Why Hiring a Customer Experience Manager is BS

There's been a lot of focus lately on hiring "Customer Experience Managers", especially by companies in the tech industry.  The basis of the idea is bang-on: But the latest movement to hiring a manager to do this is ridiculous, it defeats the whole purpose and is just another BS buzzword.

Why is it BS? 

Let's consider the premise: to look at the entire customer experience as a whole, making customer happiness a goal of every department, not just customer service.  How does adding another department (which is effectively what you're doing if you add a standalone job title) solve that?  All it does is add another layer of management, with the dream that they will be able to do what no one else has been able to do so far - work with all the different business units and force them to cooperate with each other.

It is a pointless rebranding initiative that doesn't address the underlying issues of departments working in silos, lack of teamwork, and the resulting lack of visibility across departments.  This lack of visibility causes frustration in both customers and employees - which multiplies as unhappy employees don't typically provide a very good experience to your customers.

So what is the solution?

  • Give your support team the tools they need to do their jobs more efficiently
  • GET RID OF SILOS! Collaborate among teams - encourage this at every management level
  • Use existing customer data more effectively (integrate your business systems)
  • Look at the customer as a relationship, not a ticket or issue to be resolved
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The most important part of improving the customer experience is that it MUST BE OWNED AND INSTIGATED AT THE EXECUTIVE LEVEL.  From the CEO right down to the customer support rep, every single person in your company must view customer service as the most important part of their job.  It's not enough to just say it, managers and execs must practice what they preach, and reward and recognize those fulfilling the mission.

When it comes down to it, "customer experience management" is a philosophy, not a job title.

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