{"id":107745,"date":"2014-06-30T21:10:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T04:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/360connext.com\/5-traits-successful-customer-experience-leaders\/"},"modified":"2014-06-30T21:12:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T04:12:07","slug":"5-traits-of-successful-customer-experience-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/5-traits-of-successful-customer-experience-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Traits of Successful Customer Experience Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are\u00a0so many great people I\u2019ve had the opportunity to work with. A great deal of them have been\u00a0clients\u00a0who were charged with leading customer experience improvement initiatives<\/a>\u00a0within large organizations. These positions tend to be\u00a0very challenging. In most cases, it\u00a0involves the adoption of a\u00a0new philosophy.<\/p>\r\n

With limited resources\u00a0and authority, customer experience leaders must often\u00a0move against an internal\u00a0culture\u00a0that seems inherently\u00a0resistant to the\u00a0wave of change that is required with a successful customer experience strategy. It also requires\u00a0a handful\u00a0of traits that are often not found in one person.<\/p>\r\n

\"customer<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Here are five traits that make\u00a0great customer experience experience leaders, well, great.<\/h3>\r\n\r\n
\r\n

1. Flexibility<\/h4>\r\n

If Customer experience\u00a0were an Olympic sport, it would be gymnastics.\u00a0You have to be ready to bend, twist, stretch and jump. Seriously, one day you\u2019re reviewing\u00a0communications<\/a>\u00a0because the CEO realized they actually go to customers. The next day you\u2019re investigating\u00a0a 20% drop in\u00a0online conversions.<\/p>\r\n

2. Business Acumen<\/h4>\r\n

If you don\u2019t know your P from your L, or how to get smart about measuring not just transactions but overall implications, there had better be someone else who does. Numbers are important, but having the talent to\u00a0change them matters more. This takes painstaking\u00a0review, critical thinking and game-changing action<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

3. Instinct<\/h4>\r\n

This one is a little tough\u00a0to evaluate\u00a0or even describe. Instinct is what serves the leader who makes a call BEFORE the metrics show there\u2019s a problem. Instinct helps you sniff out a problem to investigate. Do you trust your gut?<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\"customer<\/p>\r\n

4. Communication Prowess<\/h4>\r\n

Gathering the information is great, but it\u2019s all in vain if it just sits with the Customer Experience team. Whatever information you gather has to be communicated<\/a>\u00a0in ways that are conducive to change. Not easy, folks. This is where the rubber meets the road. (And, in my experience, where many customer experience\u00a0leaders and their teams fail.)<\/p>\r\n

5. Empathy<\/h4>\r\n

Finally, it doesn\u2019t make sense to have a leader focused on customers if they\u00a0can\u2019t see the journey from the customer\u2019s perspective. Sometimes a leader has to listen carefully to what customers are trying to say<\/a> \u2013 not what they\u2019re reporting in a survey. Empathy helps the leader decide what actions to take. Empathy drives customer-centric innovation.<\/p>\r\n

There you have it. My short list of what it takes to become successful customer experience leaders. And while it\u2019s unusual for any one person to have all of these traits, it\u2019s important that each of them is prevalent in your customer experience team. What would you add?<\/p>\r\n

Photo credits:\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Encarna\u00e7\u00e3o<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>P Shanks<\/a>\u00a0via Creative Commons license<\/a><\/span><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are\u00a0so many great people I\u2019ve had the opportunity to work with. A great deal of them have been\u00a0clients\u00a0who were charged with leading customer experience improvement initiatives\u00a0within large organizations. These positions tend to be\u00a0very challenging. In most cases, it\u00a0involves the adoption of a\u00a0new philosophy. With limited resources\u00a0and authority, customer experience leaders must often\u00a0move against an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7348,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,84],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}