Decoding the Customer

Michelle has been striking the balance between driving incremental improvements to the journey, and rallying the entire organization around a unified CX strategic vision.

She refers to the continual journey improvements as “moving the boat forward”. Michelle meets with her team on a weekly basis to celebrate the wins, discuss challenges, and make plans for next steps. This approach enables her to keep her team focused and motivated as they drive ongoing experience improvement efforts.

During her first year, Michelle also made it her mission to establish a “common language” for Cell C’s customer experience. She started by mapping the customer journey life-cycle, and has used this as a focal point for fostering awareness across the organization, driving departmental accountability, and measuring performance. As Michelle says, “customer experience is everything”, and a unified understanding of the customer journey has improved cross-functional collaboration towards common goals.

While Michelle will be the first one to tell you that there is still much work to be done, Cell C is already seeing results. NPS scores have improved steadily since the appointment of the organization’s first CCO.

Michelle shared many more insights that I hope will serve as inspiration for those who are championing the customer mandate within their organization.

Michelle Beetar, Chief Customer Officer at Cell C

Decoding the Customer is a customer experience podcast created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is a customer experience strategist, speaker and business advisor. She is one of Southern Africa’s foremost experts in Customer Experience Management. For more information about Julia’s services, click here. To explore other episodes of the podcast, click here.

Touring Airbnb’s San Francisco HQ with my host, DesirreeWhat is their secret to success? In August 2017, I had the opportunity to speak with Desirree Madison-Biggs, their head of CX Design and Improvement Programs. In addition to recording an interview, Desirree also gave me a tour of their headquarters in San Francisco, California.

Airbnb has embedded their core values into everything that they do, and have created a culture that is deeply customer/host/employee-centric. The mantra of “belong anywhere” was omnipresent at Airbnb HQ, and for a new visitor, one of the most tangible examples was the physical space.

At HQ, employees literally belong anywhere. Teams don’t sit in permanently assigned areas, but rather move freely around the offices and work where it suits them. Whether that means a quiet space to concentrate or a communal work area for collaboration, the Airbnb office is an environment where employees don’t lay claim to a specific space, but belong to something much bigger.

Images of EU hosts who housed Syrian refugees (Photo by Emily Hagopian)

Airbnb HQ’s impressive foyer, complete with green wall (Photo by Emily Hagopian)

Work spaces immerse employees in the host and guest experience (Photo by Emily Hagopian)

Open spaces for collaboration (Photo by Mark Mahaney)

Meeting rooms modeled after real listings (Photo by Mark Mahaney)

A quiet corner – or a tent – work! (Photo by Mark Mahaney)

This immersion in the world of customers / hosts keeps the end user top-of-mind. Access to customer feedback data enables employees to see the impact of their contributions.

Desirree with the host and guest journey maps that her team developed

The interactive touchscreen enables employees to explore the journey and review recent customer satisfaction stats

The employee experience within the physical work space was just the tip of the iceberg. Desirree also discussed how the company’s values are embedded in their talent acquisition process, community engagement, and ongoing experience innovation. Airbnb customer experience is truly the gold standard, and this didn’t happen by accident. Airbnb has built community-centricity (a step beyond basic customer-centricity), into everything that they do.

Decoding the Customer is a customer experience podcast created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is a customer experience strategist, speaker and business advisor. As an expert in customer experience management, she has helped global brands understand the needs of their customers and drive value through customer-centricity. For more information about Julia’s services, click here. To explore more episodes of Decoding the Customer, click here.

Roger has also collaborated with some of South Africa’s most prominent banking brands as they evaluated and launched strategies to improve their participation in innovation. Given his involvement with both startups and huge corporations, Roger brings a unique perspective to the topic of driving CX change through innovation.

While not a CX specialist per se, there were many parallels between Roger’s work, and the responsibilities of a CX professional. We discussed the definition of disruption, why big organizations struggle to innovate, and the business case for change. In the Age of the Customer, companies need to constantly innovate the customer experience, and is his insights are valuable for anyone looking to help brand retain relevance amid a world of change.

Roger Norton, CEO Playlogix

Decoding the Customer is a customer experience podcast created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is an author, speaker and business advisor. Originally from the USA, she is now one of Southern Africa’s foremost experts in customer experience management. For more information about how Julia helps brands navigate fintech disruption and the challenges of the Age of the Customer, click here. To hear other episodes of Decoding the Customer, click here.

Decoding the Customer is a customer experience podcast created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is an author, speaker and business advisor. Originally from the USA, she is now one of Southern Africa’s foremost experts in customer experience management. For more information about Julia’s services, click here. To hear other episodes of Decoding the Customer, click here.