The CX Leadership Exchange offers an immersive experience aimed at redefining leadership trajectories. Each episode features engaging discussions delving into the personal and professional journeys of today’s most influential CX leaders, revealing pivotal moments, career highs and lows, and invaluable lessons learned.

Get to Know Peter Mallot

In this first episode of The CX Leadership Exchange, Chad McDaniel, host and President/co-founder of Execs In The Know, sits down with Peter, a veteran leader with over 26 years of experience at Microsoft, to discuss his career journey, emphasizing the significance of leadership, empowerment, and customer-centricity in shaping success. Peter reflects on pivotal moments, such as standing up for customers during critical product launches and showcasing the importance of advocating for the customer’s viewpoint even amid organizational pressure.

Throughout the discussion, he highlights the evolution of leadership styles, the value of feedback, and the need to embrace change in the rapidly shifting landscape of customer experience and support.

Peter stresses the importance of courageous and visionary leadership, urging individuals to lead with conviction, confidence, and a compelling narrative. He emphasizes the impact of mentorship, the cultivation of essential skills, and the adaptation to evolving industry dynamics. The dialogue underscores the essence of empowering teams, fostering a culture of open-mindedness, and recognizing the value of feedback in driving growth and organizational success.

Ultimately, Peter’s insights emphasize the critical role of leadership in navigating transformations in customer service and the imperative of staying customer-focused while embracing change and leading with conviction.

Reasons to Watch Peter Mallot’s Episode

Empower Your Leadership: Immerse yourself in narratives of resilience and innovation, enriching your leadership journey and broadening your perspective.

Challenge Conventional Thinking: Embrace an environment that encourages questioning the status quo, fostering innovative ideas, and transformative thinking.

Reflect and Evolve: Explore the introspective side of leadership, drawing inspiration from experiences while contemplating personal career growth.

Want to Be a Guest on The CX Leadership Exchange?

The CX Leadership Exchange extends an invitation to CX leaders eager to participate in this groundbreaking series. Your unique insights, forged through triumphs and challenges, possess the potential to ignite inspiration in countless others navigating the complex landscape of leadership.

Become a guest on The CX Leadership Exchange and inspire the next generation of leaders. Your journey matters. Interested in being a guest and sharing your insights on The CX Leadership Exchange? Get in touch with us.

The post Introducing The CX Leadership Exchange Series: Episode 1 Featuring Microsoft’s Peter Mallot appeared first on Execs In The Know.

Often, the leaders we remember the most are the ones who inspire us to take action or to better ourselves and make an impact. Many leaders aspire to achieve the goal of being inspiring, but it’s a skill that doesn’t always come naturally to those who attempt it. Recently, a Gallup survey showed that only 22 percent of teams think their leaders have a clear direction of where to take the company.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how to get on the right path to becoming an inspiring CX leader and how this trait can benefit you, your team, and your company overall.

A Delicate Balance

In an ambitious endeavor to unravel the enigma behind truly inspirational leaders, Bain & Company embarked on a groundbreaking research program that kicked off with a comprehensive survey involving 2,000 people. Contrary to popular belief, it appears that sheer inspiration alone is insufficient to forge a remarkable leader.

While leaders who solely prioritize delivering outstanding performance may incur costs that organizations are reluctant to bear, those fixated solely on inspiration often discover that their ability to motivate their teams is undermined by lackluster outcomes. A delicate balance must be struck.

The secret lies in the art of inspirational leadership—an art characterized by the adept utilization of unique strengths to motivate individuals and teams, propelling them forward. However, true inspirational leaders do not stop there. They go one step further, ensuring that their teams remain accountable for the results they produce. By doing so, they not only inspire but also unlock the untapped potential for elevated performance, embracing empowerment over traditional command and control tactics.

The core essence of inspirational leadership lies in this harmonious fusion of qualities—a fusion that not only sparks motivation but also fuels the fires of ambition and accountability. An inspiring leader is passionate, confident, emotionally intelligent, decisive, and strategic. These qualities exist in their words, their actions, and their energy. Inspiring leaders give people purpose, motivate them to action, and provide more fulfillment in their professional careers.

When employees go beyond mere engagement and become truly inspired, organizations witness remarkable breakthroughs. Inspired employees exhibit exceptional productivity and ignite a spark in their colleagues, encouraging them to reach even greater heights.

Inspiring CX Leaders Share Their Failures

Embrace your failures as a leader and share them with your teams. It’s about having the courage to be authentic. True leaders inspire by taking risks and standing up for their beliefs. They lead by setting a genuine example. Additionally, they remain adaptable and are willing to change direction when necessary.

Embody Your Brand Values

The most inspiring action a leader can take is to personify their company’s values. For many organizations, their fundamental belief is centered around “People First.” This means prioritizing employees and customers above all else. This belief is put into practice daily by actively listening to individuals.

Leaders can nurture this ability by taking gradual and consistent measures, which will make a meaningful difference as they persevere.

Authenticity

Genuine leaders inspire by being true to themselves, fostering genuine connections with others. They openly share personal stories, including their backgrounds, the obstacles they’ve overcome, and their aspirations for the future. There’s no pretense or artificiality about them, which earns them a higher level of respect from others.

They take pride in their identity and don’t feel the need to conceal it. Crucially, they consistently exhibit the same authentic behavior regardless of the circumstances, whether at work or during leisure time.

Empathy

An empathetic leader recognizes and acknowledges the emotions and perspectives of others and takes them into consideration when making decisions and taking action. Empathy is an essential part of many leadership styles, from democratic to affiliative, because it is what allows us to build connections and influence others. Yet until recently, it was overlooked as a soft skill rather than a necessary one.

Inspiring CX Leaders Are Passionate

Effective leaders not only possess inspiration but also demonstrate a sincere passion for their work and objectives. They approach their vision or mission with enthusiasm and vigor. Passion has a way of spreading, and when a leader genuinely cares about their endeavors, it becomes evident and can even resonate with others.

It is beneficial when leaders communicate their reasons for being passionate and emphasize the importance of everyone aligning with the broader vision.

Cultivate a Customer-Centric Culture

Building a customer-centric culture starts from within. Ensure that every member of your team understands the importance of CX and how their contributions impact it. Encourage a sense of ownership and pride in delivering exceptional service and recognize and reward employees who go above and beyond to delight customers.

A skilled and inspiring CX leader acts as the maestro of customer-centricity in an organization, similar to a conductor guiding an orchestra. They define the symphony that is customer-centricity, ensuring that every employee follows the same score, using the agreed-upon tools and methods. They empower everyone to excel in their role while holding everyone accountable for taking action.

In this context, it’s crucial to remember that CX is not limited to a specific department; it is an overarching attitude that permeates the entire organization.

Active Listening

When we envision an inspiring leader, we often focus on their ability to communicate effectively. However, it’s equally important for leaders to excel in listening. Without this skill, how can they truly understand and acknowledge the thoughts and perspectives of others?

Inspirational leaders create space for people to express themselves, valuing their ideas and taking time to reflect on them rather than dismissing them as insignificant. By demonstrating attentive listening, leaders inspire others to wholeheartedly join their journey. Listening serves as a powerful means of establishing genuine connections with people. It demonstrates that you are fully present and genuinely interested in their thoughts and opinions.

Lead Transformative Change

Inspiring CX leaders foster an environment where employees can thrive personally and as a team. Research shows that when employees feel inspired, they demonstrate higher productivity and stronger dedication to their organization. Moreover, teams led by an inspiring individual who provides positive support and clear guidance have a greater chance of surpassing their objectives.

The post How to Be an Inspiring CX Leader appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The following is a guest blog from Ted Hunting, Vice President, North America Marketing at Genesys. For more information about Genesys, visit their website. 

During the Customer Response Summit (CRS) last week in Austin, I shared my perspective on customer expectations of seamless, personalized omnichannel journeys with customer service executives from some of the world’s greatest brands. It was a rare opportunity to exchange ideas on digital innovation in customer experience (CX) with such a group.

To set the stage for brainstorming sessions on digital innovation, I talked about the prediction that by 2020, more than 90% of customer engagements will begin online, and what that means to CX innovation.

Currently in many customer service environments, organizational silos remain across channels, including web, voice, callback, mobile app, text, email, social, and video. In spite of initial interactions occurring on the web, customers nonetheless expect the effortless, personalized omnichannel journey that results from integrated communication channels. We explored some examples of businesses successfully integrating voice and digital channels to improve CX.

We looked at CX from the business perspective, examining aspects of the Genesys Customer Experience Platform, including:

– An omnichannel desktop that displays every step in the customer journey, across every channel

– Enterprise-wide reporting and analytics dashboard for overall view of CX and NPS

What did this group identify as key future trends? The internet of things (IoT), personalization through big data, and emerging self-service models such as chat and voice bots, led to brainstorming on digital innovation in the CX world.

Here’s what this group of CX leaders expects to see emerging in digital innovation:

Personalized customer journeys

Customer journeys will be increasingly personalized, leveraging big data and business rules to predict customer needs and deliver better CX.

– Visibility into the customer journey will continue to evolve so companies can provide proactive recommendations and communications for front- and back-office functions across the company, not just for the contact center.

– We’ll improve on how we identify and measure journey success so that we can replicate the successful CX across the business.

– We’ll use customer journey analytics for predictive routing of customers.

– We’ll personalize routing based on business rules and customer data.

Customer preferences driving experience

Customers prefer to authenticate once, and effortlessly, in a journey. Adoption of verification methods like biometrics (voice biometrics or eye or fingerprint sensors on mobile phones) will grow, with verification becoming increasingly passive from the customer point of view, without reliance on interrogatory techniques.

– Customers will be better informed—proactively—using notifications tied to their channel preferences.

– Customers will choose channel preference based type of interaction. For example, they’ll be able to select a text message for doctor appointment reminder, but a personal call from their doctor for test results.

– With increased personalization, customers will need to supply personal information. To address privacy concerns, they’ll need to “opt-in” to such personalization efforts. Business will find ways to encourage participation, even if it’s only making sure the customer understands through clear communication that they’ll benefit from a better CX.

CX enhanced through collaborative business culture

– When CX leaders foster a culture of collaborative discussions across departments and the organization, they can uncover CX issues that persist in a siloed culture

Incorporating social channels into the customer journey

– Expect chat to be transformed with chat bots and other forms of artificial intelligence.

– Integrate social media into journey management to put agents with the right skills in place to respond through social channels.

– Peer networks in some industries can provide service. These can be enhanced by use of social media and “ambassadors” to assist customers.

– Agents can use information from social channels to assist customers. For example, they can use YouTube or other external content on how customers are using a product or solving a problem.

Taking steps to deliver omnichannel CX

– Serve customers better by arming agents with a unified omnichannel desktop.

– Use recording and speech and text analytics to discover gaps in agent knowledge, whether they’re participating in voice, chat, email. Use it to better train agents.

– Move to modern self-service options instead of old school, high-effort, impersonal IVR. Instead, offer the option to get wait times for channels from voice, text, email, web chat, to video chat and let customers choose self-service channels based on their preference. For example, give them the choice of chatting now or waiting 20 minutes for a call back.

CR Summit Austin was an opportunity to share information, and gratifying because I heard clearly that so much of what Genesys is working with partners and customers to achieve is of great interest to global leaders in CX.

Interested in where your company stand in CX innovation? Check out The Omnichannel Customer Engagement Playbook.

The post Leaders Speak on Digital Innovations for Customer Experience appeared first on Execs In The Know.

To hear more about this topic, join us at Customer Response Summit Seattle, where 24-7 Intouch and our other Idea Lab sponsors, will be sharing their leading ideas on how to improve the overall customer experience, for the connected consumer. 

Psychology and Culture

Monitoring contact center retention and fostering well-performing agents is an ongoing battle companies face. Incentives, social activities and coaching sessions drive performance and help identify stars. The ideal is to develop these individuals, help them grow into Team Leaders and future Managers of your existing teams. This cycle continues with new agents joining your team, while existing ones grow or eventually depart.

The concept seems easy enough. Meeting KPI’s is always important, but focusing on motivators and the employee experience is where you’ll make the difference. Insert “Culture”. Yes, a term that’s cliché and not directly tied to your retention or performance numbers. That said, let’s forget about those metrics right now and look at it from another perspective.

We’re attacking the root of the issue here and focusing on the psychology of employees. What small gestures do we appreciate? What defines ‘professionalism’ in the contact center? How does recognition impact us?

Revisiting theories developed by psychologists Frederick Herzberg and Abraham Maslow, the Two-Factor Theory and Hierarchy of Needs, reminds us to meet peoples’ basic levels of needs to keep them engaged. Shift to humanizing your employees’ experiences, get them psychologically engaged and slowly create a culture that builds confidence to succeed, learn, and grow.

HERZBERG’S TWO-FACTOR THEORY

MAZLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

The Sports Comparison

Going on a tangent for a moment, if we make some parallels here to professional sports we can draw some similarities to our own companies. Right now the NFL, NHL and NBA are in their offseason, trying to retool to win a championship for the upcoming season. There are some teams actively pursuing Free Agents to join theirs. Attracting players requires teams to sell their organization, atmosphere, team environment, etc.

In this world, first impressions matter. First meetings with ownership. First tour of the team facilities. First meetings with potential teammates. First conversations with the local media. Once joining a team, it continues. First practice with the team. First win as a team. First loss as a team. First bad performance on a new team. First individual triumph.

One thing all dynasty championship teams have in common, regardless of the sport, is a winning system and culture. Players within those systems understand their roles and continually experience positive impressions throughout their time with the team. It’s something you can’t measure, but an obvious trait you see in the New England Patriots, Chicago Blackhawks, San Antonio Spurs, etc.

First Impressions in Recruiting and Onboarding

Attracting great talent in the contact center and keeping them is similar to the sports analogy. To new employees and candidates, first impressions will impact whether they feel confident in winning with your company. Winning in the sense of being supported, learning, growing, and ultimately succeeding.

The smallest details impact the first impressions that are made. The idea is to hit the ground running with positive sentiment. The earlier you do this, the better rapport you can build. From an influential position, it’s easier to create brand ambassadors. As time passes, they’re more inclined to view you from a favourable perspective that highlights great moments and disregards the rest.

Stripping it down to the most basic form, below is an initial baseline of areas companies should consider when recruiting and onboarding team members. They’re obvious, but easily overlooked.

This same framework should be incorporated as you begin promoting your stars. It’s true that there’s always a first for everything. Continue to build on confidence and lasting first impressions, as your stars become leaders and important pieces to your championship team.

RECRUTING/ONBOARDING FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

The post Focus on the Firsts: Humanizing the Employee Experience appeared first on Execs In The Know.