September 23, 2025 • 14 mins
Where do you start with customer experience strategy?
As a CX leader, you’ve probably faced the overwhelming question: Where do I start? In this episode, Jeannie Walters explores this challenge and shares how to find clarity when building a customer experience strategy.
Drawing from real conversations with CX leaders, Jeannie introduces the CXI Navigator Framework, which highlights four essential parts of an effective strategy:
- Intentional Success – Defining what success really looks like.
- Customer Collaboration – Listening to and engaging with customers meaningfully.
- Cultural Commitment – Building a culture where everyone plays a role in CX.
- Experiential Innovation – Looking ahead to disrupt and improve through the customer experience.
You’ll also hear how the CXI Compass can help you pinpoint where to begin, whether it’s strengthening culture, refreshing a Voice of the Customer program, or sparking innovation.
If you’ve ever struggled to know the right starting point, this episode offers practical guidance to help you prioritize, define success, and create momentum in your customer experience journey.
Resources Mentioned:
Take the CXI Compass® assessment -- https://CXICompass.com
Experience Investigators Website -- https://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/)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
One, two, three, four of the things that happens when
I am coaching executives, whenI'm working with CX teams, when
we're prepping and planning forworkshops with our clients, is
sometimes I have these reallyextraordinary conversations with
leaders, just like you, and Iwanted to share a little bit
about a recent one that I had.
Now this leader has had to kindof reinvent themselves and
(00:42):
their customer experience team.
Frankly, in the last severalyears the company at first
started by saying, hey, let's dosome customer experience.
I heard it's important.
They started implementingthings like voice of the
customer programs.
They had a lot of data, a lotof metrics, and people started
asking okay, now what?
And what she said to me thatreally resonated, that I thought
(01:05):
I would share with you, is youknow what it feels like.
I have to figure out where tostart all the time, and I bet
that's something you can relateto.
So today I want to explorewhere do you start with customer
experience strategy?
How do you know you're going inthe right direction?
How do you know you're going inthe right direction?
(01:26):
So, when you think about whereto start, usually if you apply
this logic to, or question to,things like operations and
marketing and sales.
You know, sales is usuallywhere we start in an
organization.
We say what are our goalsaround sales?
How are we going to get there?
Everybody's very clear on that.
You know, we need a certainamount to function, we need a
(01:46):
certain amount of profit.
We have certain goals that ourleaders have asked us to execute
on, and so we kind of workbackwards from those goals when
it comes to sales.
It's very easy in some cases totell are we successful or not?
What happens with customerexperience is people have not
really defined what does successlook like.
(02:08):
So what happens is your leaderhas a certain vision and let's
say the vision is, you know whateverybody who walks into one of
our customer facing channelswill be greeted warmly, will
make them feel so special thatthey will, you know, tell their
friends we're going to get thesereally high net promoter scores
(02:28):
, we're going to be lauded inthe industry, whatever it is.
But that is often in theirheads.
And then what happens is youstart looking under the hood and
realizing well, the reason thatthe people who are dealing with
our customers directly aren'talways as warm and friendly and
(02:48):
excited as maybe they should beis because their systems are
hard to use.
They don't necessarily knowwhere this customer is coming
from, the purchase history, theservice issues that the person
has had in the past all of thosethings.
If they don't have access tothat, it's really hard to help
somebody feel warm and valuedwhen you can't see exactly where
(03:11):
they are or who they are ontheir journey.
Now there are also things likeyou know what?
Maybe our Voice to the Customerprogram has been running really
well for 10 years, but we'reasking the same questions that
we've always asked and it's notreally giving us any new
insights.
Or maybe the insights thatwe're getting, we don't know who
(03:31):
to turn to to say hey, we'rehearing that if we improve this
part of the journey, that wouldactually result in the higher
marks that we're all looking for.
We don't have the authority oraccountability or even influence
to go talk to those leaders andsay I need your help, so we get
stuck Now.
(03:51):
Another thing that can happen isyou have a culture that isn't
yet committed to this.
Now you might have leaders whoare talking a good game.
You might have people on thefront line who are doing their
very best to deliver for yourcustomers.
You might have great businessanalysts who are looking at your
data and trying to uncoverthose insights, but you don't
have that universalunderstanding that customer
(04:13):
experience is everyone'sbusiness.
Customer experience issomething that everyone not only
has to care about, but theyplay a role, whether you are
directly or indirectly dealingwith customers, but they play a
role.
Whether you are directly orindirectly dealing with
customers, you have an impact onthe customer experience.
And if you have not createdthat universal definition of
success, if you have not focusedon are we getting what we need
(04:37):
out of our voice, of thecustomer program, are we
actually delivering thoseinsights in a way that people
can act on them and understandthat it's an important role that
they play?
And do we have everybody onboard here?
So we all are rowing the boatin the same direction.
Now sometimes we go in and wetalk to these leaders and I ask
(04:58):
a simple question when was thelast time you talked to a
customer?
When was the last time youasked a customer directly?
When was the last time youreally collaborated with
customers to make sure that theywere getting what they wanted?
And usually the answer is notquite sure, right?
So if we are not collaboratingwith customers on a regular
(05:18):
basis.
We are missing a piece of thepuzzle in our customer
experience strategy.
Now, all of these pieces we'veput together in our CXI
Navigator Framework.
There are four parts to it.
The first part is intentionalsuccess, and, ironically, this
is what people skip over.
We need to define who we are toour customers, no matter what,
(05:39):
and how do we define success?
Because if we can definesuccess, then we can work
backwards and figure out how dowe get there, what does it look
like?
How do we define success?
Because if we can definesuccess, then we can work
backwards and figure out how dowe get there, what does it look
like?
How do we make sure that we aremaking progress?
All of those factors, sointentional success is
incredibly important.
Sometimes, though, people startin different places, because the
(06:00):
next part of this is customercollaboration.
Customer collaboration ismaking sure that we are
listening to our customers inthe right way.
We are paying attention to thesignals that they're giving us,
not just what they're talkingabout, but also what are our
operational metrics.
Tell us If people aren'trenewing, that is a signal.
If people are telling theirfriends on social media, never
(06:24):
go to this place, that is asignal we have to pay attention
to all of those things.
We also have to pay attentionto what's happening inside the
organization to make sure thatthe employee experience is
reflective of that for ourcustomers.
So customer collaboration is ahuge part of that.
Maybe you have a customeradvisory board, maybe you invite
people in for special events toget their feedback.
(06:46):
There are all sorts of ways tocollaborate with customers, but
it's a critical piece of anycustomer experience strategy.
And then we get to culturalcommitment.
This is where we really look atwhat is happening in the
culture.
How do we make sure that everysingle person here understands
that their role has an impact?
Now I will say I love training,I love workshops, but this is
(07:09):
more than one training folks.
This is not just about going inand saying everybody should
think about the customer, ormaybe mentioning customer
experience during onboarding.
This has to be a regularheartbeat in your conversations,
in your commitments and in theway that you even evaluate how
people are doing.
You also want to make a safeculture so people can raise
(07:31):
their hand and say you know what?
I'm seeing something that's notworking for customers and I
want to figure this out.
It's not about blame.
It's about making sure that weall know what does success look
like for our customers and forour organization?
Cultural commitment is a hugepart of everything we do, but we
(07:51):
have to make sure that it'swithin the bigger context of
that definition of success, surethat it's within the bigger
context of that definition ofsuccess?
And then, finally, I like tolook ahead.
What are we actually learningthat we can apply to the future
success of this organization?
And that's where experientialinnovation comes in.
Now, innovation is oftenfocused on products and adding
(08:13):
on more features, things likethat.
What I want you to think aboutis how can we innovate around
the experience for our customers?
The brands that have disruptedAll the industries in the last
decade plus have beenexperience-driven.
They have not changed a productper se.
They've changed the waycustomers experience them.
(08:34):
That's what we have to look for.
What if we were disrupting ourindustry today?
What would we focus on for thecustomer?
What's missing for the customer?
What are they asking for around?
More convenience ortransparency, or data privacy,
or all the things that are realconcerns for our customers today
?
So if we can focus on thosefour things intentional success,
(08:58):
customer collaboration,cultural commitment and
experiential innovation we havea working flywheel of what works
.
Now, like I said, we love tostart with intentional success.
Sometimes we don't have thebuy-in, we can't quite get there
.
So start where you can.
Start where you can.
(09:20):
Sometimes that means gettingpeople on board with a more
tactical step, like a customerjourney mapping session.
That can be seen as bothcustomer collaboration, cultural
commitment.
That hits a lot of the spaceshere.
You can use that to help definewhat success looks like in the
future.
Maybe your leaders are moreinterested in you know, making
(09:44):
sure that you are looking aheadand innovating for the future.
Offer an innovation session,say let's get together and
figure out how can we disruptthe industry through the
experience that we deliver.
We do this with somethingcalled a disruptor day with our
clients.
It's super fun, it's reallyeffective and it helps everybody
look ahead and look beyondwhat's possible today.
(10:08):
Now, why am I sharing all thiswith you?
Because every leader I talk tostruggles with this question of
where do I start, and it's notthat simple of a question to
answer.
So several years ago wedeveloped this tool called CXI
Compass.
Now you know, because you'rehere as a listener and viewer,
(10:29):
that CXI stands for CustomerExperience Investigation.
The Compass is really a tool tohelp point you in the right
direction.
When you have limited resources, when you have limited time,
when you're not sure where tostart, what we do is you answer
11 questions and then we tellyou.
You know what it looks like.
You need help in culturalcommitment.
That's where we're seeing thelowest amount of maybe
(10:51):
understanding or success or allthe things.
So let's figure out what thatlooks like.
This can help you have thelanguage you need to speak to
your leaders.
So I encourage you, if youhaven't already, check out the
free CXI Compass atcxicompasscom.
Once you take the compass, weoffer a call with you to go over
the results.
So there are steps in this thatwill really help you get to
(11:16):
that place where not only youknow where to start, but you
start defining what does it looklike to succeed and how do we
get there?
Because customer experiencestrategy is absolutely a winning
business strategy when it'sapproached in this way.
The problems I see again andagain is that nothing is defined
(11:37):
.
People are looking to you asthe CX leader and they're saying
things like why isn't our netpromoter score up?
As if you have accountabilityover that.
Instead of just reporting on it.
You have accountability overthat.
Instead of just reporting on it, you are asked to do the
impossible day after day.
I want you to set up someguardrails.
I want you to say, hey, this iswhat I want to prioritize and
(11:59):
here's why and here's thesuccess that we can forecast
from it.
So if you need help, we arehere for you.
If you are looking for resources, we have so many free resources
and articles atexperienceinvestigatorscom and I
encourage you to ask yourselftoday where do I start to make
(12:19):
the most impact, to reach thehighest levels of success for my
organization and for mycustomers?
Through customer experience.
And if you need to prioritize,sometimes that means you know
what.
Our voice of the customerprogram is running fine,
everybody's okay with it, sowe're going to let that run.
(12:41):
While we prioritize looking atthe culture or looking at
innovation or simply definingwhat success looks like, we all
have to make decisions andtrade-offs and prioritizations
around our time and energy andresources.
So while you are asked to do alot as a customer experience
leader, I really encourage youto think about how can you
(13:06):
prioritize the right thing inthe right moment and simply get
started.
I hope this was helpful to you.
If you have questions, don'tforget you can always reach out
to me.
You can leave a voicemail or awritten question at askgenievip,
(13:26):
and I hope that you will checkout the CXI Compass at
cxicompasscom.
Please let me know what youthink, what you're struggling
with, what your challenges are.
That's why we're here and we'reall in this together.
Thanks everybody.
See you next time To learn moreabout our strategic approach to
experience.
Check out free resources atexperienceinvestigatorscom,
(13:50):
where you can sign up for ournewsletter, our Year of CX
program and more.
And please follow me, jeanneWalters, on LinkedIn.
One, two, three, four of the things that happens when
I am coaching executives, whenI'm working with CX teams, when
we're prepping and planning forworkshops with our clients, is
sometimes I have these reallyextraordinary conversations with
leaders, just like you, and Iwanted to share a little bit
about a recent one that I had.
Now this leader has had to kindof reinvent themselves and
(00:42):
their customer experience team.
Frankly, in the last severalyears the company at first
started by saying, hey, let's dosome customer experience.
I heard it's important.
They started implementingthings like voice of the
customer programs.
They had a lot of data, a lotof metrics, and people started
asking okay, now what?
And what she said to me thatreally resonated, that I thought
(01:05):
I would share with you, is youknow what it feels like.
I have to figure out where tostart all the time, and I bet
that's something you can relateto.
So today I want to explorewhere do you start with customer
experience strategy?
How do you know you're going inthe right direction?
How do you know you're going inthe right direction?
(01:26):
So, when you think about whereto start, usually if you apply
this logic to, or question to,things like operations and
marketing and sales.
You know, sales is usuallywhere we start in an
organization.
We say what are our goalsaround sales?
How are we going to get there?
Everybody's very clear on that.
You know, we need a certainamount to function, we need a
(01:46):
certain amount of profit.
We have certain goals that ourleaders have asked us to execute
on, and so we kind of workbackwards from those goals when
it comes to sales.
It's very easy in some cases totell are we successful or not?
What happens with customerexperience is people have not
really defined what does successlook like.
(02:08):
So what happens is your leaderhas a certain vision and let's
say the vision is, you know whateverybody who walks into one of
our customer facing channelswill be greeted warmly, will
make them feel so special thatthey will, you know, tell their
friends we're going to get thesereally high net promoter scores
(02:28):
, we're going to be lauded inthe industry, whatever it is.
But that is often in theirheads.
And then what happens is youstart looking under the hood and
realizing well, the reason thatthe people who are dealing with
our customers directly aren'talways as warm and friendly and
(02:48):
excited as maybe they should beis because their systems are
hard to use.
They don't necessarily knowwhere this customer is coming
from, the purchase history, theservice issues that the person
has had in the past all of thosethings.
If they don't have access tothat, it's really hard to help
somebody feel warm and valuedwhen you can't see exactly where
(03:11):
they are or who they are ontheir journey.
Now there are also things likeyou know what?
Maybe our Voice to the Customerprogram has been running really
well for 10 years, but we'reasking the same questions that
we've always asked and it's notreally giving us any new
insights.
Or maybe the insights thatwe're getting, we don't know who
(03:31):
to turn to to say hey, we'rehearing that if we improve this
part of the journey, that wouldactually result in the higher
marks that we're all looking for.
We don't have the authority oraccountability or even influence
to go talk to those leaders andsay I need your help, so we get
stuck Now.
(03:51):
Another thing that can happen isyou have a culture that isn't
yet committed to this.
Now you might have leaders whoare talking a good game.
You might have people on thefront line who are doing their
very best to deliver for yourcustomers.
You might have great businessanalysts who are looking at your
data and trying to uncoverthose insights, but you don't
have that universalunderstanding that customer
(04:13):
experience is everyone'sbusiness.
Customer experience issomething that everyone not only
has to care about, but theyplay a role, whether you are
directly or indirectly dealingwith customers, but they play a
role.
Whether you are directly orindirectly dealing with
customers, you have an impact onthe customer experience.
And if you have not createdthat universal definition of
success, if you have not focusedon are we getting what we need
(04:37):
out of our voice, of thecustomer program, are we
actually delivering thoseinsights in a way that people
can act on them and understandthat it's an important role that
they play?
And do we have everybody onboard here?
So we all are rowing the boatin the same direction.
Now sometimes we go in and wetalk to these leaders and I ask
(04:58):
a simple question when was thelast time you talked to a
customer?
When was the last time youasked a customer directly?
When was the last time youreally collaborated with
customers to make sure that theywere getting what they wanted?
And usually the answer is notquite sure, right?
So if we are not collaboratingwith customers on a regular
(05:18):
basis.
We are missing a piece of thepuzzle in our customer
experience strategy.
Now, all of these pieces we'veput together in our CXI
Navigator Framework.
There are four parts to it.
The first part is intentionalsuccess, and, ironically, this
is what people skip over.
We need to define who we are toour customers, no matter what,
(05:39):
and how do we define success?
Because if we can definesuccess, then we can work
backwards and figure out how dowe get there, what does it look
like?
How do we define success?
Because if we can definesuccess, then we can work
backwards and figure out how dowe get there, what does it look
like?
How do we make sure that we aremaking progress?
All of those factors, sointentional success is
incredibly important.
Sometimes, though, people startin different places, because the
(06:00):
next part of this is customercollaboration.
Customer collaboration ismaking sure that we are
listening to our customers inthe right way.
We are paying attention to thesignals that they're giving us,
not just what they're talkingabout, but also what are our
operational metrics.
Tell us If people aren'trenewing, that is a signal.
If people are telling theirfriends on social media, never
(06:24):
go to this place, that is asignal we have to pay attention
to all of those things.
We also have to pay attentionto what's happening inside the
organization to make sure thatthe employee experience is
reflective of that for ourcustomers.
So customer collaboration is ahuge part of that.
Maybe you have a customeradvisory board, maybe you invite
people in for special events toget their feedback.
(06:46):
There are all sorts of ways tocollaborate with customers, but
it's a critical piece of anycustomer experience strategy.
And then we get to culturalcommitment.
This is where we really look atwhat is happening in the
culture.
How do we make sure that everysingle person here understands
that their role has an impact?
Now I will say I love training,I love workshops, but this is
(07:09):
more than one training folks.
This is not just about going inand saying everybody should
think about the customer, ormaybe mentioning customer
experience during onboarding.
This has to be a regularheartbeat in your conversations,
in your commitments and in theway that you even evaluate how
people are doing.
You also want to make a safeculture so people can raise
(07:31):
their hand and say you know what?
I'm seeing something that's notworking for customers and I
want to figure this out.
It's not about blame.
It's about making sure that weall know what does success look
like for our customers and forour organization?
Cultural commitment is a hugepart of everything we do, but we
(07:51):
have to make sure that it'swithin the bigger context of
that definition of success, surethat it's within the bigger
context of that definition ofsuccess?
And then, finally, I like tolook ahead.
What are we actually learningthat we can apply to the future
success of this organization?
And that's where experientialinnovation comes in.
Now, innovation is oftenfocused on products and adding
(08:13):
on more features, things likethat.
What I want you to think aboutis how can we innovate around
the experience for our customers?
The brands that have disruptedAll the industries in the last
decade plus have beenexperience-driven.
They have not changed a productper se.
They've changed the waycustomers experience them.
(08:34):
That's what we have to look for.
What if we were disrupting ourindustry today?
What would we focus on for thecustomer?
What's missing for the customer?
What are they asking for around?
More convenience ortransparency, or data privacy,
or all the things that are realconcerns for our customers today
?
So if we can focus on thosefour things intentional success,
(08:58):
customer collaboration,cultural commitment and
experiential innovation we havea working flywheel of what works
.
Now, like I said, we love tostart with intentional success.
Sometimes we don't have thebuy-in, we can't quite get there
.
So start where you can.
Start where you can.
(09:20):
Sometimes that means gettingpeople on board with a more
tactical step, like a customerjourney mapping session.
That can be seen as bothcustomer collaboration, cultural
commitment.
That hits a lot of the spaceshere.
You can use that to help definewhat success looks like in the
future.
Maybe your leaders are moreinterested in you know, making
(09:44):
sure that you are looking aheadand innovating for the future.
Offer an innovation session,say let's get together and
figure out how can we disruptthe industry through the
experience that we deliver.
We do this with somethingcalled a disruptor day with our
clients.
It's super fun, it's reallyeffective and it helps everybody
look ahead and look beyondwhat's possible today.
(10:08):
Now, why am I sharing all thiswith you?
Because every leader I talk tostruggles with this question of
where do I start, and it's notthat simple of a question to
answer.
So several years ago wedeveloped this tool called CXI
Compass.
Now you know, because you'rehere as a listener and viewer,
(10:29):
that CXI stands for CustomerExperience Investigation.
The Compass is really a tool tohelp point you in the right
direction.
When you have limited resources, when you have limited time,
when you're not sure where tostart, what we do is you answer
11 questions and then we tellyou.
You know what it looks like.
You need help in culturalcommitment.
That's where we're seeing thelowest amount of maybe
(10:51):
understanding or success or allthe things.
So let's figure out what thatlooks like.
This can help you have thelanguage you need to speak to
your leaders.
So I encourage you, if youhaven't already, check out the
free CXI Compass atcxicompasscom.
Once you take the compass, weoffer a call with you to go over
the results.
So there are steps in this thatwill really help you get to
(11:16):
that place where not only youknow where to start, but you
start defining what does it looklike to succeed and how do we
get there?
Because customer experiencestrategy is absolutely a winning
business strategy when it'sapproached in this way.
The problems I see again andagain is that nothing is defined
(11:37):
.
People are looking to you asthe CX leader and they're saying
things like why isn't our netpromoter score up?
As if you have accountabilityover that.
Instead of just reporting on it.
You have accountability overthat.
Instead of just reporting on it, you are asked to do the
impossible day after day.
I want you to set up someguardrails.
I want you to say, hey, this iswhat I want to prioritize and
(11:59):
here's why and here's thesuccess that we can forecast
from it.
So if you need help, we arehere for you.
If you are looking for resources, we have so many free resources
and articles atexperienceinvestigatorscom and I
encourage you to ask yourselftoday where do I start to make
(12:19):
the most impact, to reach thehighest levels of success for my
organization and for mycustomers?
Through customer experience.
And if you need to prioritize,sometimes that means you know
what.
Our voice of the customerprogram is running fine,
everybody's okay with it, sowe're going to let that run.
(12:41):
While we prioritize looking atthe culture or looking at
innovation or simply definingwhat success looks like, we all
have to make decisions andtrade-offs and prioritizations
around our time and energy andresources.
So while you are asked to do alot as a customer experience
leader, I really encourage youto think about how can you
(13:06):
prioritize the right thing inthe right moment and simply get
started.
I hope this was helpful to you.
If you have questions, don'tforget you can always reach out
to me.
You can leave a voicemail or awritten question at askgenievip,
(13:26):
and I hope that you will checkout the CXI Compass at
cxicompasscom.
Please let me know what youthink, what you're struggling
with, what your challenges are.
That's why we're here and we'reall in this together.
Thanks everybody.
See you next time To learn moreabout our strategic approach to
experience.
Check out free resources atexperienceinvestigatorscom,
(13:50):
where you can sign up for ournewsletter, our Year of CX
program and more.
And please follow me, jeanneWalters, on LinkedIn.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.