The Big CX Takeaways: Season One Reflections

Nicole: [00:00:00] Welcome to Simply CX, where we bring you customer voices and expert insights. I'm Nicole McKinley, leader of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft.

Today we have a special episode lined up. We are six months through the show and we've gained so much insight from our experts in customer experience. So I wanted to share some of the moments that really stood out for me and our production team at Larj Media.

So I'd like to introduce our producer, Tina Nole.

Tina: Thanks, Nicole. You know, making this show has given me what feels like a master's level course in customer experience. We have spanned industries from education and automotive, banking, telecom and entertainment...

Nicole: ...and high tech, and across the board we keep hearing the same thing. When organizations put people first, the CX innovation and impact is real and lasting. And as we made these episodes and talked to all these [00:01:00] CX leaders and practitioners, it became super clear that a couple of things either kept appearing or really prompted ongoing discussion. The things that really stood out for me were, you know, starting with culture.

Having an organization culture that's grounded in innovating for customers, where everyone feels they are accountable no matter what their role as a CX leader.

A second area that surfaced was just the importance of having organizational alignment on CX metrics and being super clear about what it is you're measuring and holding people accountable to as a CX leader.

And then third is just the role that AI plays. Using AI and other technology to really drive innovation and acceleration and take the experience outcomes to the next level using technology.

And look, these are not easy things,. But they are simple concepts for leaders and teams to get behind and get started making real [00:02:00] impact.

Tina: In our episode featuring the CX expert, Ken Hughes, it was one of our first ones, we explored the psychology behind emotional loyalty.

Nicole: Yes. And why customers bond with brands beyond price or convenience.

I loved how Ken emphasized that loyalty is earned through trust, through empathy and shared values, not just transactions. But to do these things you have to have the right organizational culture in place. That's super critical.

Tina: Yeah, that really resonated. And Ken also talked a lot about the Taylor Swift effect. And how Taylor Swift has these very specific touch points to her entire audience all the time.

Ken: She's invested continuously the customer connection. Like if you go back to when she was 16, 17, 18, first albums, she was using social media early as even things that Tumblr and, and Facebook and MySpace were only forming. She was already using them to connect her customers, to talk to her fans every night. To invite them into her life, to share the intimate moments buying the curtain. [00:03:00]She stepped into their lives. She'd turn up with their wedding. And she'd send them little gifts in the post. She'd pay off their student loans if she got more and more famous. And, and to this day, she still does that. She still steps into their lives in any opportunity and allows them into hers.

Tearing away the line between producer and consumer is so important. We call it collaborative commerce. Not treating the customer like an end point. You know, they're at the middle, they're at the center of everything, so why shouldn't we be creating with them?

Um, and so even the word consumer kind of puts them in a place of, well, they're just the ones consuming the product. Well, no, really they're co-producing at this point.

And so that's what Taylor Swift has because of that customer experience and customer intimacy, investment, the authenticity, the vulnerability, the excite and delight, and particularly around that, she always looks to excite our customers and make them feel that they're as important as she is in this.

That's why she uses the the hard hands thing all the time. It's me and it's you together. And those two things make us the success that we are.

Tina: Nicole, why is culture such a big deal when it comes to CX innovation?

Nicole: For any organization, it's critical that if you [00:04:00] want customer experience to be taken seriously, if you want customer experience to be a core element of how the business operates, you have to embed customer experience as core to your culture.

There's lots of different ways companies go about that. For us, at Microsoft, we have a culture attribute, customer obsession, and it's really about putting the customer first in everything that we do. And using that to guide decision making. Using that to guide the next best action that someone takes. Using that to guide what we invest in and deinvest in from a business perspective.

That's just one example, but what a organization or a company chooses to anchor their ethos on matters. And it's fundamental for customer experience to be a part of that, if you are gonna ultimately put your money where your mouth is, so to speak, right? And really bring customer experience to life.

It is extremely [00:05:00] challenging to invest in anything if it's not core to what your company, what your organization values and says is most important to you.

Tina: Along with that creativity I noticed come up quite a bit, especially in the Ken Hugs conversation. What role does creativity play?

Nicole: It's thinking through, gosh, like what could I do differently or take to the next level that will really like bring joy, bring happiness, bring that surprise and delight. And that matters when it comes to creating exceptional, differentiated experiences.

Tina: I know you're a swifty and I am too, and I wonder if you noticed this video that came out where she's showing the bonuses that she gave to her staff and to your voice that speaks a little to that culture, right, like she's doing that through and through.

Nicole: That's a great example of a really high impact delighter. For sure. I mean, who wouldn't be over the moon to get an unexpected, substantial bonus in your [00:06:00] paycheck?

It's also a great example of the employee experience and the importance of how employee experience actually drives that next level of customer experience.

Taylor's rewarding and recognizing above and beyond impact or work amongst her crew, her dancers, her band. Who wouldn't feel like that much more connected to Taylor and the cause and the movement really, that she is championing across the globe.

Tina: I love that.

Nicole, one of our episodes featured Chris Lipman from e&. He was the Chief Customer Experience Officer e&, UAE, and he was a puzzler. And one of the puzzle pieces that he really focused on was metrics.

Chris: Everyone feels good about delivering good customer experience, and it feels like it's the right thing to do. But when you're sitting in front of the CFO and you're talking about customer experience, typically he glazes over. There's not much interest there because what's it got to do with the CFO and he's [00:07:00] interested in the numbers.

The only way through that is to convert customer experience into something that is financial. And that's what NPS or Net Promoter Score brings to the table.

And it's not an exact science. Some people don't like it and all the rest of it, but NPS, it's the only genuinely global benchmarkable score because everybody measures it the same way and everybody asks the same questions.

And so you can compare yourself intra and inter industry using this. But it's also the only one which genuinely links to financial value.

Tina: Why are metrics so important in cx?

Nicole: E& aligned on NPS. And you know, for them and their organization and the culture, NPS really was an important metric that both finance and the business aligned on. And said, look, we're gonna use this metric, we're gonna action and make decisions based off of the results of this metric.

And so what's most [00:08:00] important is, first and foremost, the alignment on which metrics matter. And that alignment can't be in isolation with one business department or one division. It can't be just driven by leaders of customer experience. It needs to be aligned across the business and cross-functionally. And you know, that includes with finance and anyone and everyone that is going to be held accountable to the so what behind the metric.

And we've done similar work at Microsoft. We've chosen different metrics, not NPS, to be laser focused on to measure customer experience. But the key to unlocking the power of the metric is really about the ownership and the accountability that senior leaders raise their hand and sign up for and say, okay, I'm accountable. My team, my organization, these roles are accountable for this customer experience metric. And that [00:09:00] accountability means that those metrics show up in my business reviews. They're integrated into the way I run the business. It means those metrics are part of my performance assessment, and they show up in how my impact is assessed as an employee. They show up in my performance management processes. And in how we give guidance to managers and leaders to coach their employees on what could be done differently to move the needle on the metric.

And in essence, the metric is critical, but the alignment on what are the metrics that matter, and then the commitment to bring those metrics to life and actually use them and integrate and scale them through the way the business operates is really where the real magic happens in terms of the metrics adding value and creating meaning for how experience is assessed, improved and taken to the next level.

Tina: Chris had a really interesting analogy about his love for Sudoku puzzles and [00:10:00] his CX work. Do you find that CX work is like finding the answers to a puzzle, or is it more like a knives out sort of mystery?

Nicole: For me, the puzzle analogy does really resonate. Customer experience and the landscape that we are leading through right now is truly a new frontier. It is changing every day. Especially when you think about the wide demographics of who our customers are. And what everyone from my young kids might want as customers and demand, to even younger generations, to my parents' generation and everything in between.

And then you add technology and you add AI onto the landscape. And now really anything is possible, if you can imagine it, in terms of experience. And it's a really exciting but yet daunting space to be in and to think about CX as, you know, a puzzle [00:11:00] that you are creating, kind of the next puzzle pieces for real time. And it's fun, it's exciting. But like I said, you know, challenging and daunting all at the same time. I continue to be inspired by people like Chris who are creating really unique, differentiated experiences and using technology to drive that experience differentiation at the next level of scale.

Tina: I really like that, and it was fun to learn about how his own personality comes to play in his leader in CX. Do you find some personal traits that you have or that other leaders kind of are must haves in the CX space?

Nicole: I care deeply about people, and I think that across all of the CX leaders, practitioners, customers, that's another consistent attribute that I would say I see across the board. Which is like a deep care and a desire to make someone's life a bit [00:12:00] easier, a bit better.

And so regardless of like the industry, regardless of the use case of how AI is enabling customer experience or new experiences at its core, is to help people you know, move faster, eliminate toil, smile, brighter, whatever it may be. That to me is really the foundation, is a desire to help people and leave a positive impact on humans.

Tina: That is really amazing. And one of the episodes that shined that light very brightly was City of Hope. We talked with Nasim Eftekhari, and if you remember, she started out not in the hospital world, she started out as an entrepreneur and she moved into her role at City of Hope advancing cancer research and treatment, and it was very, very powerful. We told the story about how she and her team are revolutionizing the oncology treatment and diagnosis, using AI [00:13:00] in large language models.

Nasim: From a patient facing perspective, I have gone with friends and family through this painful process of trying to find them an option when they are told they have no other options. And it's impossible to navigate clinical trials.gov if you don't have medical knowledge. Even when you do have medical knowledge, trying to find something that may save your life, a needle in a haystack of thousands of trials.

Uh, so that is something that I am personally very passionate about. And I'm happy that we finally have the technology that we can enable this nationally for all patients.

Nicole: I was just sharing with a close friend that I grew up with that this episode was one to tune in to, even though the individual right, um, isn't in the experience domain or technology domain, I'm like, gosh, like this is just like a great story and like super [00:14:00] inspiring. And to see how one individual and then a team powered by technology is taking what used to be such a time suck or toil for doctors and patients alike, and it's just making their lives easier and saving lives along the way. So, I couldn't agree more. It's just such an inspiring episode.

Tina: One of the things I really learned from you in doing this podcast, Nicole, is all the myriad of ways that CX is everyone's responsibility in an organization. And the customer piece is not often what you think about black and white as a customer. So if you go into store and there's your customer, in that case it was patients being the customer or doctors being her customer.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. That story was a little different in that Nasim was serving a number of different people as her customer.

[00:15:00] When I approach customer experience, I think of it as like, who am I helping? Who am I serving, first and foremost? And there's a number of different dimensions then that you become focused on in terms of realizing, wow, the opportunity is not just to help the traditional end customer, but to also unlock the potential and help so many other people in roles. And that they too are defacto customers and beneficiaries of the experience, innovation. And so for Nasim, you're spot on. That was, you know, doctors, nurses, other clinicians, and ultimately patients. All were and are her customers, and they all have different needs. Which gets back to the importance of personalization and the opportunity to differentiate the experience. And what that looks like for a doctor or a nurse is different than what that looks like for a patient or a patient's family, who again, are all [00:16:00] benefiting from this amazing innovation in the health industry.

Tina: And one of the things you pointed out in that episode was how important trust is. And that it couldn't be more critical than in a doctor's office. And I'm wondering then how your team at Microsoft builds trust when customers are counting on you.

Nicole: Trust is obviously, you know, so foundational to enabling an exceptional experience.

Trust can easily be lost. And takes a long time, typically to be built. It's built over time through consistency, predictability. And at Microsoft, we really look at it as something that needs to be first and foremost, pervasive in every interaction a customer has with our brand. Whether that's through our products and solutions, whether that's through digital and AI enabled capabilities, or through humans. And that consistency of, oh, I know first and foremost that my objective can and [00:17:00] will be achieved in this interaction, starts to build that trust. And it gets back to that like surprise and delight.

But then on the flip side, especially since I'm in the technology industry, it's even more pronounced when something goes wrong. And I think that when something goes wrong, um, is one of the most important moments that matters in experience.

For us in the technology industry, that could be a data center outage. And a technology solution no longer being available. And that is a ripple effect for our customers across industries, across the globe. That could impact the capabilities that Nasim talked about and no longer allow for the AI to work. And no longer enable those doctors and those clinicians to benefit from the technology all the way through to scenarios like airports, operations being halted, or other examples as well.[00:18:00]

And I think in those moments, where experience really matters is not just through the technology, but through that human connection. And it kind of comes full circle, which is as Microsoft, you know, being there, you know, being there reaching out, human to human and first and foremost saying like, I've got you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to support you. Then you layer on the additional ways that you can rebuild trust from there.

But I think that our approach at Microsoft is like when those moments matter, and they all matter, but some are more high stakes, more high impact than others. Like a large scale global technology outage or service interruption. And when that happens, what matters most is us as humans being there for our customers. Communicating clearly and letting them know what's happening. What is the ETA to resolution? What are alternatives to [00:19:00] getting them back up and running and mitigating the impact on their side.

And then we put a lot of effort in this example that I'm giving in ensuring that we actually then help prevent the next scenario like a large scale service outage. Also prevent the level of impact that a customer may have experienced from ever occurring again.

Because in the technology world, outages happen. But how do we help our customers mitigate the impact of that by building resilience solutions, by ensuring that those solutions are well architected. By ensuring that the customer and the teams at Microsoft supporting them know what to do when an outage occurs, or a service interruption occurs. And ensuring that everyone understands, okay, the play we run is X, and that is to quickly and easily ensure that we get the customer back up and running. At a [00:20:00] minimum, minimize the impact that they're experiencing to their business, to their end customers.

So that's just one example. But again, in those critical moments that matter, it's a huge opportunity to strengthen and rebuild trust. And we see the positive impact of that, for sure.

Tina: That reminds me of the episode that we did live at the Microsoft campus, where we brought in your colleagues Diana Parker and Mike Friday to talk about how you co-created Microsoft's CX strategy.

Nicole: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. There were a couple things that really stood out from our conversation. But even more importantly, the partnership that we've built over the last two years. And it really starts with that value of customer experience, back to culture. And you know, the commitment from a sponsorship perspective to assert that CX matters. Like we're going to prioritize [00:21:00] and drive customer experience accountability across the business.

And then it was about co-creating the strategy together. And again, this gets back to anyone and everyone can be and should be a leader of customer experience. You don't have to have CX in your title. You don't have to be the appointed organization leading customer experience. It's even more impactful if you are partnering across division lines, across functions to align on why CX matters.

And then translate that into what resonates for the specific business that you're going after in driving that accountability within.

So in this case, in partnering with Diana and with Mike, it was getting really precise around which roles are we prioritizing customer experience, accountability for. Why does it matter to those roles? And then to kind of go full circle and tie it back to metrics [00:22:00] getting crisp on what are the CX metrics specifically that matter for these prioritized roles.

And then how are we gonna bring that to life? How are we gonna integrate the behaviors and the metrics that we're saying matter for this set of prioritized roles into the way in which we operate. How do we integrate these metrics into our business processes and our business rhythms? Defining that very clearly. And then getting it up and running with the sponsorship, in this case of Diana and her team. How are we integrating the customer experience, accountability into the performance management processes and making sure that we partner with HR and the other appropriate business partners to, you know, not just define what exceptional CX behaviors and metrics look like. But how do we equip managers to coach on those behaviors and metrics. And what are the the [00:23:00] things that demonstrate that accountability really well? And what are those example behaviors or scenarios that indicate the opposite and put training and readiness programs in place to help people actually grow and strengthen their capability and therefore their CX accountability.

And so all of those different components, co-creating it with the appropriate leaders and business functions make a huge difference in creating a really compelling, clear and actionable strategy, that then becomes one that you can truly execute on.

And then you can actually measure the impact of, okay, have we actually started to move the needle in terms of adoption and usage of, in this case, the new CX metrics and the insights that come from them. Or are there things that we need to do differently in order to achieve that [00:24:00] adoption intended outcome?

And then similarly start to look at what does the data and insights say about the actual customer experience that our end customers are having? And are we seeing the needle being moved in a positive, neutral, or negative way? And then using that data and that insight to identify the next set of experienced improvement opportunities that we need to go after.

And so really it's treating customer experience, strategy, and execution of the strategy as an always on motion. I equate it very much to thinking about the revving of a product or a feature and function that is being introduced to a new product or solution. And in this case, the product is the experience.

And we are approaching experience, transformation, and innovation at Microsoft like it is a product. 'cause at the end of the day, it is our product. It's the thing that's gonna make or break [00:25:00] whether a customer chooses Microsoft decides to stay with Microsoft or grow with Microsoft. And the only way for us

to continue to ensure that we're delivering on our ever changing, growing customer needs is to rev that experience just like we rev product. And ensure that we're seeking every opportunity to delight and really deliver value to our customers.

Tina: That episode was fascinating for anybody who wants to really see how strategy was created by three experts. And I really liked your willingness to talk about some of the pitfalls. And we don't need to talk about them right now because folks can go listen to that episode.

Nicole: Yes, for sure.

Tina: Yeah, it's a fun one. Nicole, as we talked about at the beginning of this episode, this season of Simply CX, we've covered everything from education to automotive, banking, entertainment. So many highlights, and I know there were a lot of things that came up multiple times. I [00:26:00] wonder if you have a few of those things that are top of mind to you from the season that really stuck out.

Nicole: Gosh, so many. This additional theme around the criticality of uptime efficiency or time saved. I think Erica Baird at Cummins did a great job sharing how important that is to the experience that Cummins delivers in their supply chain operations in particular.

The other example of time saved and the criticality of that was shared in the episode with T-Mobile and their innovation of promo genius and what that's done in their case for time savings and efficiencies of their employees who are serving customers.

Tina: And that promo genius had to do with employees interaction with customers in the stores around sales, right?

Nicole: Exactly. Yeah. So better equipping, in this case it was T-Mobile employees on the [00:27:00]sales floor, with what is the most effective tailored promotion or deal that they can proactively offer the unique customer that they're interacting with powered by technology, ensuring that they have access to that data and those sets of recommendations at their fingertips, just like that. There's no real, you know, thinking or sleuthing or hunting going on as a result.

That was another just really great example of the importance of experience innovation in saving time and enabling employees who then are delivering incremental value to the end customer.

Another one though that jumps out for me is the opportunity that experience innovation has to be more inclusive and reach individuals or populations of people that otherwise aren't well-served.

The [00:28:00] example in the conversation I had at Hillsborough County Public Schools is one that just really has stuck with me. Like where technology and AI is now being used to reach children who don't speak English or where English is their second language. And uniquely being able to help these students, one, understand what the teacher is teaching in the classroom, but two, also give them that added support if and when needed. In the case of the reading and tutoring on grammar as well as writing, et cetera, was really powerful.

And then to go one step further and think about that from a multi-generational perspective, you know, the opportunity that we have and experience innovation to create really differentiated experiences that are tailored to those unique needs of the individual customers. And the example that was shared by TD Bank and how they're trying to reach young kids. [00:29:00] And they've invested in the gamification to really educate children through a video game on the importance of financial management. And why banking matters. And how to think about finance in a new and different way that appeals to that younger generation, my kids included, I think is another powerful example of how experience innovation can really create unique, differentiated experiences that are tailored to the needs of every human, every generation, every population, language spoke, you name it, across the globe. And when I take a step back and I think about that, wow, like that's super powerful to think that the experience work that we are leading collectively has the real ability to change lives and make lives better.

Tina: A lot of the [00:30:00] episodes did cover on that multi-generational engagement piece, and I remember you talking about your son during the CarMax episode.

Nicole: That was another great one. I came away a bit surprised, but also again, inspired and excited. We learned through that conversation that CarMax is really designing a multi-generational, multi-channel or omni-channel experience so that no matter who you are as a car buyer, you can buy how and where you want to.

And I was making the assumption that my son, who just turned 16 would want to just like click a button and buy a car online and off he goes, especially if funded by, uh, by me, um, and his dad. But, um, no, you know, I learned in that discussion that in fact there's quite a wide range of wants and desires when it comes to such a substantial purchase as buying a car, [00:31:00] especially for first time car buyers and younger car buyers. And the desire to actually sit in the car, touch the car, smell the car, you name it.

And the fact that using data, using AI, CarMax has been able to unpack that very wide range of differing desires and needs for how to find the car of someone's dreams, so to speak, and being able to deliver unique capabilities that meet that diverse array of needs was really cool to see.

Tina: Nicole, let's talk about the next season. What should we build on, and where is the CX Frontier heading in the future?

Nicole: The frontier future for CX is bright. And it is one that is changing at a pace like I've never seen before thanks to the power of technology and ai. And I'm super excited to go deeper into how [00:32:00]AI is an accelerant for CX innovation at scale, while also bringing personalization of experience to the next level.

CX has clearly become a game changer in market differentiation already. And there are so many new capabilities, new ways to apply it, new stories to be told, across pretty much every industry. We've only really started to scratch the surface. Digging into this combination of human ambition, human brain power, coupled with AI and the new and ever changing capabilities that we bring to bear across the technology industry is gonna create for some really meaty, exciting, inspiring stories to be unpacked in the next season.

And I wanna hear from our audience where you have CX innovation creating real market advantage. Where are you transforming customer experience? Reach out to me on LinkedIn and share your story.[00:33:00]

And with that, you know, thank you, Tina, for your support and for today's conversation. I know it was a little bit of a different take, but super fun to take time to look back and reflect on our first season.

Tina: Absolutely. As I said, I have gotten a master's level course in simply cx. It's been really fun to get to sit with you and do this work together, and I'm thrilled for our next season and what's to come.

Nicole: Thank you for listening to Simply CX. I'm Nicole McKinley. Our show is produced by Larj Media, that's LARJ Media.

Special thanks to Luia Pulkka and Elizabeth Machado and to our video partner Specular [00:34:00]Studios.