A week later, the CMO of Company X returned from a Customer Experience conference and is motivated to get his organization’s CX Program in better shape. He knows revenue ought to follow an overall increase in customer satisfaction. He has set up a meeting with three of his direct reports to determine what his nest smartest steps should be.

3.

After the meeting with the CMO, the EVP of Customer Experience at Company X has determined that the company needs to do a CX Maturity Assessment. They need to see where they stand today to establish where they to go next. Bottom line: increase universe of customers AND their satisfaction.

4.

Last month, Company X’s CEO got handed an ultimatum from the Board of Directors. Increase revenue within the next two quarters or else.

1.

The following morning, the CEO pulled together his executive team to gather ideas and establish an execution plan to increase revenues.

2.

The EVP of Customer Experience finds a CX Maturity Assessment online. He fills it out and determines their organization is doing better than they had initially suspected.

Independent of al this, the Call Center Operations Director has called a meeting of her teams to evaluate how well Company X is handling customer complaints. It’s not good!

Hearing about the meetings leadership is having about Customer Experience, Company X’s Social Media Manager finds a Social Business Maturity Assessment online only to determine, they’re doing everything as they should.

5.

6.

In IT’s weekly staff meeting, the VP of IT sparks a conversation about how these rumblings from leadership about increasing Customer Satisfaction may translate to an potential increase in IT funding to procure more modern CRM tools. He asks two of his Business Analysts to begin a project to research “Modern Marketing Stacks” and “Enterprise Marketing Management Technology” to prepare for quarterly meeting with Finance.

7. Reacting to last week’s memo from the CMO about stemming customer churn, Company X’s VP of Digital goes online to find a Digital Customer Experience Maturity Assessment and determines that the problem is that the company doesn’t have advanced analytics software and isn’t investing in business intelligence capabilities. She fires off a request to her boss in IT to requisition those new skill sets and another request to HR to help write the job descriptions.

8.

The EVP of Finance at Company X receives an email from HR and a phone call from a manager in IT both regarding the request to fund three net new positions in Digital. One for a Social Scientist, another for a Data Scientist and the third for a Director of Business Intelligence.

9.

She fires off an email to the CFO at Company X to notify her that this will cost the company north of $500,000 and will take all of 6 months.

The CFO of Company X stops the CEO before an afternoon meeting and states that he is going to green light three new positions in Digital to up the company’s Web capability. He mentions that in the next year, they should have a sturdier Digital footprint.

10.

The CEO exclaims that he doesn’t have time to wait a year to whip that “blood-sucking” group into shape. He needs results immediately and red lights the new hires and asks to call together an all hands meeting on Customer Experience.

The CFO walks over to the VP of HR and tells her that the three positions have been killed by the CEO and he is “livid.” He wants faster results from the existing team. He mentions to her that he called them “vampires.” She responds that she just received an email to help spearhead an all hands meeting for everyone involved in customer experience.

11.

The Director of Customer Service Operations and three of his direct reports spend a long lunch complaining about how they’re never involved in company conversations about customer satisfaction. They all talk about how the company sucks and leadership is completely out of touch.

12.

Meanwhile an HR manager is writing up a performance improvement plan for that same Director of Customer Service Operations in advance of his imminent firing.

A member of Company X’s Board of Directors calls the CEO to follow up with a private conversation about the board’s decision to begin plans in case of a shake up if things don’t turn around as per the ultimatum.

13.

The CEO writes the agenda for his all hands meeting. The title of the agenda, “How Company X Will Center Itself Around Its Customer.”

Later that day, his intern is asked to proofread and make copies for the all hands meeting.

The Tales of Company X and the Nine-Headed Hydra of Customer ExperienceSeries One, Episode One: “The Shit Hits the Fan” by @stevenkeith

Tales of Company X is a business “cartoon” series from CX Pilots. In this series, we satirically chronicle a company’s journeys in figuring out how important customer experience is to them and how they manage (or don’t manage) the work of Customer Experience Management inside their organizations. CX Pilots is a new voice and approach to Customer Experience Management.

We “pilot” quick-wins that center organizations around their customers. We would love to get your feedback. Drop us a line at cxpilots.com.

Customer Experience ProgramsCX PILOTS

01/01 — 4/16

Next Episode: The All Hands Meeting freaks leadership all the way out. People start dusting off their resumes and the CEO’s intern shocks the group with a few stunning ideas. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive the next episode.

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