In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic businesses are increasingly prioritising customer experience over product and pricing as a means to differentiate their brand. As a result, customer experience skills and competencies are in high demand across most if not all industry sectors in Australia.
Jobs with customer experience in the title are proliferating across Australian businesses. Anita Siassios, managing director of ManagingCX and lead of CXPA Melbourne Network, comments, “Organisations are demonstrating a sense of urgency to re-invent and reset themselves as we come out of the pandemic. It has elevated the ‘customer’ and the people who serve them at the board level, hence raising the need for an uplift in CX capability.”
“Other factors elevating the CX profession are things like the Hayne Royal Commission into banking, superannuation and financial services where large customer centric transformation programs have been setup as organisations strive to rebuild trust and relationships with their customers”.
Be sure the people you hire are competent
With all this demand for CX professionals and leaders currently in the market, how can organisations be sure that the people they are hiring to lead their CX program and initiatives have the skills and competencies to perform the job adequately?
Offering a good customer experience (CX) can increase conversion rates, repeat business and raise customer loyalty, all of which benefit your brand. Alternatively, a poor customer experience can have a series of negative impacts on a company including loss revenue, damaged reputation and poor profitability.
It’s no wonder that most executives say that customer experience is extremely important to their organisation. Yet most CX programs and projects companies initiate are failures. “CX maturity in Australia has evolved over the last few years across industries”, says Siassous, “and the pandemic has certainly triggered a rapid shift towards customer-centricity, however, according to research only a quarter of ANZ organisations are categorised as ‘leaders’”[i].
She highlights, “Laggards are not able to progress often due to inconsistent CX management processes across functions, the inability to articulate and demonstrate key drivers of financial performance and prove the ROI of CX to increase leadership support”.
Lack of data analytic skills and capability also contributes to the failure rate of CX projects. High performing customer experience teams are more likely to take a data-driven approach to CX, with most having a journey-based approach that is mostly or completely data-driven. They also integrate data across all sources to create a unified view of customers’ journey.
To overcome these failings and poor performance, there is a need for a more systematic and professional approach to managing CX projects built on a professional standard of skills and competencies.
What is a CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional)
You may have noticed a colleague’s Linkedin profile and the abbreviation CCXP after their name. Just as a CPA (Certified Practicing Accountant) is a high mark of professional competence for those working in finance and accounting, the CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional) is a point of distinction and competence for those working in the customer experience discipline.
Ian Stokol, CX Program Lead at the City of Stonnington and CCXP, comments, “A robust and trusted framework builds people’s confidence in managing the risk of doing anything. The CCXP qualification helps by creating a baseline of professional competence for organisational leaders to have confidence in success and to reduce the risk of a failed CX program”.
The CCXP was established globally and is maintained by the CXPA (Customer Experience Professional Association). Stokol explains the role of the CXPA, “The CXPA is an independent certification association which holds its members to a rigorous set of standards around expertise, ethics and continuous improvement. CX is a complex and dynamic discipline. You wouldn’t want to consultant a medical professional who wasn’t qualified or up-to-date with the latest and best techniques in their field. Why expect a lesser standard from CX leaders whose activities can impact people and the organisations they work for in profound ways.”
Siassous adds, “Prior to the CXPA establishing this credential, there was no industry-wide, standardised avenue for CX practitioners to demonstrate their expertise and accomplishments, and no formal credentials that showcased an individual’s standing in the industry”.
Do you have what it takes to be a Certified Customer eXperience Professional (CCXP)?
To become a CCXP a candidate must meet professional experience requirements and pass a written examination. Once earned, CCXPs must maintain the credential through continued development. Siassous, advises, “In accordance with best practices for certifications, the credential is based on a job analysis of the role of a CX leader and is structured through six core competencies, including:
- Customer-Centric Culture
- Voice of the Customer, Customer Insight, and Understanding
- Organisational Adoption and Accountability
- Customer Experience Strategy
- Experience Design, Improvement, and Innovation
- Metrics, Measurement, and ROI
Stokol reflects on what being CCXP certified has meant for his career, “Being certified and the process of becoming certified, has given me the confidence to know what I’m doing. And if I don’t know, I know where I need to go to find out. It has essentially, given me the skills and the confidence to succeed in the various roles I’ve had in my chosen career path.”
There’s a
growing demand for highly competent and qualified CX professionals in Australia.
The CCXP is an important credential for recognising individual professionals
who have the skills and competencies to help organisations succeed. CX is
complex and dynamic and requires individuals committed to continuous
improvement.