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.

Six 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 was developed based on an industry-wide job task analysis that was conducted by the CXPA in 2013. As part of this process, more than 150 customer experience professionals provided feedback on the importance of job tasks covering the scope of the CX profession. Six competencies for CX were identified through the results of this analysis, and each area is represented by 10 to 19 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 Six Competencies

  1. Customer-Centric Culture (16%)
  2. Organizational Adoption & Accountability (19%)
  3. VOC, Customer Insight & Understanding (13%)
  4. Experience Design & Improvement (16%)
  5. Metric, Measurement & ROI (20%)
  6. Customer Experience Strategy (16%)

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1. Customer-Centric Culture (16%)

Job Tasks

  • Drive employee engagement and involvement — from the front lines to the executive suite
  • Develop and deliver ongoing CX interaction training to employees
  • Develop communication strategies and tactics to share the importance of CX with employees, customers, and the company
  • Collect and share stories of CX excellence at your company

Knowledge of

  • Best practices for cultivating a customer-focused culture
  • Internal and external marketing, promotion, and communications
  • Employee hiring, training, and coaching
  • Employee engagement strategies
  • Reward and recognition strategies

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

2. Organizational Adoption & Accountability (19%)

Job Tasks

  • Align business goals with customer-focused culture
  • Maintain a dedicated list of top customer experience improvements, including which senior executive is accountable for resolution
  • Embed customer experience impact as a criterion for all business and investment decisions
  • Introduce new processes and tools to improve customer experience
  • Work across departments and organizations to improve customer experience
  • Regularly review CX metrics and feedback at all levels of the organization

Knowledge of

  • Project management principles
  • Collaboration and relationship management practices
  • Leadership and change management
  • Prioritization process
  • Process management

Skills & Abilities

  • 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

3. VOC, Customer Insight & Understanding (13%)

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

  • Different approaches to measuring customer experience (e.g. Net Promoter, Satisfaction, etc.)
  • Qualitative and quantitative research methods
  • VOC analytical tools and methodologies
  • Touchpoint mapping

Skills & Abilities

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

4. Experience Design & Improvement (16%)

Job Tasks

  • Establish and follow a well-defined design process each time an experience is created or changed
  • Use customer insights to define and prioritize experience requirements and opportunities for improvement
  • Use journey mapping to improve most relevant moments of truth
  • Assess, document, track, and report resolution of experience gaps across touch points
  • Identify interdependencies across people, process and technology that impact design of the customer experience
  • Use iterative ideation and prototyping (e.g., design thinking) to engage customers and employees in the co-creation of enhanced or innovative experiences

Knowledge of

  • Design thinking and customer co-creation approaches
  • Process improvement methodologies and discipline
  • Customer journey mapping and touchpoint analysis

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. Metric, Measurement & ROI (20%)

Job Tasks

  • Identify key CX metrics for tracking experience quality, satisfaction, and loyalty
  • Develop framework and linkage of improved experiences to business outcomes (growth, attrition, profitability, etc.)
  • Develop infrastructure and mechanisms to capture CX data (surveys, operational data, customer behavior, word of mouth, financial performance, etc.)
  • Analyze and interpret results to derive customer insights and performance trends
  • Report results, insights, and recommended actions to improve

Knowledge of

  • Net Promoter score and methodology
  • Impact of experience changes on loyalty and business performance across customer groups
  • Relationship and financial metrics (cross-sell, product penetration, etc.)
  • Customer experience management dashboards
  • CX data mining and analysis
  • Experience measurement and research methodologies
  • Strategies to communicate metrics and ROI with employee and stakeholder groups

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

6. Customer Experience Strategy (16%)

Job Tasks

  • Define a customer experience strategy that describes the intended customer experience, its linkage to overall corporate objectives, and its alignment with the organization’s brand values and attributes
  • Develop experience principles and specific employee behaviors and interactions that reflect brand values and organizational mission
  • Articulate the operating plan, investments, and tactics for programmatic components of the CX strategy
  • Communicate and engage employees at all levels of the organization in the elements of the CX strategy

Knowledge of

  • Development of “branded” customer experiences
  • Strategy and planning for cross-business-unit efforts to support the organization’s CX strategy
  • CX best practices across industries
  • Internal marketing and communications
  • Associate engagement
  • Business strategy frameworks and planning

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

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