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Howard Lax

Howard Lax, Ph.D.

Supporting better informed decision making with technology, research and strategy. With a focus on CX/VoC/NPS, Employee Engagement and emotion analytics, Howard's domain is the application of marketing information and SaaS platforms to solve business problems and activating CX programs to drive business objectives.

The Myth of the Self-Service Voice of Customer Platform

Sounds great, just plug-and-play. The promise is bold: you can do everything yourself without the need of expensive support and get away from reliance...

Can the B2B CX Measurement Conundrum Be Solved?

CX and brand work (and writings) almost always focus on B2C. The reason is quite simple: it's easier. B2C companies typically have far more customers,...

Data is the Foundation for Managing Experiences. How Solid is Yours?

Great experiences -- from the brand, product, and digital experience to the customer, employee, and user experience -- are not a simple byproduct of...

For “Rational” CX, Focus on How Your Customers FEEL

My first brush with what was then called customer satisfaction was with a mega B2B firm in financial services. Both the CEO and...

Customer Experience Maturity: Part II

The CX maturation process needs to start with a clear articulation of business objectives. Regardless of how narrow or broad the scope of those...

Customer Experience Maturity: Part I

Customer Experience (CX) is not a “switch” that companies simply flip to the “on” position. This is not a binary condition, where a firm...

The User Experience & Customer Loyalty Mobius Strip

Every user interaction is an opportunity to deliver on the brand promise, to strengthen the planks of the customer relationship. And with every interaction...

The ROI of CX (RoCX)

If you want your CX efforts to be taken seriously at budget time, in the C-Suite, or the Boardroom, you must be able to...

The Human Experience = Human Economics: CX and EX in the Real World

Homo Economicus – the characterization of people as rationally guided wealth-maximizing missiles in their behavior -- never really was more than a textbook stick...

The Lake Wobegon Effect: Employee Performance and Customer Experience

“Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” Those closing words from...

Making CX Cexy

Process improvements in the call center, easier online search facilities, more efficient order fulfillment, easier to navigate stores, more helpful staff. None of these...

18+ Questions To Assess Your Firm’s “CXness”

References to Customer Experience are everywhere, from annual reports and analyst calls to job descriptions and performance appraisals to business plans and operating procedures....

Emotions, Memories, and the Customer Experience

If you don’t remember an experience, did it really happen? Sure, lots of things happen to us that we don’t remember. If you don’t...

The Fundamentals of the Science of Customer Experience

Customer Experience is a science. CX isn’t a “hard” science like chemistry or physics because people don’t behave like chemicals or atomic particles. But...

Integrating Employee and Customer Experience Data: Blueprint for a Business Imperative

The overwhelming majority of companies talk about connecting EX (Employee Experience) and CX (Customer Experience), but they are not integrating their employee and customer...

Leading from the Front on CX: A Legend and a Challenge

Talk, as they say, is cheap. You can’t pick up an annual report or listen to an analyst call without hearing how companies profess...

Raising the Bar: Getting Aggressive on CX

Z-Z-Z . . . That is the sound of many CX programs. Capture scores. Report scores. Celebrate or commiserate. Repeat. Face it: for many...

Customer Experience Hyperbole

If you listen to some CX firms you’d think that their tools/platforms/approaches are panacea cure-alls for everything from the common cold to revealing the...

The CX Metrics Agnostic: Does it Matter Which Metric You Use?

So unless you are “results agnostic” and don’t care about the success of your CX efforts, the next time someone tells you they are CX…

Stickers, Switchers and Shoppers: Lessons from the Auto Insurance Industry

Some people display a propensity to be “stickers,” that is to “stick” with companies they use, while others are prone to be “shoppers” and...

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