The CX Nexus Podcast: Building Bridges in Business

In the debut episode of "CX Nexus," hosts Nicole and Chris warmly welcome their audience into the fold of an innovative podcast series dedicated to exploring the intricate world of customer experience (CX) and its pivotal role in business success. Nicole, with her profound background as the director of community at Zendesk, brings to the table a wealth of knowledge gleaned from her extensive experience in community management across a diverse range of industries and company sizes. Chris Detzel complements this expertise with his invaluable insights from spearheading online communities and engagement initiatives at Reltio, making them a formidable duo in the realm of CX.

As they introduce themselves and the vision behind "CX Nexus," Nicole and Chris share their personal journeys in community management, shedding light on the unique challenges and triumphs they've encountered. Their narratives set the stage for the podcast's mission: to unravel the complexities of cross-functional collaboration within businesses and highlight the indispensable role of community in fostering synergy across various departments.

The hosts outline an ambitious plan for the podcast, aiming to invite guests from a myriad of roles—ranging from customer success and sales to product marketing and customer experience. These conversations are designed to offer listeners a panoramic view of how community engagement not only bridges gaps between different business functions but also enhances collective efforts towards achieving common goals.

"CX Nexus" positions itself as a treasure trove of insights for professionals entrenched in the spheres of customer experience, go-to-market strategies, marketing, customer support, product management, and leadership. Nicole and Chris are committed to delivering content that not only informs but also inspires professional growth and encourages a culture of collaboration and innovation within product companies.

The essence of the podcast is encapsulated in its goal to showcase the interconnectedness of roles within organizations and how these connections contribute to strategic decision-making and business success. Nicole and Chris emphasize the importance of listener engagement, inviting the audience to actively participate by subscribing across various platforms, suggesting topics, posing questions, and recommending guests through [e-mail] 

As "CX Nexus" embarks on its journey, Nicole and Chris stand at the helm, ready to guide their listeners through the evolving landscape of customer experience, armed with their expertise, vision, and an open invitation for everyone to join the conversation.

Episode Transcript

Nicole Saunders (00:00):
Welcome to CX Nexus, a podcast for customer
experience professionals whowanna level up their careers and
their business. We're here toexplore how collaboration,
cooperation, and community canhelp your organization thrive.
Each episode, we're gonna have alively conversation with
professionals across a widevariety of roles to explore what
they do, where they've foundsuccess, and to share the best

(00:20):
lessons they've learned so thatyou can too. And who are we?
We're 2 experienced communityprofessionals who believe that
collaboration is the key tosuccess.
We worked at companies large andsmall, building user communities
and connecting with teams andusers across the business, and
we wanna bring the conversationsthat we've had with our partners
to you. Okay, Chris. So that wasour official fancy intro, but
you and I like to have prettydown to earth freewheeling

(00:42):
conversations. So let's talkabout this podcast that we're
doing a little bit. What are wegonna talk about on this show?

Chris Detzel (00:48):
Hi, Nicole. I'm very excited about this kinda
new podcast and the podcast wehad before, and you were on it a
lot over this last year, 2years, really. And, here's over
beers. We talked a lot aboutcommunity and programs with
community and how to buildcommunity, but we still wanna
talk about community, but wealso wanna change it up a little

(01:09):
bit. We wanna start talking tomore experts around a product
company, whether it's customersuccess or product or maybe even
engineering or marketing orthose kind of folks.
And and understand when we thinkabout cross collaboration,
things like that, We wanna knowhow community fits into that,

(01:31):
but how they all work togetherand could be a part of that.

Nicole Saunders (01:35):
Yeah. Exactly. I know that you and I have
talked a lot about how we've hada lot of success when we've
partnered with other parts ofthe business and that the best
solutions that we've found whenwe're working are the ones that
serve multiple teams or multipledepartments. But it can be hard
to identify those opportunities.You have to know, like, what
other functions in the businessdo, how it all fits together,

(01:56):
and identify those moments whereit's like, hey, you and I have a
common goal.
Let's work together on thisproject. Let's share resourcing.
Let's make a pitch to leadershipto to bring it all together. And
so I think it's gonna be reallyinteresting to unpack that,
interview some folks,understand, really, what is your
job about? What is your role?
What are the goals that motivateyou? And how can we connect

(02:17):
those dots and bring all ofthose ideas to life?

Chris Detzel (02:20):
Yeah. And I think, like you said, we'll be bringing
up some different guests on theshow. We'll sprinkle in, again,
occasional community experts. Wewanna go deeper and further and
and talk to the customer successleaders and sales leaders and
product marketing heads and allof those kind of folks, customer
experience teams. So, Nicole, Ihave a question for you.

(02:42):
Do you think, why do you thinkpeople should listen to this
podcast?

Nicole Saunders (02:46):
Like I said, I think that we're gonna be
exploring the different ways toidentify cross collaborative
moments, to build thoserelationships, to work across
the team. So it's applicable fora lot of different people.
Really, anyone that works incustomer experience. So that
could be go to market roles likesales and success. It could be
marketing.
Yes. It could be customersupport, even product managers
or people that work with voiceof the customer. My hope is that

(03:08):
we can really help people seethose opportunities. And I think
that we're gonna have greatconversations for folks that are
building their careers. Maybethey're starting to try to move
out of the silo of their roleand wanna grow laterally and
eventually be able to move upthe ladder.
But I also think it's gonna beapplicable for a lot of leaders
who are thinking about strategyand need to open their eyes up

(03:29):
to, like, how do I connect thedots from the top down across
the business?

Chris Detzel (03:33):
You know, I think you hit the nail on the head is
it's all about crosscollaboration, probably any
company app, but also with withproduct companies that you and I
work for. And we work with allof those places that we've seen
and actually getting their pointof views, the leaders of sales
or customer success or chiefcustomer officer, chief

(03:56):
marketing officer, chief productofficer, those kinds of people
we wanna bring on and talk abouthow their roles pollinate or,
or, or help each other, how theyhelp each other to make these
business decisions. And I thinkthat, you know, this podcast is
is the goal of this podcast isto really bring that to life and
have those hard conversations orjust those conversations to,

(04:19):
like you said, help folks grow.

Nicole Saunders (04:22):
Totally. So we should probably tell people who
we are and why we're always inthis podcast. Do you wanna go
first? Tell people a little bitabout you.

Chris Detzel (04:28):
Yeah. So my name's Chris Detzel and I run online
communities, but I also runengagement for all of Realtio.
And I've been doing this for alot of years at different
companies. And we think thatthis is gonna be important and a
lot of fun as we move forward.How about you?

Nicole Saunders (04:48):
I'm Nicole Saunders. I'm director of
community at Zendesk currently.I've been working in the
community space, gosh, forprobably a little over 15 years
since before we even maybecalled it community management.
I've had experience at earlystage start ups, obviously,
bigger companies like Zendesk.I've seen communities of all
sorts and all scales, and we'vemoved around our team a couple

(05:08):
times.
I've worked in support. I'veworked in marketing. I've worked
in communications. So,hopefully, we can bring that
breadth of experience to theconversation here today and and
really, really help some folks

Chris Detzel (05:19):
out. Yeah. I think that really sums it up. So our
first episode is gonna be out ina couple of weeks, and you can
expect a new one every 3 weeksor so. So subscribe to
cxxesspodcast.com or whereveryou get your podcast, whether
it's Apple, Spotify, Google, Idon't know the desktop.
I see a lot of people do that.Follow, our show and page on

(05:40):
LinkedIn.