Are you planning or PLANNING?

Are you planning with a small p or a capital P? This question frames a critical insight for customer experience professionals: the difference between creating lists of activities versus developing strategic initiatives that drive meaningful business outcomes.

Many CX leaders fall into the trap of confusing tactics with impact. They focus on implementing surveys, dashboards, and journey maps without clearly connecting these tools to broader organizational objectives. When customer experience gets stuck at this tactical level, it risks being dismissed as mere overhead rather than a driver of revenue, cost savings, and growth. The solution? Shift your perspective from activity to impact, and ensure every CX initiative ties directly to measurable business outcomes.

Customer experience must be treated as a fundamental business discipline, not a temporary program or isolated department. This means aligning CX initiatives with enterprise-level goals and demonstrating how your work influences metrics executives truly care about: growth, efficiency, risk management, and retention of both customers and employees. By connecting these dots in everything you do, you build a stronger business case for continued investment in CX. Remember that executive buy-in can make or break your success, so make your sponsors look great by delivering results that matter to the organization.

Whether you're a CX leader seeking support or an executive sponsor evaluating CX initiatives, take a step back and consider the strategic value of customer experience work. Ask yourself how your efforts will impact the bottom line, and don't get caught in the activity trap. Ready to start planning with a capital P? Try our CXI Compass to help prioritize your customer experience efforts and determine your next strategic moves.

Resources Mentioned:
Take the CXI Compass® assessment -- CXICompass.com
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniewalters/)

Episode Transcript

MC (00:00):
Experience Action.
Let's stop just talking aboutcustomer experience, employee
experience and the experience ofleaders.
Let's turn ideas into action.
Your host, Jeannie Walters, isan award-winning customer
experience expert, internationalkeynote speaker and founder of
Experience Investigators, astrategic consulting firm

(00:20):
helping companies increase salesand customer retention through
elevated customer experiences.
Ready set action.
One, two, three four.

Jeannie Walters (00:31):
It's the Experience Action Podcast, where
usually I answer your questions, but today I'm going to ask you
one.
My name is Jeannie Walters andI speak to leaders like you in
the customer experience worldevery day.
We consult, I speak, we train,we do all sorts of things, and
part of what I'm seeing is alittle bit of a warning that I

(00:55):
want to give to you.
So here's the question.
Maybe you're at the end ofquarter, maybe you're looking at
next year, maybe you've beenasked to submit your KPIs or
your OKRs or your outcomes.
Here's what I want you to askyourself.
Are you planning with a small Por are you planning with a

(01:16):
capital P?
What I mean by that is I seelots of customer experience
plans that are really just listsof ideas.
I want you to think aboutleadership a little bit
differently.
So, first thing I want toremind you of, as you are
planning with a capital P, Iwant you to make sure you are

(01:40):
not confusing tactics andactivity for impact.
Now, when we create tacticswithout a strategy, that's
really some busy work that mightnot lead to the outcomes that
our leaders and organizationsexpect.
Surveys, dashboards, journeymaps these are all incredibly

(02:00):
useful tools and I want you touse those as tools, but they're
not the strategy itself.
So if you are creating aquarterly or an annual plan or
maybe something that's part of abigger strategic initiative,
and if you submit something thatsays we expect to send X number
of surveys this year, we expectto roll out a new survey

(02:23):
platform, that is a tool, atactic.
That is not a strategy initself.
We have to make sure that weare defining the strategy in the
right way so that the tacticsthat we want, the tools that we
want, they can be executedagainst that strategy.
When customer experience getsstuck at that tactical level, we

(02:44):
risk being dismissed as anoverhead activity, a budget line
item that can be crossed offbecause it doesn't affect
revenue or cost savings orgrowth.
Now, of course, you and I knowthat's not true.
Customer experience absolutelyaffects those things.
But we have to make the case.
Sending a survey it reallydoesn't do anything unless we

(03:09):
use the insights to improve theexperience, to drive more
revenue and cost savings.
So we must shift ourperspective as we're planning
and make sure we are talkingabout strategy and not just
activity.
We want to talk about impactand not just tactics.
All right, number two.
You've heard me say this a lotCustomer experience is a

(03:32):
business discipline.
It is not necessarily adepartment or a program or a
project.
We would never assume thatmoving forward, we're just going
to get rid of operations right.
That would never be assumed.
But it gets assumed withcustomer experience.
And that's because sometimes weget siloed, we get told that

(03:53):
we're kind of living on anisland and it's not part of the
greater business ecosystem thatwe're in.
And guess what I call foul onthat.
So here's what you do.
You think about customerexperience that should be seen
as a business discipline, withreal efforts every day, every
week, every month, every yearthat drive outcomes.

(04:14):
Those outcomes are things thatyou can measure and you can show
the progress on.
Just saying things like we'regetting better at customer
experience is not enough.
So if we treat this like abusiness discipline, then we're
going to rely on what we rely onin other business disciplines.
What gets measured gets managed.
That famous quote we can use ithere.

(04:37):
How do we measure success?
Making sure that we have all ofthat in line.
We want to make sure that we arealigning our initiatives with
enterprise level goals.
We want to make sure that whatwe're talking about is what our
leaders actually care about, andwe want to show that the
efforts, the tactics, the tools,the people, the support, the

(04:57):
technology all of that issupporting those goals.
So while sending surveys mightbe a very important initiative
in order to get the feedback tomake those improvements, we
still have to tie all of thatback to our greater
organizational level goals.
So we have to show how CXdirectly influences growth,

(05:18):
efficiency, risk management,retention of both customers and
employees.
We have to connect those dotsin everything we do, and part of
that is when we decide where dowe want to put our effort and
attention.
We can actually tie that backto those bigger goals and then
finally remember that buy-in isone of the most important things

(05:41):
we need as customer experienceleaders.
That can literally make orbreak the success of the efforts
around customer experience.
So leaders who connect customerexperience to outcomes win that
buy-in, win the support of theexecutives, win the budget, win
the resources, all of thosethings, and we want to make sure

(06:03):
that we're doing that on acontinuous basis.
Everything we do is building astronger business case, but
really we want to make thoseexecutives who believe in us and
who give us that buy-in.
We want to make them look great.
We want them to feel reallygood about that.
So if you're in the C-suitelistening to this right now, I
encourage you to think how areyou impacting the customer

(06:26):
experience?
What is the work that'shappening under your purview
that is either creating a betterexperience for customers or
maybe not so great, and whatdoes that have to do with the
bottom line?
If you can't answer that, thenyou need to reach out to those
other customer experienceleaders and ask them what's
happening here.
How will we use the insightsfrom these surveys?

(06:49):
Make sure that you'reconnecting to the leaders who
are seeking that buy-in, and ifyou are the CX leader looking
for that buy-in, then make surethat you are making a strong
case, asking for input,providing feedback and updates
and progress reports along theway.
We want everybody involved torealize that customer experience

(07:11):
is a win-win-win.
It's a win for yourorganization, it's a win for
your leaders, it's a win foryour customers, oh, and it's a
win for your employees.
So I guess I added one.
So when we are thinking abouthow to really plan for the
future, we need to make surethat we are doing that as a
strategic leader.

(07:31):
We are doing that as anorganizational leader.
Take the CX hat off for aminute and really look at what
is it we want to do for theorganization and how will what
we want to do for our customersimpact that?
That's where we start andthat's how you plan with a
capital P.
So don't confuse activity withimpact.

(07:53):
Make CX a business discipline,not a project or a program or
even a department, and translatecustomer experience work into
business outcomes to reallysecure the support that we need.
And make sure that if we'reproviding that support, if we
are that executive sponsor, thatwe are feeling good about it
because we are seeing thoseprogress reports, we are asking

(08:15):
the right questions of theleaders who are doing the
planning as well.
I hope this is helpful duringplanning season.
And don't forget, if you don'tknow where to start, try
cxicompass.
com.
This is an 11-question analysisof where you are on your
customer experience journey,which helps you prioritize the
very efforts we're talking about.
Until next week, thanks for allthe great questions, thanks for

(08:39):
all the great work you do andlet's get planning.
See you next time.
To learn more about ourstrategic approach to experience
, check out free resources atexperienceinvestigators.
com, where you can sign up forour newsletter, our Year of CX
program and more, and pleasefollow me, Jeannie Walters, on

(09:01):
LinkedIn.