April 15, 2025 • 11 mins
Customer experience leadership is not just about gathering insights—it's about securing genuine organizational buy-in. In this special episode of the Experience Action podcast, our host Jeannie Walters sits down with Sasha Fard, Country Lead for Customer Experience Management at Capital One Canada, to reveal the often-overlooked secret to successful CX implementation.
Speaking from the bustling Medallia Experience 2025 event in Las Vegas, Fard dismantles the common misconception that actionable Voice of Customer data alone drives change. The real challenge? Getting cross-functional leaders to not just review customer feedback but commit to acting on it.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Fard's practical approach to change management. Following ADKAR principles (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement), he demonstrates how CX professionals must transform themselves into skilled salespeople for their initiatives. "You need to be a good salesperson too," Fard advises, "because you're selling an idea, you're selling an approach." This means understanding stakeholder objectives, speaking their language, and showing how CX directly supports their goals—not overwhelming them with metrics and industry jargon.
The most compelling takeaway? Start small, demonstrate value, and scale gradually. By securing incremental commitments rather than demanding wholesale change, CX leaders can build the credibility needed to expand their influence. This approach earned Capital One the Global CXPA Impact Award, recognizing their success in driving tangible business outcomes through customer experience initiatives. Ready to transform how you approach CX leadership?
Follow Sasha Fard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashafard/
Resources Mentioned:
Medallia Experience -- https://www.medallia.com/experience/
Experience Investigators -- 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/)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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):
Welcome to a special episode of Experience
Action.
I had the pleasure of sittingdown with Sasha Fard from
Capital One Canada, at therecent Medallia Experience event
in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We had a quick but powerfulconversation that I think you'll
enjoy, where we cover how toapproach different leaders to
get them enthusiastic aboutcustomer experience, as well as
(00:54):
really the importance of lookingat both customer experience and
employee experience from aleadership and management
perspective.
I really enjoyed my time withSasha and I really enjoyed the
powerful event of MedalliaExperience 2025.
I hope that you enjoy this andlisten in for things that you
can apply to your customerexperience and your business.
(01:17):
Today, I'm coming to you fromMedallia Experience 2025.
This is a big event in LasVegas.
We've heard many amazingspeakers.
I'm here with one of them today.
This is Sasha from Capital One,and thank you for speaking with
me.
And how about you just tell usa little bit about you and your
role and what role you play atCapital One?
Sasha Fard (01:36):
Sure.
Thank you so much for having me, Jeannie, really excited to be
here.
So I am the Country Lead forthe customer experience
management practice at CapitalOne Canada.
So I lead a cross-functionalteam to measure and improve the
customer experience both overalland across all of our key touch
points and journeys.
So I literally work with everyteam across the Canada business.
(02:00):
So that includes the digitalchannels team, the contact
centers, the onboarding team,product marketing strategy,
literally across the board,which is exciting because I am a
curious person and I like tolearn about different parts of
the business.
So that works, yeah, and myrole is essentially to make sure
that we're listening to ourcustomers and making sure that
(02:22):
we're taking action on thefeedback that and improving our
business results.
Jeannie Walters (02:28):
And I think that's been a big theme here.
Right, We've talked a lot abouthow it's more than just
listening and collecting thatfeedback, but we have to act on
it.
But you just touched onsomething that is really
important, Because when we talkabout acting on it, it sounds so
simple, right, Like, oh, justact on the feedback that you
hear.
But it's so cross-functional.
We have to actually getleadership and accountability
(02:50):
across the entire organization.
And when you're talking about alarge institution like Capital
One, when you're talking aboutyou've got many layers of
customers, employees, everything.
So if you were looking back onyour journey, you know you
mentioned today that you reallyfocused on change management.
So I would love to learn alittle bit about that part of
(03:12):
your journey.
And then also, what do youthink people are looking for
when they talk about changemanagement?
That's another thing that cansound so grandiose right.
So, what about your journeythere?
Sasha Fard (03:23):
I think change management is key.
I think the focus at least likemy focus, I'll start from my
experience has been so much onVoC and VoC actionable insights.
And before I thought that'swhat's going to get me there,
that's where it's going to getme success, and then I realized
that's more table stakes.
Right, you need to have that,it's important, but you're not
(03:45):
going to be successful just withactionable insights.
And the most important thing Ifind in this entire process is
making sure that there's buy-inand accountability, to make sure
that folks are reviewing thefeedback and also taking action
on the feedback.
And, like you said, that sounds.
You know it could be somethingso easy.
Yeah, just make sure you buy in.
(04:06):
But this isn't CX, EX, is notad hoc, right?
It's not just one time wherewe're saying, hey, you know, are
you interested in, can you dothis?
We're essentially asking themto onboard an entire system.
You know, piece by piece, notall at once.
So it's a high level of thereis commitment there and so
really need to make sure that wedon't bypass that
(04:28):
accountability portion and goingstraight to insights and
solutioning and making sure thatfolks really understand the
methodology what are we tryingto do here, and also how they
can benefit from it and how wecan help make it easier for our
stakeholders to achieve theirown objectives, versus just
being like a little checkboxthat they have.
(04:49):
So I think accountability iskey and the way to do that is
through change management.
You know, looking at the ADKARprinciples awareness, desire,
knowledge it's really, reallykey and that's why, you know, I
really focus on that, you know,in my role, because once you get
folks on board and once theysee the value and understand how
(05:10):
it works, then the other piecesjust at least in my experience
just follow.
So once we had accountability,the other steps just like people
wanted to know more-
Jeannie Walters (05:19):
Yeah, yeah, and you also mentioned that you're
a curious person and that's agood part of your role.
That's one of our values atExperience Investigators is
curiosity, because I think, likecustomer experience, we have to
be curious people.
Some of the leaders that we workwith they might not be as
curious, right?
They're like hey, I'm doing mything and you're giving me
(05:39):
information that is extra.
So what is that conversationthat you have to get them on
board with that accountabilitywhen they're kind of like this
isn't my role?
This is not what I'm about.
Sasha Fard (05:49):
Right, right, I think that you know we're CX EX
enthusiasts.
You know we love this place.
Not everyone, like you said, isin that space and you know just
working I come from consultingside and then when I went on the
brand side I realized howdifferent it is because it's so
big, like you said, and leadersare really focused also on other
(06:11):
priorities, right, so they gotto meet, you know, their
compliance.
There's like regulations.
You know being in banking,there's just so many things that
they need to do just to run theengine in their department, and
so you really need to have agood business case to get their
attention, and the way that Ifound to be successful in that
is, you know, making sure youunderstand what their objectives
(06:34):
are and showing how you canhelp make it easier for them to
meet their objectives.
So that essentially means tyingin CX EX with what they're
looking to achieve in order toget their buy-in.
So you know really speakingtheir language.
You don't need to be a CX EXenthusiast, but if someone says
(06:55):
you know, if you do X, y and Zand if you onboard my system or
this system, we're going to makeit.
We're going to give you a clearpath to help you become
successful.
I think most people would wantto learn more.
Jeannie Walters (07:04):
Absolutely, absolutely.
But I think the part thatsometimes CX skips is speaking
that language.
So, I really appreciate that,because we talk about you need
to understand yourorganizational goals, your
leadership goals, and then whatlevers can we pull in CX?
So if somebody's out thereright now, they're about to kind
(07:24):
of embark on their own journey.
What are some of the lessonsthat you've learned that you
know you can share?
Sasha Fard (07:30):
I think buy-in accountability again is super
critical, and what that means is, as CX EX folks, we have to
wear multiple hats right.
We have to be good at insights.
We have to be good at, you know, change management, problem
solving.
One other skill that I think isvery useful to have is being a
good salesperson too.
Jeannie Walters (07:51):
Oh, I love it.
Sasha Fard (07:52):
Yeah, because you're selling an idea, you're selling
an approach and we're nottalking about accounting or
finance.
That's been around for 100years.
Everyone kind of understandswhat that is and how it works.
This is a new discipline, andso you need to be a good
salesperson by understandingtheir objective.
When you get on a sales call,in the discovery call, they ask
(08:14):
what's your objective, how can Ihelp you?
And so you need to take thatapproach to really, you know,
focusing on the outcomes versusyou know, this is what EX is,
and here are all the features.
I think understanding how to bea good salesperson, even though
some people don't like sales andthey're like I just want to do
the EX parts.
Like, sales is a key componentto it and that means not
(08:38):
overwhelming them at the front.
And you know, in sales I usedto kind of dabble in sales is to
just get small commitments overtime versus asking for
everything right at once.
So just getting buy-in andstarting small, showing the
value and scaling it.
Jeannie Walters (08:53):
I love it, yeah , and I think that when we talk
about CX and EX, sometimes it iseasy to get into that VoC
language all the time and justtalk about feedback metrics,
right.
Sasha Fard (09:05):
Right.
Jeannie Walters (09:06):
And say, well, our NPS is doing this, or we
noticed CSAT over here.
So what you know, if we kind ofthink above that level, if we
think about the vision of CX andEX, what gets you excited about
that, Like what is meaningfulabout that part of this work?
Sasha Fard (09:22):
I think what gets me excited just in general, is
creating impact within anorganization.
That's what gets me excited,and we won the Global CXPA
Impact Award, which I thoughtwas very fitting.
Jeannie Walters (09:36):
Congratulations .
Sasha Fard (09:36):
Thank you, and what I love about that is that it was
focused on impact.
It wasn't just about welaunched a study and we got some
good feedback and this is whatthey said, but it was really
about gaining buy-in, makingsure folks understood it and
took actions, understood rootcause and then showing the
business impact as well, becausea lot of times, folks don't
(09:59):
know what the business impact is, and also maybe the team that
you're working on understands it, but so many other teams within
the organization don't know, soyou need to share that with
them as well and say, hey, forthis team, I did this.
What's important for you.
I can do something similar foryou and just start building
relationships and credibilityacross the org.
Jeannie Walters (10:19):
That's excellent.
Well, I get excited about thistoo, and I think the work you're
doing and all these CX leadersare doing out there is really,
really meaningful.
So thank you for doing thiswith me, thank you for taking
time out of Medallia Experienceto chat with me, and thanks for
all you're doing.
Sasha Fard (10:34):
My pleasure.
Thank you so much, Jeannie
Jeannie Walters (10:36):
Thanks.
Thank you so much for tuning into this special episode of
Experience Action.
Now, as always, we are here foryour questions.
Don't forget, you can leave mea voicemail at askjeannievip.
I would like to also extend mythanks to Sasha for sitting down
with me, as well as Medalliafor hosting this incredible
event.
Now, if you think this wouldapply to others, I encourage you
(10:59):
to share this episode for thosewho want to hear about customer
experience and employeeexperience and, of course, if
you haven't already, pleasesubscribe, rate review and share
the podcast with those youthink who would benefit.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
We'll see you next time.
To learn more about ourstrategic approach to experience
, check out free resources atexperienceinvestigatorscom,
(11:24):
where you can sign up for ournewsletter, our Year of CX
program and more, and pleasefollow me, Jeannie Walters, on
LinkedIn.
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):
Welcome to a special episode of Experience
Action.
I had the pleasure of sittingdown with Sasha Fard from
Capital One Canada, at therecent Medallia Experience event
in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We had a quick but powerfulconversation that I think you'll
enjoy, where we cover how toapproach different leaders to
get them enthusiastic aboutcustomer experience, as well as
(00:54):
really the importance of lookingat both customer experience and
employee experience from aleadership and management
perspective.
I really enjoyed my time withSasha and I really enjoyed the
powerful event of MedalliaExperience 2025.
I hope that you enjoy this andlisten in for things that you
can apply to your customerexperience and your business.
(01:17):
Today, I'm coming to you fromMedallia Experience 2025.
This is a big event in LasVegas.
We've heard many amazingspeakers.
I'm here with one of them today.
This is Sasha from Capital One,and thank you for speaking with
me.
And how about you just tell usa little bit about you and your
role and what role you play atCapital One?
Sasha Fard (01:36):
Sure.
Thank you so much for having me, Jeannie, really excited to be
here.
So I am the Country Lead forthe customer experience
management practice at CapitalOne Canada.
So I lead a cross-functionalteam to measure and improve the
customer experience both overalland across all of our key touch
points and journeys.
So I literally work with everyteam across the Canada business.
(02:00):
So that includes the digitalchannels team, the contact
centers, the onboarding team,product marketing strategy,
literally across the board,which is exciting because I am a
curious person and I like tolearn about different parts of
the business.
So that works, yeah, and myrole is essentially to make sure
that we're listening to ourcustomers and making sure that
(02:22):
we're taking action on thefeedback that and improving our
business results.
Jeannie Walters (02:28):
And I think that's been a big theme here.
Right, We've talked a lot abouthow it's more than just
listening and collecting thatfeedback, but we have to act on
it.
But you just touched onsomething that is really
important, Because when we talkabout acting on it, it sounds so
simple, right, Like, oh, justact on the feedback that you
hear.
But it's so cross-functional.
We have to actually getleadership and accountability
(02:50):
across the entire organization.
And when you're talking about alarge institution like Capital
One, when you're talking aboutyou've got many layers of
customers, employees, everything.
So if you were looking back onyour journey, you know you
mentioned today that you reallyfocused on change management.
So I would love to learn alittle bit about that part of
(03:12):
your journey.
And then also, what do youthink people are looking for
when they talk about changemanagement?
That's another thing that cansound so grandiose right.
So, what about your journeythere?
Sasha Fard (03:23):
I think change management is key.
I think the focus at least likemy focus, I'll start from my
experience has been so much onVoC and VoC actionable insights.
And before I thought that'swhat's going to get me there,
that's where it's going to getme success, and then I realized
that's more table stakes.
Right, you need to have that,it's important, but you're not
(03:45):
going to be successful just withactionable insights.
And the most important thing Ifind in this entire process is
making sure that there's buy-inand accountability, to make sure
that folks are reviewing thefeedback and also taking action
on the feedback.
And, like you said, that sounds.
You know it could be somethingso easy.
Yeah, just make sure you buy in.
(04:06):
But this isn't CX, EX, is notad hoc, right?
It's not just one time wherewe're saying, hey, you know, are
you interested in, can you dothis?
We're essentially asking themto onboard an entire system.
You know, piece by piece, notall at once.
So it's a high level of thereis commitment there and so
really need to make sure that wedon't bypass that
(04:28):
accountability portion and goingstraight to insights and
solutioning and making sure thatfolks really understand the
methodology what are we tryingto do here, and also how they
can benefit from it and how wecan help make it easier for our
stakeholders to achieve theirown objectives, versus just
being like a little checkboxthat they have.
(04:49):
So I think accountability iskey and the way to do that is
through change management.
You know, looking at the ADKARprinciples awareness, desire,
knowledge it's really, reallykey and that's why, you know, I
really focus on that, you know,in my role, because once you get
folks on board and once theysee the value and understand how
(05:10):
it works, then the other piecesjust at least in my experience
just follow.
So once we had accountability,the other steps just like people
wanted to know more-
Jeannie Walters (05:19):
Yeah, yeah, and you also mentioned that you're
a curious person and that's agood part of your role.
That's one of our values atExperience Investigators is
curiosity, because I think, likecustomer experience, we have to
be curious people.
Some of the leaders that we workwith they might not be as
curious, right?
They're like hey, I'm doing mything and you're giving me
(05:39):
information that is extra.
So what is that conversationthat you have to get them on
board with that accountabilitywhen they're kind of like this
isn't my role?
This is not what I'm about.
Sasha Fard (05:49):
Right, right, I think that you know we're CX EX
enthusiasts.
You know we love this place.
Not everyone, like you said, isin that space and you know just
working I come from consultingside and then when I went on the
brand side I realized howdifferent it is because it's so
big, like you said, and leadersare really focused also on other
(06:11):
priorities, right, so they gotto meet, you know, their
compliance.
There's like regulations.
You know being in banking,there's just so many things that
they need to do just to run theengine in their department, and
so you really need to have agood business case to get their
attention, and the way that Ifound to be successful in that
is, you know, making sure youunderstand what their objectives
(06:34):
are and showing how you canhelp make it easier for them to
meet their objectives.
So that essentially means tyingin CX EX with what they're
looking to achieve in order toget their buy-in.
So you know really speakingtheir language.
You don't need to be a CX EXenthusiast, but if someone says
(06:55):
you know, if you do X, y and Zand if you onboard my system or
this system, we're going to makeit.
We're going to give you a clearpath to help you become
successful.
I think most people would wantto learn more.
Jeannie Walters (07:04):
Absolutely, absolutely.
But I think the part thatsometimes CX skips is speaking
that language.
So, I really appreciate that,because we talk about you need
to understand yourorganizational goals, your
leadership goals, and then whatlevers can we pull in CX?
So if somebody's out thereright now, they're about to kind
(07:24):
of embark on their own journey.
What are some of the lessonsthat you've learned that you
know you can share?
Sasha Fard (07:30):
I think buy-in accountability again is super
critical, and what that means is, as CX EX folks, we have to
wear multiple hats right.
We have to be good at insights.
We have to be good at, you know, change management, problem
solving.
One other skill that I think isvery useful to have is being a
good salesperson too.
Jeannie Walters (07:51):
Oh, I love it.
Sasha Fard (07:52):
Yeah, because you're selling an idea, you're selling
an approach and we're nottalking about accounting or
finance.
That's been around for 100years.
Everyone kind of understandswhat that is and how it works.
This is a new discipline, andso you need to be a good
salesperson by understandingtheir objective.
When you get on a sales call,in the discovery call, they ask
(08:14):
what's your objective, how can Ihelp you?
And so you need to take thatapproach to really, you know,
focusing on the outcomes versusyou know, this is what EX is,
and here are all the features.
I think understanding how to bea good salesperson, even though
some people don't like sales andthey're like I just want to do
the EX parts.
Like, sales is a key componentto it and that means not
(08:38):
overwhelming them at the front.
And you know, in sales I usedto kind of dabble in sales is to
just get small commitments overtime versus asking for
everything right at once.
So just getting buy-in andstarting small, showing the
value and scaling it.
Jeannie Walters (08:53):
I love it, yeah , and I think that when we talk
about CX and EX, sometimes it iseasy to get into that VoC
language all the time and justtalk about feedback metrics,
right.
Sasha Fard (09:05):
Right.
Jeannie Walters (09:06):
And say, well, our NPS is doing this, or we
noticed CSAT over here.
So what you know, if we kind ofthink above that level, if we
think about the vision of CX andEX, what gets you excited about
that, Like what is meaningfulabout that part of this work?
Sasha Fard (09:22):
I think what gets me excited just in general, is
creating impact within anorganization.
That's what gets me excited,and we won the Global CXPA
Impact Award, which I thoughtwas very fitting.
Jeannie Walters (09:36):
Congratulations .
Sasha Fard (09:36):
Thank you, and what I love about that is that it was
focused on impact.
It wasn't just about welaunched a study and we got some
good feedback and this is whatthey said, but it was really
about gaining buy-in, makingsure folks understood it and
took actions, understood rootcause and then showing the
business impact as well, becausea lot of times, folks don't
(09:59):
know what the business impact is, and also maybe the team that
you're working on understands it, but so many other teams within
the organization don't know, soyou need to share that with
them as well and say, hey, forthis team, I did this.
What's important for you.
I can do something similar foryou and just start building
relationships and credibilityacross the org.
Jeannie Walters (10:19):
That's excellent.
Well, I get excited about thistoo, and I think the work you're
doing and all these CX leadersare doing out there is really,
really meaningful.
So thank you for doing thiswith me, thank you for taking
time out of Medallia Experienceto chat with me, and thanks for
all you're doing.
Sasha Fard (10:34):
My pleasure.
Thank you so much, Jeannie
Jeannie Walters (10:36):
Thanks.
Thank you so much for tuning into this special episode of
Experience Action.
Now, as always, we are here foryour questions.
Don't forget, you can leave mea voicemail at askjeannievip.
I would like to also extend mythanks to Sasha for sitting down
with me, as well as Medalliafor hosting this incredible
event.
Now, if you think this wouldapply to others, I encourage you
(10:59):
to share this episode for thosewho want to hear about customer
experience and employeeexperience and, of course, if
you haven't already, pleasesubscribe, rate review and share
the podcast with those youthink who would benefit.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
We'll see you next time.
To learn more about ourstrategic approach to experience
, check out free resources atexperienceinvestigatorscom,
(11:24):
where you can sign up for ournewsletter, our Year of CX
program and more, and pleasefollow me, Jeannie Walters, on
LinkedIn.
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