Marketing to CX Skills

There's a world of opportunity waiting for marketing professionals looking to pivot into customer experience. In this episode, we tackle a timely question from a recent graduate wondering how to leverage his marketing background to break into CX.

Marketing and customer experience share significant DNA - both focus on understanding customers, building relationships, and communicating value. The key difference? While marketing often zeroes in on conversion, CX professionals must adopt a holistic view of the entire customer journey. Your marketing skills in audience segmentation, messaging, and basic journey mapping provide a solid foundation, but success in CX requires shifting your perspective to consider how customers feel at every touchpoint, from first awareness through ongoing loyalty and even departure. The full customer journey extends far beyond the sale.

You have foundational skills that will set you apart in customer experience, and you're joining a field known for collaboration and knowledge sharing. Connect with the CX community, explore resources like our Learning Center at experienceinvestigators.com, and embrace the journey of continuous growth that defines this dynamic profession.

Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Take the CXI Compass™ assessment -- http://cxicompass.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.

Jeannie Walters (00:31):
It's graduation season here at the Experience
Action Podcast and it might bewhere you are too.
Let's dive into this greatquestion from a recent graduate.

Listener Question (00:44):
Hi, my name is Nick.
I'm a recent graduate at theUniversity of Cincinnati and I'm
just wondering what advice doyou have for someone with a
marketing background looking tobreak into CX?

Jeannie Walters (00:55):
Well, first of all, Nick, congratulations on
your graduation and welcome tothe wonderful world of customer
experience.
I think this is such an astutequestion because so many
organizations actually don'tnecessarily know that they're
looking for customer experiencepeople.
Sometimes they are puttingpeople into marketing and saying

(01:16):
could you help us with thiswhole customer experience thing?
So having this type of acumencan really help you be flexible
and dynamic and adaptable in thechanging world that we live in.
So kudos to you for even askingthis question.
So let's dive in.
First of all, when we thinkabout marketing and customer

(01:37):
experience, in many ways theyshare a lot of DNA.
They are focused on gettingcustomers to really at least
enter the journey and continuethrough the journey.
They are all aboutunderstanding customers,
building relationships andcommunicating value.
So there is a ton of overlaphere.

(01:57):
Now, when we think about how tomove from maybe understanding
marketing to more of a customerexperience lens, the first thing
I want you to think about ishow you can leverage what you
already know through marketing.
So, for example, your marketingbackground probably gives you
some great understanding aboutaudience segmentation, messaging

(02:19):
, customer journeys.
Those are all foundational inthe customer experience work
that we do.
So maybe some of the things toconsider.
Think about how customers feel,not just how they convert in
the journey, and think beyondthe sale.
Sometimes in marketing we'reall about getting them to that
moment of conversion, but whenwe think about the customer

(02:42):
experience, we have to thinkabout the holistic journey way
beyond that.
We also want to make sure thatwe are applying how to get
people's attention.
Storytelling is incrediblyimportant in customer experience
work and we want to tie thatback to branding.
If we are not reflecting thebrand promise in every step of

(03:03):
the journey, then there'smisalignment there.
So really think about theaspects of marketing that apply
directly to customer experience.
Really, this is your chance tostart seeing every touchpoint as
a chance to reinforce loyalty,trust, reduce friction all of
those things that are soimportant.

(03:23):
Number two I want you to thinkabout what does it mean to
understand the full journey?
One of the biggest shifts wehave to make from marketing to
customer experience is thinkingway beyond that first part of
the journey.
I have talked to a lot ofmarketers in my day and many of

(03:43):
them talk about how it's reallyabout how much does it cost to
get somebody to that point ofsale.
That is really what they'recharged with.
That's how they measure success.
But when we're talking aboutcustomer experience, we're not
only talking about before thesale and when they are getting
to know our brand and takingthat next step in the journey

(04:05):
due to building that trust, butwe're also talking about what
happens to keep them customers.
How do we retain our customers?
How do we make sure they spendmore once they become a customer
?
How do we make sure they telltheir friends and family about
our brand?
All of that is part of reallythinking about the customer
journey in a more holistic way.

(04:27):
We also want to pay specificattention to when they have the
points where they're decidingwhether to stay or leave.
I'm talking about things likecontract renewals or
subscriptions or cancellations.
How are we handling thosepoints?
Because even if we're losing acustomer in that moment, we are

(04:49):
still delivering a customerexperience, so that can make or
break the relationship.
As customer experienceprofessionals, we need to think
about the entire journey fromthe customer's perspective.
That will allow us to look forpoints of friction, that we can
avoid things, things that we canhelp them build trust and
reassurance so that they cantake that next step in the

(05:09):
journey, and ultimately, we wantthem to look back on their time
with our brand and think thatwas worthwhile, I appreciate
that brand, even if they're nolonger a customer, because
that's what they will share withtheir networks as well.
Frankly, customer experienceincludes everything.
This means support and journeymapping, voice of the customer,

(05:30):
all of those things.
So you probably are pretty goodat persona development.
I would think about how can weuse those personas to really
understand journey mapping, forinstance, for our customers.
Those types of skills willreally help you understand the
entire journey.
And here's a shameless plug wecover a lot of this in our CXI

(05:52):
membership and you can figuresome of this out by taking our
assessment, the CXI Compass.
You can find both of those atexperienceinvestigatorscom.
Now, of course, we want tounderstand the full journey, we
want to apply those marketingskills, but we also have to make
sure we're buildingcross-functional awareness.
CX is not one department, onesection, anything like that.

(06:14):
Customer experience does notlive in one place.
It is a team sport, as we liketo say.
It touches operations, HR,technology, product development,
you name it.
And so, as a customerexperience professional, think
of your job partially as talkingto people across your

(06:34):
organization about how theydefine customer experience.
How can you make sure there'salignment there?
Learn how success is measuredby department or team.
That will tell you a lot abouthow much you can build
cross-functional awareness intoyour customer experience
programs.
So what does success look likefor your support team versus

(06:57):
your product team?
How can you make sure thatpeople have a consistent way to
measure success with customerexperience throughout the
organization?
The best customer experiencepros they're more than just
design advocates.
They are more than juststrategists.
What we have to be, frankly, wehave to be translators.

(07:17):
We have to communicate in waysthat get people to understand
what this is and how it impactsthem and the customers we serve.
We are essentially bridgebuilders across silos and
departments.
I can't stress enough howimportant that skill is.
And then, of course, when itcomes to customer experience,
there are some foundationalskills that are super important

(07:38):
to understand.
One, of course, is empathy.
How can we really showcompassion and understanding for
both customers and employees?
How can we make sure empathy iswoven into every part of the
experience.
Of course, there's strategicthinking.
We don't do this because wewant to fix those onesie-twosie
things.
We do this because we want toview this strategically, make

(08:01):
big-picture decisions and setthe right goals for success.
Data literacy is incrediblyimportant here.
We need to know what metricsmatter, why they matter and how
to tell stories with data.
Please, don't just take whatthey say is what you should
measure.
Understand the why behind it.
That's what will drive betterdecisions, better actions and

(08:24):
better outcomes.
And a big part of our work ischange management.
Most organizations do not havea fully functional
customer-centric culture yet.
What we're trying to do is movethem closer to that.
That means a lot of changemanagement getting people to
understand why we're changing,what we're changing, how we're

(08:46):
changing.
We want to make sure we areinfluencing people and leading
that customer experienceevolution.
And then, of course, in today'sworld, I don't think it matters
what role you're in we have tohave some sort of tech acumen.
We have to understand how touse tools like customer
relationship managers,artificial intelligence, machine

(09:06):
learning, conversational AI allof those things that we use now
pretty much everywhere.
We have to understand at leasthow and why to use them.
We may not understand the code,we may not understand all of
that, that's okay, but we haveto be articulate enough to
explain why we're using it andto double check its work.

(09:27):
Frankly, we have to know enoughto know when something isn't
quite right.
Last thing I want to say is thatin any customer experience work
and this is exactly why I namedthe company Experience
Investigators we have to staycurious.
We have to simply stay curiousbecause this is evolving all the
time.

(09:47):
We are constantly looking forbetter, more efficient ways to
do things, to bring in morerevenue and lower those expenses
while at the same time,delivering meaningful
experiences for our customersand helping them live better
lives.
That is a big ask, so the morethat you can stay open to that,
stay humble, look around, seewhat people are doing and ask

(10:09):
for help when you need it.
Customer experienceprofessionals are incredibly
friendly and open.
I have found the CX community tobe one of curious people who
share learning, who ask whenthey are stuck and get the
answers from the community.
So, if you're not alreadyinvolved, get involved.
There are some greatorganizations out there.

(10:31):
You might have things in yourrole, wherever you end up.
Look for people who arepassionate about this and share
with them.
They are willing to share withyou.
So, Nick, stay curious.
To all of us out there, we needto stay open and curious and
keep sharing.
This is how we grow together.

(10:53):
I wish all of the new graduatesincredible congratulations and I
can't wait to see what you do.
Fill us in, especially if youare looking for a customer
experience role, or maybe you'rethere now.
Let us know what you're doing,let us know how we can support
you.
And if you haven't alreadycheck out our Learning Center,
you're not done with learningyet.

(11:13):
Check out our Learning Centerat experienceinvestigatorscom.
Thanks so much for thisquestion.
Thank you for being here andwe'll see you next time.
To learn more about ourstrategic approach to experience
.
Check out free resources atexperienceinvestigatorscom,
where you can sign up for ournewsletter, our Year of CX

(11:37):
program and more, and pleasefollow me, Jeannie Walters, on
LinkedIn.