It takes more than empathy to lead CX

Published 3 months ago • 1 min read

Hi there

If you want to be a VP of CX, or the Chief Customer Officer, or any leader of CX, Tabitha Dunn has advice you may not want to hear.

“Most senior leaders own multiple functions. They don’t just own one single, smaller function. They have a larger footprint.”

In this episode of CX Passport, Tabitha pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to lead in CX today. Spoiler alert: It’s not just empathy and feedback scores. It’s business acumen, operational range, and the ability to drive real change.

Customer experience professionals are like any role. They often rise through the ranks by being exceptional at what they do.

For CX folks, that’s often journey mapping, VoC, design, service delivery. But at the executive table, those skills aren’t enough.

The work that gets noticed at the top isn't just understanding customers

It’s about connecting CX work to business outcomes

It’s about influencing operations, managing transformation, and navigating change across departments.

Your Turn:

As you’ve built your career, CX or otherwise, how have you gained skills outside of your primary job function?

Put those tray tables up and buckle those seat belts. Let’s go!

-Rick

P.S. If you know someone who might benefit from this week’s newsletter, please feel free to forward this to them. Or they can sign up here.

What’s on tap this week?…

Host - Rick Denton

Rick believes the best meals are served outside and require a passport

🎤🎞️“The one with the resilience” with Tabitha Dunn in CX Passport Episode 212🎧

Listen on any Pod app

Bring CX Passport Live to Your Event!

Excite your attendees, celebrate high value customers, increase conversion, create revenue

Learn More

Hello?…Is it me you’re looking for?

Let's talk. Sometimes the only way to know if we're the right traveling party is to talk. Grab a time that works for you.

Schedule Time

I love Kit and think you will as well. Want to upgrade your newsletter AND help out CX Passport?

Make the change to Kit like I did: https://partners.kit.com/cxpassport

5717 Legacy Drive, Suite 250, Plano, TX 75024
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Journey Maps Are Useless Without This

Don't Waste The Map Hi Reader It’s easy to fall in love with the artifacts of customer experience. The journey maps. The personas. The beautiful decks. But if those don’t lead to action? They’re just decoration. “The worst thing anyone can do is show up out of nowhere and say, here's a journey map. What are we going to do about it?” In this episode of CX Passport, Dave Seaton reminds us that customer experience work isn’t about insights... it’s about outcomes. And for those outcomes to...

1 day ago • 1 min read

The Most Overlooked Shock Absorber in Business

You’ll feel it when it’s missing Hi there, I drive a 2001 Silverado pickup. Yup...that's right. It's older than my kids and only 6 months younger than my marriage. 25 years and going strong! A few years ago, before I finally replaced the shocks, every bump in the road rattled my spine. Every pothole felt personal. That’s exactly how it feels working in a company without a strong culture. “Culture… is the shock absorber for really difficult times that push people through their limits” - Eric...

15 days ago • 1 min read

What If You Listen To Every Call?

Coaching just got a whole lot more scalable Hi there, We all say coaching matters. But most contact centers only review 1–3% of calls. Not because they don’t want to do more—but because they can’t. Fred Stacey sees a way forward. And yes, it involves AI. “Typically, you're at a one to 15 ratio, where one supervisor to 15 [agents]… The first thing that [AI] does is it scales it to 100%.” On CX Passport, Fred talks about AI not as a buzzword—but as a tool that can finally help CX leaders do the...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

CX Passport