Celebrating Global CX Day with Travis Brown

Tuesday October 1 is Global CX Day! Customer Experience (CX) is the perception that customers have of an organisation – one that is formed based on interactions across all touchpoints, people, and technology over time.

The 2024 CX Day theme is “Good CX delivers better outcomes for customers, employees and organizations.” In recognition of the importance of good customer service, we sat down with Micador’s Customer and Technology Manager, Travis Brown, to discuss all things CX.

What does customer experience mean to you?

I think businesses that focus on customer experience as a priority generally have happy team members, genuinely engaged customer base, open & transparent culture and ultimately have a set of pillars for growth.

Everyone in an organization impacts the customer with the actions you take, processes & systems you implement, and the customers experience is your guide for how successful they have been.

Can you tell us an example of a great customer experience you have experienced personally (as a customer)?

Without going into too much detail, l had purchased a bike for my son for one Christmas a few years ago from Decathlon. Unfortunately, 3-4 days before Xmas l was emailed to say that the bike would arrive on the 2 January (which as most parents would admit is a devastating feeling knowing your present won’t arrive on time). After contacting the customer support team via their chat facility l had virtually given up hope of getting the bike on time and indeed was thinking of how to tell my son. However, to my utmost surprise on Christmas Eve, there was a knock on the door and Decathlon had airfreighted another bike from Sydney especially to make it on time. 

Not only for the emotional impact this had on me personally, but the sheer fact that they had thought of a solution and implemented it without any fuss or fanfare. I went straight to my computer to write to them to say thanks and there was an email, which simply stated – we hope your son has a great Christmas…. They had not asked me for anything or a review etc at all… it was pure joy.

What are your three most important markers for successful CX? 

It is hard to say there are 3 metrics or markers to measure as businesses do need to adapt as they change but for the most part you always need to underpin anything with a well thought out voice of customer program. With that being said, the 3 metrics l like to measure regularly are:

1. CSAT – customer satisfaction for completing a particular mission.

2. Churn or Repeat Purchases – I think it is healthy to understand if you are losing customers or indeed getting increased repeat purchases as that can be a signal to an easy path to purchase.

3. Employee Engagement – I am a big believer that an engaged team leads to a healthy customer experience. There are plenty of tools to measure engagement, but l just think this underpins so much.

You have led CX initiatives for dynamic start-ups all the way to blue chip multi-national organisations. In your opinion, what is the best way to develop a culture of customer-centricity? 

There is no silver bullet in CX, but if l had to think through how to bring along a culture of customer centricity l always look to start with things like this:

1. Must have a strong voice of customer (VoC) program that is represented in the right environment / meetings.

2. Any CX metrics or vision etc must correlate with the company's purpose – how can you show that it is driving the purpose in the right vein and indeed the metrics correlate to the company's ambitions / drivers.

3. Senior buy-in – unfortunately if there is no senior buy-in it is a little difficult to drive the customer agenda no matter how hard you try. So, how do you break it down for your manager, owner in simple terms that they get it and ultimately support it.

4. Be clear on why the CX team, person, function exists – what is it trying to achieve and how it can help other functions.

5. Lastly, share your insights – no-one owns the customer, we all do. So, help the business know who its customers are and what they are wanting.

I appreciate and understand that businesses need to make choices in their journey based on their performance and where they are etc, however l have been a long believer that if you focus on the customer and ultimately making their experience a great one you will achieve success. Start with simply making it easy for customers to perform their intended mission or task and that will put you in good stead for the future.

Customers, in my opinion, will ultimately dictate the success of your business, so why would you not prioritise that?

Is there anything you would like to add? 

Whether you understand it or appreciate it, customers will always judge you based on their experience. The goal then is that when you are making that decision, that new process, that new feature, will it impact the customer positively? If you don’t know, then find a way to ask. If we all started with that basic premise l really believe most businesses can really achieve some great outcomes.

To learn more about Global CX Day and the real-world return of customer experience, visit cxpa.org.