#CXSecrets: CX Leaders Shouldn't Focus on Managing Feedback Systems

As a CX leader, do you ever feel like you're spending too much time setting up users and dashboards in your feedback management platform when you should be focusing on strategic ways for your organization to improve customer experience?

You're not alone. CX leaders, who are often the pioneers of customer experience within their organizations, frequently find themselves going through the motions of setting up their feedback platform instead of doing what they were truly hired to do - collaborate with departments across their organization to improve the customer experience.

In this edition of #CXSecrets, I'm going to reveal how CX leaders can get the tedious task of setting up a feedback platform off their plate so they can focus on the task at hand - strategically improving the customer experience across their organization.

Watch this edition of #CXSecrets above, or click here to download the video transcript.

Many titles, same job

CX leaders today hold many different titles. You might be known as the Director of Customer Experience, Vice President of Customer Experience, or a variety of other titles; but the job description is essentially the same: lead the customer experience effort at your organization. 

First of all, congratulations - as a CX leader, you are a hero within your organization in terms of being the advocate for customers. Chances are you haven't been trained in that role - there’s no degree in customer experience leadership (at least right now - maybe there will be some day). Nonetheless, it's an amazing role to have. You are so important to your organization.

What makes a great CX leader

To make yourself as effective as possible within your organization, you know that you have to be a very multi-disciplinary person. You need to be able to talk to leadership, the contact center, the sales force, operations, etc. - basically all the different parts of your company who impact the customer experience. It’s really key that you have your hand in all of those things.

Narrow your focus

Among our clients at PeopleMetrics, we have seen that the most successful CX leaders maintain a singular focus on improving the customer experience. That is where a majority of your time should be spent.

Where we see people getting into rabbit holes is when they spend too much time on the actual system of feedback. So whatever platform you're using to collect feedback, if you’re involved in setting up users and creating dashboards and doing all of those things, that’s not as effective as spending your time really thinking about “what can we do as an organization to improve the customer experience?”

Look familiar?

You should be focused on working with those various departments I mentioned earlier - being very strategic and implementing tactical plans to improve the customer experience across your organization.

That's more like it!

Enlist support

But you can't do it alone - you need help. Either somebody on your team should be able to handle the day-to-day of managing that feedback system, or you should use a partner like PeopleMetrics to handle it.

Delegating the feedback system management to another team member or a trusted partner will allow you to do what you were hired to do in the first place. Your time will be better spent, your organization will appreciate it, and your career will skyrocket.

More #CXSecrets

Thanks for joining us for another edition of #CXSecrets, a video series capturing bonus material from my book Listen or Die! The 40 Lessons That Turn Customer Feedback into Gold. 

Visit our YouTube channel to see all of the videos in the series, or click the links below to see other videos in the series:

Sean McDade founded PeopleMetrics in 2001 and he is the architect of the company’s customer experience management (CEM) software platform. As CEO, he guides the company’s vision and strategy. Sean has over 20 years of experience helping companies measure and improve the customer experience. Earlier in his career, he spent five years at the Gallup Organization, where he was the practice leader of their consulting division. His company offers CEM software with advanced machine learning solutions and hands-on analytical support to help companies make sense of their CX data. Sean holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration with a specialization in marketing science from Temple University in Philadelphia. He has published eight articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and has taught over 25 marketing classes. Sean was named a 40 under 40 award recipient of the Philadelphia region. He is an active Angel Investor, including investments in Tender Greens, CloudMine and Sidecar.

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