Horizon CX

OCTOBER 2, 2023

The Frontline Experience Gap – Competence, Supervision, and Data by Scott Gilbey “I help identify customer and employee experience gaps that adversely impact the frontline. Then we create opportunities by fixing those gaps. Experience improves and so does P&L. The frontline experience gap has three dimensions—Competence, Supervision, and Data and here I am at the frontline with the following scenarios for you to consider.

Net Promoter Score 130

Net Promoter Score Survey System Retail 130

Horizon CX

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Is Customer Experience No More than a Checklist Exercise Based on Assumptions? For Some, Customer Experience IS no more than a checklist exercise based on assumptions! Now, I know what you’re thinking and saying to yourself, “This certainly isn’t the case within my organization.” To that, I would seriously challenge you to look more deeply into what your organization professes versus how it behaves.

Exercises 246

Exercises Customer Centricity NPS Culture 246

Horizon CX

AUGUST 7, 2023

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a concept that has been given a lot of attention in recent years and now appears to be the target of assaults in certain areas of the country as being a trendy ideology. Let’s unpack the concept of diversity and explain how this is critical to the success of businesses and particularly within the domain of customer experience (CX) management.

Culture 130

Culture Innovation Groups Communication 130

Horizon CX

JUNE 27, 2023

Unifying Customer Experiences – Bridging the Gap Between Marketing Branding and Service Delivery Introduction In the realm of customer experience, two critical aspects often vie for attention — marketing branding and service delivery. While they are distinct areas within an organization, they are inseparable in the eyes of the customer.

Customer Experience 130

Customer Experience Customer Centricity Culture Brands 130

Horizon CX

JUNE 5, 2023

Why Do Senior Leaders and Customers Differ in Assessing Customer Experience? Introduction: In today’s competitive business landscape, delivering a superior customer experience has become a top priority for organizations across industries. However, a perplexing disconnect exists between how senior leaders perceive their organizations’ customer experience and how customers themselves perceive it.

Net Promoter Score 130

Net Promoter Score Customer Centricity Effort Score Touchpoint 130

Horizon CX

MAY 19, 2023

In Customer Experience, we often hear about transformational change as one of the descriptors of those within the discipline and many CX professionals have fashioned and even subtitled themselves as organizational change agents. I often think about this since, as a CX Manager for 10+ years I’d never thought of myself as a change agent yet the work I performed certainly had some incremental effect on the overall success of the organization, particularly from a customer experience perspective.

Customer Centricity 130

Customer Centricity Leadership Culture Customer Experience Management 130

Horizon CX

APRIL 3, 2023

You know you’re in for a lame and frustrating customer service experience when the recorded voice says to you, “Please listen carefully as many of our options have changed.” How often have you heard that phrase from the same business you happen to call many times over? And exactly how often do these choices warrant changing—weekly, daily, hourly? And even if I were not a frequent caller, do they think that I could memorize the plethora of choices and bypass the message?

Contact Center 130

Contact Center Call Center Entertainment System 130

Horizon CX

MARCH 10, 2023

by HorizonCX Advisory Board member Jerry Seufert and HorizonCX Founder and Principal Karl Sharicz Over the years in many quarters, it has become an article of faith that to do ‘good CX’ a CX leader needs to build a permanent autonomous CX department complete with headcount, structure, budget, and an ongoing, unending mission statement all its own. Many articles, blogs, consulting hours, and attention have been invested with this in mind.

NPS 130

NPS System Meeting ROI 130

Horizon CX

JUNE 10, 2022

The customer journey map (CJM) is a useful and crucial tool to help businesses uncover and visualize the experience their customers have when interacting with the brand from the customer’s point of view. That last underlined phrase underscores the criticality and validity of the customer journey. It must be derived from the customer’s perspective otherwise it’s made up of assumptions and speculation versus hardcore evidence.

Customer Journeys 130

Customer Journeys System Net Promoter Score NPS 130

Horizon CX

MARCH 19, 2022

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a contemporary buzzword among industries, but in fact, the term has been around for many years, most commonly rising during the mid-fifties from within the sphere of science fiction—think robots! So, what exactly is AI and how are organizations applying it, and most importantly, how does it either enrich or diminish the Customer Experience?

Customer Journeys 130

Customer Journeys Touchpoint Average Handle Time Survey 130

Horizon CX

DECEMBER 21, 2021

Here we are at the cusp of 2022, a point in time where many of us might have been inclined to believe that we’d be looking back at the year about to end—the past two years in fact—in reflection of another year dominated by a pandemic winding down and about to gradually end. Unfortunately, we are still not at that point in time neither now, nor is it likely we will be very soon.

Leadership 130

Leadership Measurement Groups Customer Experience Professionals 130

Horizon CX

MAY 7, 2021

In today’s world of surveys and Net Promoter Systems, the term “closing the loop” or “closed-loop process” have become common terms in many organizations. There are roles responsible for closed-loop programs and closing the loop with customers. There can be an extraordinary number of “loops to close” in this high-tech, high-touch, satisfaction-driven world we live in.

Culture 130

Culture Net Promoter Score Hotels Survey 130

Horizon CX

APRIL 6, 2021

I first wrote and published this blog topic back in July of 2015. That was nearly six years ago and, with recent events revealing racial inequities along with an increase in anti-Asian and other hate crimes, I thought it was time to bring this topic once again to the forefront as it seems to be a precursor to what we commonly refer to these days as microaggressions which eventually can lead to more insidious actions of violence.

Communication 147

Communication Study Meeting Course 147

Horizon CX

MARCH 1, 2021

Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty vs. Quarterly Numbers—The Conflict. As the Senior Manager of Customer Experience, I found myself amidst an executive leadership conflict that had been playing out for a few years and way above my pay grade. The issue at hand was the conflict that debated the company priority: Customer Satisfaction or quarterly numbers.

ROI 130

ROI Return on Investment Financial Customer Satisfaction 130

Horizon CX

JANUARY 4, 2021

The year 2020 will go down in history for a multitude of reasons, some of which we will not so fondly remember and some of which we may choose to forget. In its wake, it may have hindered customer experience to a certain degree but it also enabled some changers that will thankfully hang around for a while and perhaps some permanently. I liken this to a trip I made to India a few years back where I saw poverty like I had never seen before, became so ill that I could not eat for nearly an entire w

Retail 130

Retail e-support Customer Centricity Customer Experience 130

Horizon CX

OCTOBER 3, 2020

Mastering the rudiments or basics of just about any pursuit can be critical to overall success. That certainly, and especially, includes being skilled and competent at the management of Customer Experience (CX). Could the difference between a customer experience professional and a customer experience novice simply be that the expert is much better and more effective at the rudiments—the basic tasks that are fundamental to that skill?

Customer Journeys 130

Customer Journeys Net Promoter Score Effort Score Analysis 130

Horizon CX

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

How often have we found ourselves witnessing a company’s leadership suddenly experience the revelation that their competitors, who have adopted the best practices of Customer Experience Management, are showing impressive positive returns and a clear competitive advantage? And, how often has that realization and fear-of-missing-out resulted in an impulsive appointment to a newly-created Director of Customer Experience (CX) position, dropped on an individual who has little clue as what this means

Competitive Advantage 130

Competitive Advantage Leadership Knowledge Base Culture 130

Horizon CX

AUGUST 10, 2020

This blog is about human to human interactions and emotions—you know, the kind of interactions that those of us within the Customer Experience discipline profess to know the most about and have spent the most time mastering the art of conversation. So, let’s begin with a definition to get us all grounded. Wikipedia: Conversation is an interactive communication between two or more people.

Communication 130

Communication Social Media Leadership Groups 130

Horizon CX

JULY 2, 2020

I had never heard of the term microaggressions until the recent uprising over the George Floyd killing by a Minneapolis police officer. To be clear, that was not a microaggression. That was a racist act of killing for pure pleasure by the hand of someone whose job it was to protect and serve the public—an officer of the law whose empathy and emotions were unchecked and fully unleashed while two fellow officers of the law stood by in silence allowing the killer to finish up his deadly deed.

Culture 130

Culture Groups Comparison Communication 130

Horizon CX

JUNE 2, 2020

How is it that some leaders seem to instill a spark of creative energy and enthusiasm within nearly everyone around them while others seem to suck the energy out of the room the moment they enter? Those might at first appear to be two leadership extremes and to some degree they are but unfortunately, they’re more common within business than we’d probably like to admit.

Leadership 130

Leadership Culture Strategy Customer Experience Professionals 130

Horizon CX

MAY 1, 2020

At this most difficult time amidst a pandemic that we as a nation seem to have been so significant and remarkably unprepared for here within these United States, I believe a lot of soul-searching is taking place—both personally and professionally—that will determine in part how the future unfolds for each of us in terms of how we live, how we behave, and how we see ourselves as part of a worldwide system.

Course 130

Course Government Technology Training 130

Horizon CX

APRIL 1, 2020

By Peter Swaim, MBA, CSSGB, CX-PRO, VP Marketing, HorizonCX. Several years ago, before the term Customer Experience (CX) had become mainstream, I attended a lecture on Customer Satisfaction and why measuring it was important for businesses. The presenter told a story about a fictitious restaurant, whose name in the story turned out to be an actual diner in Massachusetts.

Hotels 147

Hotels Conference Travel Advertising 147

Horizon CX

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

Imagine a scenario where you just met a new CX colleague for the first time at a conference or other similar professional networking event. The two of you introduce yourselves to one another after which the person you just met launches into a personal story around something personally interesting to them or about them which quickly merges into a second personal story and then a third and so on.

Exercises 130

Exercises Groups Communication Course 130

Horizon CX

JANUARY 31, 2020

According to Wikipedia, the definition of a promise is a commitment by someone to do or not do something. As a noun, a promise means a declaration assuring that one will or will not do something. As a verb, it means to commit oneself by a promise to do or give. It can also mean a capacity for good, similar to a value that is to be realized in the near future.

Brands 147

Brands Advertising Connections Consumers 147

Horizon CX

JANUARY 6, 2020

Here we are—January 2020—another new year just beginning—and an election year as well. Excitement abounds. And here I am, as you may well be, in a moderate reflection of the past year and moderately optimistic about the year ahead. I’m using the word “moderate” quite intentionally. I consider myself a very moderate person in my approach to life and business and especially within my current role as a customer experience consultant.

Airlines 100

Airlines Course Management Survey 100

Horizon CX

DECEMBER 27, 2019

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) or “the ultimate question” as it is commonly referred to, has a history that dates back a full 26 years. Developed by Fred Reichheld in 1993 and published in a Harvard Business Review article in 2003 entitled The One Number You Need to Grow his initial research suggested that the best and most effective way to predict profitable growth was for businesses to measure their customer’s disposition toward recommending them to others—assessing the customer’s world in a si

Net Promoter Score 130

Net Promoter Score NPS B2B Metrics 130

Horizon CX

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

A few years back when I started taking drum lessons, my instructor gave me some sage advice about my performing. The advice he offered was ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’ which came from a common English saying, meaning that there are some things that you should not do, even if you are able to do them. It was originally meant as advice to someone who might be using their money, power, or skill in a way that’s not very wise.

Social Media 113

Social Media Culture Retail Tips 113

Horizon CX

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Many organizations today claim to be customer-centric. Customer-centricity and claiming to have transformed a business from one that previously focused primarily on products and services and now into one that values customers and customer experience above all else is a concept growing in popularity. Without a lot of strategic thinking behind it, and not much in the way of changing behavior, some businesses will then begin by promoting their new-found processes and business evolution.

Customer Centricity 100

Customer Centricity Study Training Advertising 100

Horizon CX

JULY 15, 2019

Someone asked me the other day whether I had ever taken an online training class and what was my impression and experience of having done so. If ever there was a loaded question for me, that one gets top billing. My initial response and emotional reaction to that question was that I had taken many online courses over the last several years and honestly could not recall learning much of anything as a result.

Course 113

Course Training Entertainment Exercises 113

Horizon CX

MAY 14, 2019

Many organizations have struggled with moving from product-centric to customer-centric over the years. Some have achieved this transformation, some have not. Of course, this transformation is just the beginning, as improving the customer experience will always be a journey and not a destination. However, for those well along the path toward being customer-centric, the results have been clearly positive.

Effort Score 100

Effort Score Guidelines Customer Centricity Infographics 100

Horizon CX

APRIL 4, 2019

As CX professionals, we are largely compelled to align with our respective organization’s sales and marketing functions and for good reason—they are generally the ones carrying out the strategy and business goals established by leadership and guiding the rest of the organization forward. All is well and good except when it comes to product-centric organizations believing and acting as if whatever they manufacture and sell or offer as a service is perfectly aligned with client needs and wants.

Customer Centricity 100

Customer Centricity Sales Communication Customers 100

Horizon CX

MARCH 25, 2019

We often hear that to deliver a great customer experience, it must start at the top with executive buy-in and commitment. While this is certainly true, it also requires an experienced and committed CX Leader. Of course, being a CX Leader is not easy. It’s even harder to be an effective one. Thinking about this reminded me of a good article titled “Key Traits of Effective Customer Experience Leaders” written by freelance writer Aki Merced and published in Tenfold.

Leadership 113

Leadership Customer Centricity Employee Engagement Effort Score 113

Horizon CX

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

The general and financial benefits of delivering a great customer experience have been written and talked about for many years now. However, some organizations still struggle to embrace a full commitment to it. Many organizations will venture down the path, but then either slow down “going through the motions” or stop completely after taking little to no action at all on voice-of-the-customer feedback.

Metrics 100

Metrics Customer Centricity Culture Leadership 100

Horizon CX

DECEMBER 31, 2018

Year-end has always been a time for personal reflection for me and as 2018 ends in just a few hours, I am inspired to share the following thoughts around Customer Experience both in reflection of the year just about to end and the one just about to begin. As a member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association’s CX Expert Panel, we are asked on an annual basis to offer our thoughts and experiences around CX both past and present, and looking ahead.

Customer Journeys 100

Customer Journeys Chief Customer Officer NPS Consulting 100

Horizon CX

DECEMBER 19, 2018

While many organizations have bought into the importance of delivering great customer experiences, not many are not actually delivering on it and many haven’t even defined their desired customer experience. According to research by Bain & Company, 80% of organizations believe they provide a superior service experience, but only 8% of their customers described their experience as superior.

Customer Experience 140

Customer Experience Innovation Customers Culture 140

Horizon CX

OCTOBER 23, 2018

A colleague of mine often shares this sage advice whenever the opportunity arises; “God gave you two ears and one mouth, use them appropriately.” It seems talking is easy and listening is hard. Why is that? Some suggest this difficulty is related to brain function as the average person speaks at 125 words per minute, but our brains process information much more quickly.

Groups 113

Groups Communication Exercises Tips 113

Horizon CX

AUGUST 13, 2018

My colleague and HorizonCX business partner Joe Camirand wrote a recent blog around The Power of a Smile. Consider this a companion blog that looks at the broader concept of being positive, to which a smile certainly belongs and serves as a great starter. In the world of customer experience, a smile can certainly be detected even when the customer isn’t present—especially over the phone—and lack thereof can lead to poor customer experiences that can often compound themselves and lose business i

Examples 100

Examples Customer Experience Tips Groups 100