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Adoption and Accountability Archives - AFRICANISM | CX Thu, 02 Sep 2021 19:30:50 +0000 en-ZA hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://africanism.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/cropped-Full-Colour-Transparent-Logo-2500-x-2000-1-e1629818641616-100x100.png Adoption and Accountability Archives - AFRICANISM | CX 32 32 My CCXP Journey https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/my-ccxp-journey/ https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/my-ccxp-journey/#respond Tue, 02 Mar 2021 12:04:41 +0000 https://africanism.org.za/2021/08/24/my-ccxp-journey/ As a proud ambassador of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)™, a Customer Experience Specialist (CXS)™ and Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™, I am happy to share a global definition of what learning and development success looks like in this exciting field of customer experience, and through the short paragraphs of this blog post, I intend to shed some light on a tried-and-tested path to getting there.

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Customer Experience is an exciting and disruptive profession that is bashing down the very same barriers that the corporate world has self-embedded into its fabric for decades. Demolishing siloes, creating a customer-centric culture, and managing that transformation from old to new – with renewed, microscopic focus on the customer and employee attitudes and behaviours necessary to drive bottom-line results, there is just so much to learn!

Track and trace priority improvements using a delicate balance of flawless metrics and measurements, plug-in live and up-to-date dashboarding mechanisms and you are only just getting started! From world-class best practices in qualitative and quantitative research ecosystems, explicitly employed to gain customer insights through solicited and unsolicited customer feedback – to deploying a variety of human-centered process improvement methodologies, often at scale and ‘OVERWHELMING’ would be an appropriate adjective!

As a proud ambassador of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)™, a Customer Experience Specialist (CXS)™ and Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™, I am happy to share a global definition of what learning and development success looks like in this exciting field of customer experience, and through the short paragraphs of this blog post, I intend to shed some light on a tried-and-tested path to getting there.

It will not be easy as you will learn but as in the case of most meaningful achievements in your career and life, it will certainly be worth the effort when you finally tick the checkbox next to that development goal.

 

The Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) exam.

The Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)™ was founded ten years ago in 2011 and is the premier, global, non-profit organisation dedicated to the cultivation and advancement of the customer experience profession, with more than 4000 members across the globe. Having realised the need for customer experience professionals to demonstrate high levels of proficiency and experience in the customer experience discipline, established the Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™ program in 2014.

Today, there are approximately 1200 Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™’s around the globe and the CCXP credential is highly sought after with customer-centric brands like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft introducing it as a preferred requirement in their recruitment processes for relevant positions.

The Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™ program is open to the public, and both CXPA members and non-members can apply. Eligibility requires a bachelors degree and three years of full-time CX work with primary responsibilities that include engagement and experience in all six core competencies of customer experience.

 

 

There is also an alternative pathway to CCXP exam eligibility for those individuals who do not have a bachelors degree and in their case, will need to demonstrate that they have a minimum of five years of relevant, full-time CX work experience as mentioned above.

 

The Challenge.

You will be tested across all six core competencies of customer experience by means of 100 extremely tricky and considerably confusing multiple-choice questions and at bare minimum, you will need to answer 80 of these questions correctly to pass. The Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)™ hosts an incredibly elaborate exam resource library for prospective candidates to learn from on their website. You will find references to books, articles, case studies, whitepapers, and webinars to help guide your learning but as they say,

“There is not one book, class or particular work experience to prepare you to meet the demands of being a customer experience professional. The well-rounded individual who meets the standards of the CCXP designation has benefited from years of learning and experience in real world situations”
– CXPA

 
What worked for me.

The Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)™ has assembled an elite tribe of 15 ‘Recognised Training Providers’ from around the world to deliver customer experience training of the highest quality. These Recognised Training Providers offer a variety of training options to choose from – from individual coaching sessions to Customer Experience Masterclasses or online customer experience training.

I chose the latter first.

 

Online Learning with CX University.

CX University has several convenient, self-paced, online customer experience training options available with flexible payment plans but the one that caught my eye is the ‘CX500 Mastery Bundle’ which was recommended for CCXP exam preparation – I enrolled. I also signed up for their CX Practice Test Program but more about that in a moment.

The CX500 course from CX University is rich in carefully curated, multimedia content that was easy to understand and simple to navigate through. There was a good balance of reading materials and interactive activities that created a warm and welcoming learning experience. Their founder and CEO, Mohamed Latib Ph.D. is a seasoned academic, a pioneer in online learning, and is also taking CX to higher education with their CX800 course – which now grants learners up to 6 MBA credits.

The CX Practice Test Program is a question bank of 600 questions and answers, it covers all six core competencies of customer experience, and also gives you the ideal opportunity to test your knowledge before writing CX University’s Customer Experience Specialist (CXS)™ exam at the end of the course – which if pursued successfully, CX University certifies you as being competent in the customer experience discipline and regards you as being fully prepared to take the CXPA’s Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™ exam.

Valerie Peck, CCXP a well-known leader in the global CXPA community recently orchestrated a ‘Peer-to-Peer CCXP Preparation’ group of more than 100 CXPA members who used CX University’s materials in their CCXP exam preparation – they have a 100% CCXP exam pass rate!

 

Ian Golding’s CX Masterclass.

I have also subsequently, had the incredible pleasure of attending Ian Golding’s live and in-person ‘2-day CX Masterclass and 1-day CCXP Exam Preparation Workshop’ in March last year, and the world as we all know it has not quite been the same ever since!

Ian Golding, author of ‘Customer WHAT? The honest and practical guide to Customer Experience‘ was the first person around the world to be authorised by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA)™ to teach the Customer Experience profession. Having worked with, guided, and inspired CCXP candidates in over 40 different countries, Ian Golding has mentored CX professionals to become Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™’s on almost every continent.

Ian’s natural ability to derive simple solutions to complex customer experience problems is exemplary, second to none, and truly inspiring. You will spend 3-days in the company of an incredibly honest and humble human being, explore global best practices in each of the six core competencies as tested in the CCXP exam, and have your burning CX questions answered by one of the most knowledgeable and experienced CX masterminds on the planet. There is absolutely no surprise that Ian Golding was ranked first on Customer Experience Magazine’s ‘Top CX Influencers of 2021!’

 

CCXP Exam Preparation and CCXP Exam Simulator.

Now, I have also saved some space in this post for the amazing Michael G. Bartlett who may not (yet) be a CXPA ‘Recognised Training Provider’ but has made significant contributions on the subject of CCXP Exam Preparation.

Michael authored ‘CCXP Exam Preparation,’ a book through which he shares 18 easy-to-understand guiding CX principles – with 40 sample multiple-choice questions, answers, and detailed explanations on why specific answers are correct and others, not.

Michael has also created the CCXP Exam Simulator which as the name suggests, mimics the actual exam and dependant on the CCXP Exam Simulator option you choose – can analyse your strengths and weaknesses using advanced analytics to generate a personalized study plan, allowing you to focus on specific areas that require further development – before actually taking the Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™ exam.

Yes, there is such a thing, and thank you, Michael G. Bartlett.

Through Michael’s materials, I have gained invaluable knowledge about how to approach these tricky, multiple-choice questions, and apply these guiding principles to answer these questions correctly – which in the end, was the ‘undetected’ missing piece of my development plan.

 

Can you ever be over-prepared?

I have no reservations in saying that the Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)™ is the single, most difficult exam I have ever taken, and whilst some may argue that my exam preparation was a bit extensive, let me be the first person to let you know that there is no such thing as being over-prepared for the CCXP exam!

From each of my learning activities, there were unique advantages and key take-aways that supplemented my overall understanding of the customer experience profession. In the end, I will not say that I completely knocked it out of the park but I did pass the CCXP exam on my first attempt and now you can do it too – or even better than I did!

Good luck.

 

Republished with author’s consent from original post.

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]]> https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/my-ccxp-journey/feed/ 0 CXDay Spotlight: Interview with Chaman Maharaj https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/cxday-spotlight-interview-with-chaman-maharaj/ https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/cxday-spotlight-interview-with-chaman-maharaj/#respond Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:04:57 +0000 https://africanism.org.za/2021/08/24/cxday-spotlight-interview-with-chaman-maharaj/ I had the incredible pleasure of speaking to the amazing Sandra Radlovacki from Customer Experience Magazine about how my career in customer experience began many years ago, and how it has evolved over time.

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I had the incredible pleasure of speaking to the amazing Sandra Radlovacki from Customer Experience Magazine about how my career in customer experience began many years ago, and how it has evolved over time.

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]]> https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/cxday-spotlight-interview-with-chaman-maharaj/feed/ 0 Customer What? The honest and practical guide to customer experience https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/customer-what-the-honest-and-practical-guide-to-customer-experience/ https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/customer-what-the-honest-and-practical-guide-to-customer-experience/#respond Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:04:54 +0000 https://africanism.org.za/2021/08/24/customer-what-the-honest-and-practical-guide-to-customer-experience/ This book is insightfully divided into four sections and through it, Ian takes you on a meticulously articulated customer-focused journey that delves into the detail and intricacies of why, how, and when organisations are ready, to adopt global best practices in customer experience – including a set of practical activities and tools to help you do it, and some incredible storytelling to illuminate your path.

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“The truth is, truly customer-centric organisations do not put customers first.
They put employees first”
– Ian Golding

This is according to global Customer Experience Specialist and Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), Ian Golding in his first book ‘Customer What? The honest and practical guide to customer experience,’ published in 2018.

As a founding member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) – a global, non-profit organization dedicated to the cultivation and advancement of the customer experience profession with more than 4000 members in 70 countries, Ian is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and through the pages of this book, Ian has distilled his passion of putting customers and employees at the forefront of business improvement initiatives, which he describes as

“Part practice handbook, part novel, part therapy – this is a practical guide to creating and sustaining the focus on customers”
– IAN Golding

This book is insightfully divided into four sections and through it, Ian takes you on a meticulously articulated customer-focused journey that delves into the detail and intricacies of why, how, and when organisations are ready, to adopt global best practices in customer experience – including a set of practical activities and tools to help you do it, and some incredible storytelling to illuminate your path.

  • The Fundamentals – establishing a firm footing, an introduction to the essentials for success.
  • Culture – connecting people to strategy and creating the right conditions for action.
  • Making it happen – the tools of the trade, knowing how (and when) to apply them.
  • Sustaining – from starting the movement to safeguarding momentum.

I was extremely fortunate to have attended Ian Golding’s Customer Experience MasterClass in-person (yes, that’s a thing since Covid-19) and whether you’re a customer experience professional like myself, a small business owner who has realised the value of customer-centricity or a customer experience executive at a large, well-established organisation on a mission to improve the way your brand engages with its customers, employees or shareholders, this is a must-read.

To celebrate #CXDay2020, Ian has been kind enough to allow our readers an exclusive 10% discount on this book (valid until the 31st of October 2020). Use discount code CMCX20 and order your copy here.

Change the world – one customer journey at a time.

Happy #CXDay.

 

Republished with author’s consent from original post.

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]]> https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/customer-what-the-honest-and-practical-guide-to-customer-experience/feed/ 0 Grow brand loyalty, organically https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/grow-brand-loyalty-organically/ https://africanism.org.za/chamanmaharaj/grow-brand-loyalty-organically/#respond Wed, 12 Aug 2020 12:05:03 +0000 https://africanism.org.za/2021/08/24/grow-brand-loyalty-organically/ To truly engineer and deliver extraordinary customer experiences consistently, combine the powers of each of these competencies into a comprehensive, well-articulated customer experience ecosystem that delivers the business results of brand loyalty by focusing on customer success, customer effort and customer emotion.

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Customer experience ecosystems are complex and multifaceted, with multiple moving mechanisms across many organisational silos – each with their own set of values, beliefs and key performance indicators. Carefully curated customer experience initiatives synchronise and steer these cross-functional team efforts towards a specific business goal – perhaps the most critical one of them all, the customer.

You see, customer experience begins with a brand promise. A brand promise is an organisation’s commitment to its customers. It is the ethos around which a brand is built and should be something everyone within the organisation is extremely proud of, and are always willing to be held accountable for.

Entrenched within this brand promise, is a set of core brand values that generally sets a brand apart from its competitors. It is through these elements of differentiation that a brand would have described unique brand attributes that customers can expect when they engage with them.

For example, if an organisation is in the business of supplying mobile internet, they may promise their customers ‘always-on’ connectivity and ‘high-speed’ mobile data. Their customers in-turn, will naturally develop expectations of always being connected to the internet, at high speeds of data transmission. Anything short of that will render their cumulative customer experience initiatives baseless and should be something they go to great lengths to avoid.

In fact, in the context of the South African telecommunications industry, one of our pan-African mobile network providers incurred more than R300 million ($17 million) in costs for back-up power supplies to their mobile network infrastructure in 2018, to honour similar brand promises and keep their customers connected during our rotational ‘load-shedding’ or planned disruptions in our local electricity supply.

These expectations that customers develop leads me to the first of the six core competencies of customer experience and as my mentor has been famously quoted for saying

“A jigsaw puzzle is an extremely good analogy for the customer experience, you can only see the picture if you put the pieces of the puzzle together”
– Ian Golding

Please allow me to explain.

 
1. Customer Experience Strategy

A brand’s customer experience strategy is a carefully crafted narrative, developed to respond to those customer expectations that were created through a brand promise. This should ideally describe the intended experience, the emotional response a brand intends to elicit from their customers, and mobilise the resources required to deliver these experiences across all customer touchpoints consistently.

Success with this core customer experience competency is highly dependent on cross-functional team alignment and will inevitably form the backbone of all customer experience improvement initiatives.

 

2. Customer-Centric Culture

This cross-functional team alignment will involve high levels of employee engagement and dedication to a common cause. In the context of customer-centricity, this involves displacing customers from the outer spheres of business influence to the epicenter of a brand’s existence – where a brand’s technologies, people, products and processes are harmoniously aligned for ease of their customers use.

The tell-tale signs of mastering this core customer experience competency are having engaged employees, who understand their roles in the end-to-end customer journey. They are familiar with the attitudes and behaviours necessary to deliver empathy-rich customer experiences. They have the appropriate tools, readily available at their disposal to do so, and are also rewarded for delivering these intended experiences consistently.

 

3. Organisational Adoption and Accountability

The journey to true customer-centricity is a financially rewarding, albeit, disruptive one. Legacy business practices are usually the first to be updated and improved on and this core customer experience competency manages the transformation from old to new.

Success with is core customer experience competency lies in a brand’s ability to manage change efficiently. We recommend clear communication of the organisation’s objectives before, during and after transformational activities. Create internal accountability by assigning specific tasks to specific people, with prescribed business processes to follow to manage these activities, and provide immediate support to all those who have been impacted by these changes.

 

4. Metrics, Measurement and Return on Investment

According to research done by well-known advocates on brand loyalty, 80% of companies believe they delivered ‘superior experiences’ to their customers but, only 8% of their customers agreed. Customer experience metrics like net promoter score* are deployed to solicit customer feedback, to measure delivered experiences, and researched insights inform business decisions on prioritising ongoing improvements in customer experience.

By combining this experience data with operational data – the hard numbers like sales, revenues, and profits, we are able to produce live dashboards to prioritise and track customer experience improvements and the returns on customer experience investments. It is not uncommon for these dashboards to evolve over time but remember to keep it simple, relevant, and easy to understand.

 

5. Experience Design, Improvement and Innovation

Get to know your customers. Allow them to complete their own brand-specific goals with your organisation – with minimal effort and ensure that the emotions they experience whilst doing so, are consistent with those feelings your brand intends to deliver.

If a customer experience strategy is the backbone of all customer experience improvement initiatives, this core competency will give those initiatives it’s heartbeat. Human-centered experience design, improvement and innovation involves delicate combinations of process improvement methodologies to eliminate common pain points in the customer journey, to personalise product and service offerings for specific customer segments and create dynamic, inspiring and memorable moments of magic at every customer touchpoint.

 

6. Voice of the Customer, Customer Insight and Understanding

A comprehensive voice of the customer programme is designed to acquire insights on customer attitudes and behaviours by collecting solicited and unsolicited feedback across a variety of listening posts. Reliable research mechanisms mine through customer and employee feedback and these findings inform strategic initiatives in customer engagement.

By listening to what customers are saying about an organisation, we are able to understand how they feel when they interact with a brand’s technologies, people, products, or processes and we use that data to predict customer wants and needs. With this information, we can further tailor product and service offerings to meet or exceed these customer’s ever-changing expectations.

 

Now back to Mr. Golding’s analogy.

Each of the six core competencies of customer experience may pack a punch but in isolation, will not prove to be effective – even with the best of attempts to create memories that tell your brand story.

To truly engineer and deliver extraordinary customer experiences consistently, combine the powers of each of these competencies into a comprehensive, well-articulated customer experience ecosystem that delivers the business results of brand loyalty by focusing on customer success, customer effort and customer emotion.

 

*The Net Promoter System and Net Promoter Score® are registered trademarks and service marks of Bain & Company Inc, Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems Inc.

 

Republished with author’s consent from original post.

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