{"id":15207,"date":"2015-10-05T13:33:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T17:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/?p=15207"},"modified":"2016-05-18T15:25:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T19:25:24","slug":"is-leadership-really-on-board-with-your-cx-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/is-leadership-really-on-board-with-your-cx-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Leadership REALLY On Board with Your CX Agenda?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In my experience everyone loves the idea of improving the <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-experience\/\">Customer Experience<\/a> (CX)<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1jdtK3q\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">until you ask him or her to change their business as usual.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is especially true when you are talking about your senior team. Unfortunately, you must have the engagement of the senior leadership to be successful. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the good news is 20% of executive teams fully support the CX agenda, that also means 80% don\u2019t. The second group either doesn\u2019t believe in the value of CX or is undecided. <\/span><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is the second group can be hard to discern from the first. Why? It\u2019s political. Everyone feels like they should say they support a CX Agenda. So they nod. They hold their tongue in meetings. But they don\u2019t support the agenda. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unfortunately for you, you don\u2019t know whether you are lucky and have the 20% or fighting an uphill battle with the 80% (which is more likely, statistically anyway). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unless you know what to look for in their day-to-day actions. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To that end, here\u2019s how to tell if your leadership is not REALLY on board with your CX Agenda:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Their schedule rarely (if ever) accommodates a discussion regarding Customer Experience Implications. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your meeting requests have remained unanswered or \u201cget pushed,\u201d then it indicates that other things are more important to your leadership team than improving CX.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Time devoted to your agenda in meetings is short and sweet. \u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you spend the majority of a meeting talking about sales reports and operations, and just a little bit at the end about CX, it\u2019s clear what the leadership team values.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>They send their representative to your meetings. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To be fair, there can be a lot of meetings for senior leadership. But if they always send their \u201crepresentative\u201d to your meeting, then it says yours was a meeting they didn\u2019t feel it was necessary to attend.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>You hear nothing about your CX measurement reports\u2014even when they are bad. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is a lack of understanding (or concern) about the implications of a poor Customer Experience. When you report the Net Promoter Scores\u00ae dropped for the third consecutive quarter, you hear nothing about it. Ever.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Their talking points focus on operations. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you hear a lot about margins, fixed-costs, and overhead allowances from leadership, then their focus is on the company, not on Customers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>They don\u2019t talk about Customers. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If they don\u2019t tell Customer stories, it could be because they don\u2019t have any. If you lose touch with Customers, it\u2019s easy to see how they might lose touch with the importance of providing an excellent CX.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I sincerely hope you work for the 20% who really do support the CX improvement agenda. If you recognize these behaviors from your leadership, however, chances are you aren\u2019t quite that lucky. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You need a new approach:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Identify who is blocking your agenda<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It\u2019s time to recognize \u00a0those who don\u2019t support CX and put in place a program that will convince them. It\u2019s time to convince them to get on board.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Figure out what is most important to him or her. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You have to make what you are doing attractive to them. Discover what they value most and frame your CX strategy as the catalyst for change in favor of that value.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Present your CX agenda again in their language<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I have found that if you focus on the cost savings that will be made, many people will be interested. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>CX agendas can be difficult to get senior leadership to support. They are time and resource consuming, and challenge business as usual. However, to be successful you need support from the top. You need the commitment from everyone in the organization, from the C-Suite to the mailroom.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The key to getting your leadership on board is speaking their language. When you speak in terms they can understand\u2014increased margins, fixed cost savings and reduced overhead allowances\u2014your CX agenda will REALLY get the support from leadership that it deserves. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This post is part of the Customer Experience Professionals Association&#8217;s Blog Carnival &#8220;Celebrating Customer Experience.&#8221; It is part of a broader celebration of Customer Experience Day. Check out posts from other bloggers at <a href=\"http:\/\/community.cxpa.org\/blogs\/lesley-lykins\/2015\/10\/02\/cx-day-blog-carnival\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/community.cxpa.org\/blogs\/lesley-lykins\/2015\/10\/02\/cx-day-blog-carnival<\/a>. &#8211; See more at:<\/span><\/i> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cxday.org\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/cxday.org<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/189lvWr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Beyond Philosophy<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, one of the world&#8217;s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/IrQ8uB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">five best-selling books<\/span><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and an engaging<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1k9RyFw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> keynote speaker<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &amp; also recognized as one of the original top 150 Business Influencers by LinkedIn. Beyond Philosophy provides consulting, specialized research &amp; training from their headquarters in Tampa, Florida, USA. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter and Periscope<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1hxF3H7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> @ColinShaw_CX<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my experience everyone loves the idea of improving the Customer Experience (CX) until you ask him or her to change their business as usual. It is especially true when you are talking about your senior team. Unfortunately, you must have the engagement of the senior leadership to be successful. While the good news is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":15208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[83,90,91,608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-experience-1","category-experts-insights-2","category-experts-insights","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}