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The Emotional Economy: Why Emotional Connections Drive Business Success

While most leaders understand the importance of meeting customer needs and expectations, many still don’t recognize the value of building emotional connections with customers.

What do executives of CX-led organizations know that others don’t? They fully understand and have embraced the most fundamental aspect of customer experience: emotional engagement.

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The Elephant in the Room: What’s Stopping Employees from Putting Customers First?

“Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” – Tony Hsieh (former CEO, Zappos)

To be customer-centric, it is not enough to invest in VOC programs, journey mapping, and a brilliant team of UX designers. CX is a team sport that requires all employees—not just executives, department leaders, and CX teams—to be bought in and fully participate.

Here are a few common reasons why employees in your oganization might still be sitting on the sidelines and reluctant to tag in:

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Are There Gaps in Your CX Insights Program? Data Collection Beyond Journey Mapping and Surveys

If you want to know what your customers really think, just read the Google Reviews. Just be sure to bring some popcorn (and armor).

Do you have any hidden “gotchas” in your customer experience?

As customer expectations continue to rise, gaining deep and actionable insights into their needs, wants, and pain points becomes increasingly crucial for organizations. 

However, journey mapping and surveys alone cannot provide a complete picture. To gain a more holistic understanding of your customers, here are 4 strategies to augment your VOC listening program:

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Strategies for Avoiding Uncomfortable Situations During UX Research Sessions

Picture yourself in the following scenarios…

How might you react if a research participant said something racist, was almost naked from the waist down on Zoom, suddenly burst into tears, or was morally offended by the choice of snacks provided by the research facility? 

Or… what if one of your observers started flirting with one of your research participants, complained in front of everyone (including your boss!) that the research wasn’t uncovering anything new, or made a bigoted comment about a participant?

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My Experience Taking the CCXP Exam

I was mentally prepared to fail the CCXP exam this past weekend, but as it turned out—it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I expected or feared. I was nervous there would be a lot of trick questions, questions about obscure facts, and/or highly subjective questions.

To my relief, those fears were unfounded.

There isn’t a lot of specific information online about the testing process by other CCXPs, so wanted to share my experience and observations for future exam-takers.

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How to Conduct an Open Card Sort Analysis Using Miro

Open card sort analysis is part science, part art. The raw data will tell you generally how people group and organize items, but luckily, UXers have a little creative license when writing the exact right label for each category.

If you’re a visual learner or want to experiment with a different way (other than Excel) to analyze an open card sort… onward!

Cluster analysis showing relationships between items
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