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.
Linking EX to CX: The How and Why
Platitudes and gross simplifications regarding the impact of the Employee Experience on the Customer Experience abound. EX = CX. Happy employees = happy customers....
Playing the Odds: CX is About Value Optimization and Risk Mitigation
It's increasingly rare to find a mid-sized or larger company that doesn't have a CX/VoC program of some sort. But for many (perhaps even...
The Customer Experience is a Means, not an Ends
The objective or "ends" for a company is maximizing the firm's value. This means maximizing the current and future cash flows from customers. Delivering...
Get Off the Functional Performance Hamster Wheel. Take the Plunge into Emotional CX
Transactions and relationships are intrinsically interrelated but are inherently different. Measuring and managing both makes sense. What's more important and companies typically fail to...
Stop Moaning about the State of CX… and Start Measuring Performance vs. Customer Expectations
"CX Quality among brands in the US declined for an unprecedented second year in a row." (Forrester, 2023) "From late 2018 to mid-2022, U.S.…
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...