What is Customer Experience Day?
Although I opened my consulting practice this year, I have been working on customer experience for much longer. The first time I celebrated CXDay officially was only two years ago.
Until recently, in fact, the Customer Experience field has been growing at a rather slow pace. This year there is more to celebrate on CXDay than ever before.
The Customer Experience Decade is Upon Us
There is a palpable feeling that we are at the cusp of the Customer Experience Decade. And it’s more than a feeling. This is backed up by data. By 2022, spending on customer experience technology is expected to reach $641bn.
Big brands are making business decisions based on values. Take for example, Patagonia’s decision this year to sell only to companies with charity elements is just one of the examples of the financial tectonic shifts across industries. Never before did a brand make a strategic partnership decision based on culture and values.
Even government agencies like the IRS are innovating in order to improve the taxpayer experience by offering more self service products.
So what is Customer Experience Day?
Customer Experience Day is the one day of the year when all of us passionate CX professionals celebrate the customer experience field. We do this through initiatives that honor the employees who genuinely care for our customers and the customers who grow our businesses.
CXPA (Customer Experience Association) supports all of us in our events and projects and promotes our work around the world. This year, I decided to mark CXDay by sharing my journey and thanking those who guided me through it. Without those before me, I would have never be here writing this article, running a customer experience consulting shop, and working hard to make experiences across the globe better.
How I Fell in Love with Customer Experience
I fell in love with customer experience on my first day in JetBlue. Of course then I did not know what our field is called. On my desk I had a big basket with all kinds of JetBlue branded items: umbrella, notebook, T-shirt, etc. Immediately, I felt welcomed and appreciated.
I started on a Friday, July 1st, so I could have my health benefits for that month. I had zero expectations in terms of colleagues’ attention. My previous two jobs and internship all involved a first week of solitude and phone set up issues. To my surprise, at JetBlue, my Director spent the entire day with me. He took me out for lunch and spoke to me about the culture at JetBlue and how the customer is the focus of everything we do. I could not believe my eyes and ears. I already had my MBA and knew that HR is the furthest place from the customer. If the “People” department felt so close to the customer, I thought, what would it feel like to be in Marketing and Sales? Little did I know that the People department was the corporate culture engine in JetBlue and the backbone of its differentiated customer experience.
Earning CCXP Certification
Fast forward four years later, I saw the abbreviation CCXP for the first time. I already had worked for 2 years in Marketing, spent more time with JetBlue’s customers, and was Head of Customer Experience for JetBlue for 6 months. While at a Forrester conference in Manhattan, I stumbled upon a speaker with the CCXP title. I quickly googled it and found CXPA. A whole world opened in front of me!
By then, I knew that customer experience was a niche practice, but I never knew that there was an accreditation related to it! For that, I can thank Annette Franz, CCXP – the speaker that day that I met on the phone 3 more years later. One of the first books I bought was Chief Customer Officer 2.0 by Jeanne Bliss, CCXP. I still quote this book and listen to Jeanne’s podcast (not as often as I would like with a baby at home). Without her book, I would have never been able to make my business case for disruption management in JetBlue (another way to say delays and cancellations!). This book is a must read for any newcomer in the field of customer experience.
The Time is Ours – 2020 Here We Come!
Although for the past three years, more people are talking about customer experience, few brands actually know how to practice the discipline. Even fewer have been able to prove the value of prioritizing the customer over the investor (even temporarily). All of that is about to change. We are entering the decade of customer experience actions, POCs (proof of concepts), programs, training, and most importantly, compensation based on customer satisfaction.
So celebrate with us today! Mark the decade for CX. Honor your customers, respect your employees, and keep building your brands. And if you do not know where to begin, do not be afraid. The CXPA and its founders have made sure that there are plenty of me out there to help you build those business cases and roadmaps so you too build memorable customer experiences and make your customers happy!
How AI and the Future of Humanity will co-exist?
I was born in 1980 and grew up with Terminator. Skynet, the AI with a consciousness that refused to shut itself for self-preservation, was my biggest fear. When I was…
Digital Customer Experience Strategy – Top Three Mistakes
How many of you have interacted with financial and insurance institutions who seem to have forgotten the invention of the world wide web and applications design? In 2021, Major players…
NYC Subway CX Kills Chivalry in the City
Brands have the power to make customers feel ignored, and even angry. The CX Pyramid crumbles and customer-to-customer behavior, in addition to individual experiences, suffer. Case in point, the New York MTA System.
How To Define Your Purpose And Have Unique Culture
If you Google the word “purpose” you get the definition “the reason for which something exists.” This is a challenge if you think about it in the context of organizational…
WeWork Does Customer Experience Right with a Wow Moment
Used at the right time and place along the customer’s journey, the Wow Moment is an excellent retention technique. When a brand creates personal, relevant experience at exactly the right time, it can build a lifelong, loyal customer relationship.
Create Your Tribe: How Great CX Makes a Lifestyle Brand
Newcomers to the market realize that their business is only as strong as the growth of their customer base. With that in mind, senior leaders work hard to shorten the distance between them and the customer.
Web Experience is Having a Comeback
In the third quarter of 2020 US e-commerce sales went up 36.7% compared with the same period in 2019. Websites have come back to center stage. However, we are not seeing…
Employee Centric Culture – Culture is King
In 2017 we introduced our ROI series recognizing the challenges all customer experience professionals have to obtain funding for CX initiatives and to prove their positive returns. Our second ROI…
From Pain Points to Magical Moments: Transform the Customer Experience
Argyle Journal interviewed Liliana Petrova about emerging self service technology and meeting and exceeding customer expectations in airports. One such way, as Liliana explains, is to create magical customer experience…
Is AI Really The Answer?
Earlier this week we shared some of the pitfalls of implementing self-service and highlighted the importance of strategic and empathetic implementation. AI (artificial intelligence) is one of the self-service tools…
Why I Don’t Love Chatbots
Today, we tackle the value proposition that chatbots are more valuable to companies than customers. I reject this. The ROI simply is not there, especially since better customer experience is…
Aviation Industry, Coronavirus Isn’t the Only Thing Killing Us
Eighteen years ago, September 11th caused a three-day halt of the US commercial airlines and resulted in a 31.6% reduction in travel in September 2001 compared to the previous year….
Let’s Get You Certified as a Customer Experience Professional!
Like all mature professions, customer experience has a certification that is internationally recognized. Adding it to your resume will signal to the business community that you are serious about customer experience and your aspiration to be part of its leadership ranks…
Can One Email Build Loyalty? #MYWESTELM
This is exemplary management of the post-purchase journey touch-point. For years, this level of management has been non-existent. At best, it tends to come in the form of an email confirmation that purchased items have been delivered.
Customer Loyalty Begins In-House
Ten years ago, creating customer loyalty meant assigning a membership number customers fed back to brands at the time of purchase. Customers went through the trouble of keeping track of loyalty numbers, hoping to collect enough points along the
Airport Experience – Are You Letting Down Your Precious 2021 Travelers?
A month and a half ago, as part of our ongoing conversation about airport experience, we introduced the concept of revenge travel. We pleaded with the public to trust us…
How Facial Recognition Works for Your Customers?
One of the hurdles for Customer Experience Consultants like us is proving the business case for bringing us on board. Leaders often think that if they talk about being customer-centric…
Customer Experience Tips and Best Practices In 2017?
This is Post 2 of Liliana Petrova’s series on customer experience. She shares customer experience tips, lessons learned, and best practices for the new year. And dives into organizational culture…
How @T4 makes real customer experience impact
Today we share our impressions from visiting our welcoming host Chad at JFK Terminal 4 in NYC. We also celebrate Chad as an effective Customer Experience professional/practitioner. His work is…
3 Customer Experience Strategy Lessons for 2023
Customer experience strategy guides exceptional experience and bolsters growth. When executed well, it impacts not only your market share, but the entire industry in which you operate. In fact, a…
Empathy in Customer Experience
As customer experience and hospitality professionals, we use the word empathy all the time. It is the baseline of experience design. Yet, few of us truly understand it, or how…
Are You Thinking Strategically?
Today, we are elevating our conversation to thinking strategically. The Petrova Experience is in the strategy creation business. So, we frequently encounter the difficulty businesses have anticipating, let alone defining,…
United Airlines Culture Problem
I am often asked what organizational culture is. Frequently, I meet with executives who are feeling defeated by the scale and complexity of leading cultural transformations. So, where do you…
How to Build Customer-Centric Culture
Before we address how to build customer-centric culture, let’s examine the terminology: what culture is and what it is not. Culture is not executives talking about high level strategy. Equally,…
Customer Experience ROI. Is It Worth Doing?
The business case for Customer Service is complex. Gone are the days when we bought a piece of hardware that depreciates over 5 or 10 year on the balance sheet. CX does not even show up on our assets list. At least not with that name.
Are You Ready to Go Exclusive with Jane, Your Digital Concierge?
In 2015 JetBlue introduced bag fees. Seven years after the competition. The media exploded. Many publications were negative. They blamed the airline for “selling out.” One headline read “A New…
How to approach Return-to-Office Resistance
There is a general resistance to return to office. People do not want to go back to the pre-pandemic office routine, particularly to a 5-day-a-week, in-office schedule. Out of ten…
Even the US Government is Jumping on the Customer Experience Train
As we get ready for 2021, we have been diving in to the top customer experience trends we see on the horizon. So far, we have looked at why customer…
Do You Know Why The Iconic Brand Toys ‘R’ Us Closed Doors Despite All Our Memories? #RetailBlues
The year is 2016. You are the CEO of Toys ‘R’ Us. Your brand still controls 13.6% of the toy market although the company is highly leveraged, a strategy of…
It’s Time to Meet The Petrova Experience!
Today marks one of the big milestones in my life. This is the day I am officially choosing to live my dream. We are launching The Petrova Experience, a customer…
Celebrate National CX Day
Did you know that tomorrow is National CX Day? Some of you may not even know what “CX” means or why there is a day to celebrate CX. CX stands…
The in-person work office design that will bring your employees back
According to PwC 95% of company executives still believe employees need to be in the office to maintain strong company culture. Like we have said before, the return to office…
When Not To Invest In Self-Service Technology?
What is self-service? It is something every progressive brand aspires to have more of. Few implement it successfully. Self-service is a new tool to optimize a company’s workforce by removing…
What Can Casino Consulting Firms Learn from Airlines?
Today we’re talking about casino experience. Casinos and airlines are similar in their operational complexity and sense of wonder. They also are similar in the way they can implement technology…
5 Tips to Create Great Customer Experience Design Strategy
A customer experience design strategy that is sustainable and successful starts by having a vision and knowing who your customer is. This launching point enables you to design customer experiences…
Why Your Employee Experience Journey Matters
This week, Andy Newman wrote a great article in The New York Times about the life of a retail sales agent. He used the example of an Old Navy sales…
Why Bt2B Businesses Must Think Like B2C in the Next Decade
B2B vs B2B thinking makes a real difference when it comes to customer experience. According to Gartner at least 80% of B2B buyers now expect the same buying experience as…
Brand and Customer Experience – Make the Customer Know Who You Are
Now that we have helped you become experts in the design of space and function and the design of feelings, it is time to turn our attention to aesthetics, and to connect customer experience…
What is Journey Mapping?
Although we have published more than 130 articles on customer experience, we still have not dedicated an article to journey mapping. Journey mapping is the most widely recognized customer experience…
Service Design vs Customer Experience 2021
Customer experience design as a discipline is relatively new. Service design vs customer experience design adds another layer of confusion. For starters, CX design is not yet popular enough to…
The ROI of Investing in Organizational Culture
Investing in organizational culture is a strategic and operational imperative for employee retention, scalable growth, and successful mergers and acquisitions. Organizational culture is not what you do as a leader…
2021 Customer Loyalty Strategy – Relationships over Transactions
According to the Salesforce Connected Customer Report, 90% of consumers expect companies to clearly demonstrate their values and 66% expect brands to demonstrate empathy. In other words, when thinking about…
Customer Experience Trends – 8 Actionable Tactics in 2021
As we begin Q4 of an eventful 2020, it’s time to look out for the 2021 customer experience trends and tactics for creating exceptional experiences in increasingly complex environments. We…
Travel Experience Stories: How Not to Leave Customers Stranded
Meet Diane. Diane is traveling with her 2 year old and 5 year old to her in-laws’ house for Thanksgiving. This is the one annual trip she takes. And she…
CX Skills Builder: How to articulate your CX Value and secure your budget
Two weeks ago we urged you to find CX problems and fix them instead of diagnosing and mapping them. That is
What is Wayfinding?
I did not always know what wayfinding means. But ever since I left Bulgaria to come to America I have been looking to find my way. The first time I…
Customer Experience Audit: Domino’s Making the Right CX Choices
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series of Customer Experience Audit – as series of articles featuring examples of good customer experience and bad customer experience in practice….
Healthcare Whitepaper: Impact of Patient ‘I Wants’ in Healthcare
Rachel Dreyfus joins The Petrova Experience with a guest blog about patient experience. Background A culture of positive patient experience is increasingly important in Healthcare, affecting patient outcomes and satisfaction….
Am I A Good Candidate For A Customer Experience Role?
People often ask me what experience they need to be a good fit for customer experience roles.
The seamless travel experience we deserve
This week on the CES 2020 main stage Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian presented a vision about the future of seamless travel experience that “might happen in just a few years.”…
Is Covid19 What We Needed to Build Seamless End-to-End Travel Experience?
On January 10th, we published an article called The Future of Travel We Deserve. In it, we laid out the foundation necessary to implement innovation at scale. Four months later,…
Customer Experience Survey: Why Customers Are Not Responding
When you solicit customer feedback sometimes matters more than how you ask the questions. In the case of a survey about new biometrics boarding initiatives my team and I created for JetBlue, we had a list of feedback that was most important for us.
Patient Experience Trends in 2021 – Telehealth is Here to Stay
Today, we continue our series about 2021 Customer Experience trends and tactics. We take a closer look at patient experience and what telehealth means for the future. Both for patients…
The One CX Goal You Need to Set for 2019
For 2019, I urge you to make only one CX goal – bring about business success with your customer experience work. Don’t just do work in the general sense. Rather, set a CX goal that has a real impact on your customers and their experiences with your brand.
Culture Starts at the Top
Without a leader who believes that today’s business success is about acquiring and retaining customers, you cannot even begin the process of building a culture. Leaders who are passionate about the customer are also passionate about creating culture and employee engagement.
What is Customer Experience? What are the Faces of CX?
Each area of CX represents a path for CX professionals to impact business health and build successful careers. One of my favorite CX analogies is that it is like the blood in our bodies. When CX is done well, it touches every aspect of an organization. That’s what makes customer experience so much fun! You will never be bored working in CX.
Return to Office – how to get it right in 2022?
Last week, the CEO of Better.com, Vishal Gard, made the news again. This time, it was for the executive’s massive blunder of firing 900 people via Zoom. A blunder that…
Contactless and Self-Service are Here to Stay
Our 5th 2021 customer experience trend highlights contactless and self-service experiences across industries. Before we dive into this topic, let’s take a moment to define what contactless and self-service mean…
What is Customer Experience Transformation?
To meet the needs of the empowered 21st Century consumer, most companies, especially larger enterprises, need to embark on a customer experience transformation. Imagine a car manufacturer that does not…
NPS Best Practices
Last week I spoke at the Corinium CCO Fall Conference. One of the discussions we had was on the very popular topic of Net Promoter Score best practices and its…
Top CX Design Challenges in 2021
Customer experience design challenges in 2021 remind us of the overall challenges that face organizations in a year marked by changing expectations and demands. Top customer experience design challenges include…
Customer Experience Audit: New York Times Beats Google
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series of Customer Experience Audits. In this series we walk you through customer experience examples across industries. We feature brands that made…
How Do You Know You Are Making The Right Big Bet?
The future of customer experience is full of opportunities. However, the technologies of the future are not enough. Adaptive, memorable customer experiences require empathy and innovation. Liliana tackles this in…
Freelance Customer Experience Lessons for Freelancers
For small businesses and freelancers alike, it’s important to recognize that your business is as strong as the relationships you build with your customers. That’s just one of the key…
3 Call Center Mistakes You Are Making
No matter how often my peers and I say that technology is not the answer, call center managers still ask…
Bad Customer Experience
Doing the right thing when things go wrong is not exactly a good business case. But many do it anyway. Why? Because brands want to protect (and grow) their brand…
Do You Know Where Your Inventory Is?
When I worked in the airline business our most embarrassing incident was “losing a minor”. We never lost a child, of course. But we might not have known where a…
What is the Real Cost of Employee Experience?
There are two types of leaders (and organizational cultures) that stand to benefit most from improving employee experience. The first kind have 40% or higher turnover and think their frontline…
Leadership During the Pandemic: Guest Post by Rachel Dreyfus
This is a guest post by Rachel Dreyfus, President, Dreyfus Advisors, who researched leadership and organizational culture during the pandemic. How has Covid19 influenced leadership over the past three months?…
What is Telemedicine? Keeping Medicine at the Heart
Guest Post by Dr. Melynda Barnes for The Petrova Experience. In this post Dr. Barnes answers the question “what is telemedicine,” and reminds us to keep medicine at the heart…
CX Skills Builder: Own the Customer Experience
Often, Customer Experience professionals do not believe that they can improve customer experience by impacting the experience design for their customers. Why? What causes this disconnect? I once got a…
Why Customer Retention is the True Measure of SaaS Success
Guest Post by Callie Reynolds for The Petrova Experience In SaaS (Software as a Service), like in most businesses, sales is king. Sales gets the glory, and while I’d like…
Customer Experience Design – How Do You Want Customers To Feel?
Last week, we talked about CX Design in terms of space and function. Today, we continue our customer experience design journey to talk about the design of emotions and feelings. All…
Holiday Wishes for Great CX: Career Advice Edition
Every successful customer experience initiative starts with a skilled CX team. Brush up on your CX skills to strengthen the business case for CX; to develop relationships within your organization; and to deliver standout customer experiences in the new year.
How to Build a Customer-Centric Culture for Highly Effective Teams
When we look at how to build a customer-centric culture, we must look inside the organization first. True customer centricity happens when an organization masters group dynamics to harnesses the…
3 Challenges of Hybrid Working and How to Overcome Them
According to a Gallup study, 53% of Americans expect to work in a hybrid arrangement in 2022 and beyond. This number is significant enough for corporate America to get hybrid…
Hiring Tips: Who Should I Hire First on My CX Team
The pressure to demonstrate business impact and ROI on your Customer Experience initiatives quickly makes your first hire even more important. As usual, there is no answer that fits all scenarios perfectly. We have some helpful strategies to consider based on the structure of your organization and your goals.
JetBlue Leading Customer Experience
Since I used to lead the JetBlue customer experience, people often ask what is behind the JetBlue experience magic. Or, as one of our clients refers to it, the “JetBlue…
How a Personal Interaction builds Repeat Customers
A customer-centric methodology is key to the successful outcome of my interaction with Hello Spud. It is the reason this story appears here, and not among the CX Big Fails! The company did not send an automated response. It did not deliver a message stating “sorry we couldn’t help you, would you like something else.” Instead, the company co-founder reached out to me personally across multiple channels (a handwritten note, followed by personal emails).
Customer Experience Audit: Mobile Provider Eliminates Remote Workforce
How to balance the efficiency call center metric FCR (first call resolution) with wait and talk time? JetBlue promotes human interactions as a brand promise.
Where Should CX Sit at the Table?
Before we begin talking about where CX should sit in the organization, I want to clarify one thing. Customer Experience is not a single person.
3 Ways to Create a Better Employee Experience Strategy
Guest Post by Gabe Smith, CCXP for The Petrova Experience The relationship between employee experience strategy and customer experience has long been discussed. Without engaged employees, we’re told, it’s difficult…