Hiring, Supporting, and Growing CX Champions

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You are in the people business.

That statement rings true whether you’re selling coffee or consulting or counterterrorism solutions. Every organization’s customer experience is centered around the “most valuable asset” - a term, by the way, that seems more financially motivated than feel-good. But do the people working for your organization truly understand the depth of their impact on your brand? How do you build trust that your people will carry forward the right message?

A quick and recent anecdote: Standing in line at the TSA check point in the middle of a government shutdown. Guy behind me gets outraged that a woman in a wheelchair is “taking too long, and omg - look - she can actually walk… WTF!? We have this stupid problem at work. People abuse other people’s sense of sympathy.”

Two things:

  1. Sympathy is caring for others, whereas empathy is feeling their pain - both of which may be lost on this lovely individual.

  2. Looking immediately at the logo emblazoned on his fleece vest, I had an unintended, negative association. Whether he works at the “HOSPITAL NETWORK” (name withheld - let that sink in… hospital network…) or not, he disability-shamed a woman who clearly did, in fact, need the wheelchair.

Even if she didn’t, let’s have a slight modicum of empathy, or count to ten, or whatever helps you relax. Oh, and possibly review how you hire, support, and grow CX champions.

HIRING FOR EMPATHY

Hiring processes vary from place to place, but even the ways in which you interview candidates can have a significant impact on how well your newly-found, potential unicorn will positively impact both internal and external conversations. Regardless of whether you rely on personality quizzes, or testing coding abilities for your engineers, there are three things that need to be addressed by the hiring team/manager:

  1. Get out of your own head: Spend time to learn how their other interviews/experiences are going outside of your organization, and ask them how they'd change or adopt those things moving forward. It’s completely acceptable to stay with your hiring process if you believe it gets you a well-rounded, culturally-sound human on your team. However, by not finding out what that human is expecting or looking for in their search, you’ve chosen to ignore their sense of purpose.

  2. Ask them about conflict AND success: Society often focuses on the negative. And, to be very clear, asking them “how they solved it” is not necessarily a positive or successful outcome. Be careful about separating the questions to get a well-rounded perspective.

  3. Don’t depend solely on the test: Yes, we know that the tests can be eerily accurate, but sometimes you have to apply a little gut to the get. The previous two suggestions help uncover potential plus or negative data.

SUPPORTING

Onboarding new candidates is probably one of the most valuable times to truly connect with a new team member. How you set them up, prepare for their arrival, and make them feel like they’ve made the right choice are all standard at this point. If you’re not currently giving them a sense of belonging on day one, there’s a good chance that marketing slick about corporate culture will be in the trash as soon as they find their desk.

As for supporting them after day one, I firmly believe that mentoring programs are not only helpful for the incoming people, but for longtime, valuable staff with immeasurable intellectual property. As with anything, however, the mentor should be someone who has a balanced perspective on both the organization’s cultural health and their place within the customer’s expectations. A mentor isn’t simply a person to guide you through meetings of personalities and corporate politics. Rather, it’s a way for collaboration between different levels of seniority to ensure the entire organization is on the same page. (For more on this, see my post on Kaizen, and why change is good.)

GROWING

Fostering Creativity and Development is among one of the highest priorities on a CX-led organization’s list for quality employees. Yet, we choose to invest in free pizza on a Friday (which, don’t get me wrong, is usually delicious), instead of the quick, inexpensive subscription to Wired, or the $25 webinar on empathetic customer journey workshops.

And, while you may immediately say that you can’t afford to do this for everyone, it may make more sense for the organization to change its direction on how other spending and budgets are created moving into following quarters to support a cx-driven mindset. Your employee’s mental health directly impacts customer health, and, when assisted correctly, is healthy for the bottom line.

When it comes to hiring, supporting, and growing CX Champions, there is nothing more important than showing you care.

To find out how we build CX-driven research and planning for organizations, all you have to do is say hello!