapping
  • Persona mapping
  • Operational data
  • Customer data
  • Qualitative research methods
  • Quantitative research methods
  • Behavioral science techniques

Skills & Abilities

  • Ability to conduct root cause analysis
  • Ability to conduct predictive analysis
  • Ability to analyze and redesign processes

2. Customer Experience Strategy (20%)

Job Tasks

  • Create a CX Strategy
  • Align the customer experience strategy to organizational strategy, goals, and brand values and attributes
  • Determine the strategic focus, business case, and tactics into programmatic components
  • Develop a plan for communicating the CX strategy to stakeholders

Knowledge of

  • CX best practices across industry
  • Business strategy frameworks and planning
  • Intended customer experience
  • Cross-business unit efforts
  • Interdependencies across people, process, and technology

Skills & Abilities

  • Ability to translate corporate strategy into well-defined customer experience strategies and programmatic efforts
  • Ability to engage executive suite in CX strategy design and execution
  • Ability to take branded experience strategy and engage all functional business areas (product, marketing, operations, etc.) in creation of action plans
  • Ability to clearly communicate the importance of the customer experience strategy to deliver the organization’s business goals

3. Metrics, Measurements, and ROI (20%)

Job Tasks

  • Design and implement voice of customer programs (solicited through surveys, focus groups, communities, etc.)
  • Collect unsolicited experience feedback from customers (by mining calls, web data, emails, etc.)
  • Gather input from employees about customer experiences and opportunities for improvement
  • Analyze VOC feedback drawn across sources to identify customer pain points and opportunities to improve and differentiate
  • Identify and map major customer touchpoints in the customer experience

Knowledge of

  • Perception metrics
  • Descriptive metrics
  • Outcome metrics
  • CX data mining and analysis
  • Experience measurement and research methodologies
  • Key drivers and impact on business performance
  • Communication, reporting, and presentation of information
  • Self-service access to data, vies, and analytics
  • Documentation and tracking of changes in CX metrics
  • Business value and ROI of investing in customer experience
  • Tools and methodologies

Skills & Abilities

  • Ability to create measurement strategy in support of broader CX strategy
  • Ability to quantify business value and ROI of investing in customer experience
  • Ability to illustrate ROI of CX investments
  • Ability to assess effectiveness of metrics platform design
  • Ability to translate data into clear communication of results, progress and actions
  • Ability to drive executive support and engagement in CX metrics and results

4. Design, Implementation, and Innovation (19%)

Job Tasks

  • Utilize customer insights to define and prioritize experience requirements and opportunities
  • Establish a defined CX design process
  • Facilitate an end-to-end CX design
  • Implement the CX design
  • Develop a list of top customer experience improvements
  • Integrate processes and tools for continuous customer experience improvements

Knowledge of

  • Design thinking and customer co-creation approaches
  • Experience gap analysis and prioritization
  • Human-centered design and innovation
  • Future state journey mapping
  • Control and response plans
  • Operating plan and capabilities
  • Tactics
  • Change, project, and process management
  • Interdependencies
  • Iterative ideation and prototyping

Skills & Abilities

  • Ability to identify key moments of truth affecting customer perceptions
  • Ability to conduct experience gap analysis and prioritize recommended improvements
  • Ability to drive customer centered design and innovation
  • Ability to accurately map and depict customer touch points
  • Ability to drive action and execution of key CX improvements

5. Culture and Accountability (19%)

Job Tasks

  • Assess and determine ongoing strategies for sustaining a customer-centered culture
  • Manage and maintain executive accountability for CX strategy

Knowledge of

  • Established best practices for cultivating a customer-focused culture
  • Employee hiring, training, and coaching alignment
  • Reward, recognition, and other engagement strategies
  • CX communication strategies
  • Stakeholder and change management approaches
  • Assess and guide an organization's CX maturity
  • Customer experience impact as criteria for business decisions
  • KPI ownership
  • Sponsorship and engagement
  • Business goal alignment with customer-centric culture

Skills & Abilities

  • Problem solving skills
  • Relationship building skills
  • Ability to coordinate diverse resources to create value
  • Ability to engage “hearts and minds” of an organization across employee groups
  • Ability to align employee behavior with customer-focused culture
  • Ability to communicate the importance of customer experience and corresponding strategy
  • Ability to recommend initiatives based on customer experience data
  • Ability to report CX data to different audiences in an understandable manner
  • Ability to plan, implement, and manage change
  • Ability to lead cross-functional efforts
  • Collaboration, influencing, and relationship skills

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Page updated: October 2021