Designing shame into the experience? In this week's CX Passport, I talked with Joe Macleod about something we still don’t design with the same care as the rest of the journey: the end. We spend a lot of time empowering customers early. We give them tools to compare, investigate, customize, and choose. Agency is designed into the experience from the start. When the relationship winds down, that support often disappears. Joe said: “What we’ve done with the consumer is bamboozle them in this...
21 days ago • 1 min read
The instinct that keeps getting us stuck A familiar CX pattern: Something isn’t working. So we add... Add a metric. Add a dashboard. Add a meeting. Add a governance layer. Add a “center of excellence.” None of that is careless. Each addition is usually well-intended. But over time, action slows down anyway. That came up in this week's CX Passport with Frances Chapireau. We weren’t debating tools or platforms. We were talking about why insight so often stalls before it turns into action. She...
28 days ago • 2 min read
When B2B Customers Go Quiet In this week's CX Passport, my conversation with Kári Thor Runarsson focused on something that feels obvious ... and still gets missed all the time in B2B. Silence is not neutral. In consumer worlds, silence often just means indifference. In B2B, silence usually means something else entirely. It means the customer has already decided it’s not worth the effort to engage. Not worth replying. Not worth correcting you. Not worth filling out the survey you keep sending....
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
CX doesn’t fail in theory ... it fails in policy A quick correction before we get started...Last week, I included a link to the episode guest, Sarah Kinard. Unfortunately, that link went to the wrong Sarah Kinard. I'm sorry about that, y'all. Here is the correct link: Sarah Kinard. Back to it... We talk a lot about customer trust in CX.But when I look at broken experiences, it usually comes down to a simple pattern: we design for the exception instead of the customer. This week’s episode of...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Why delivery isn't enough Customers are absolutely buying deliverables. Let’s not overcorrect that. They want the thing to work. They want it done. They want what was promised, delivered. While recording this week's episode, “The one with the slow CX”, Sarah Kinard helped me realize something important. Deliverables are no longer the only thing customers are buying. They’re also buying confidence. Not confidence in the abstract. Confidence that the deliverables will actually show up. On time....
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Assumptions only take us so far. In this week's CX Passport, The one with the DAF CX, my conversation with Dr. Liz Okuma reminded me how common it is for companies to trust their internal view a little too much. Inside the organization, things can feel orderly. Processes make sense. Teams feel confident. It is easy to believe the customer experience looks the same way. But an internal sense of doing fine does not guarantee customers feel the same. We've been looking in the mirror and we've...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Confidence doesn’t have to In this week's episode, Jon Deragon, the Head of Design at FPT, the sponsor for today’s episode said something that clicked with me. (Thank you FPT for collaborating with CX Passport.) What caught my attention wasn’t a technical explanation or a prediction about where AI is going. It was something much more human. AI introduces a lot of uncertainty for people who are just trying to get something done. New input types. New behaviors. New responses. Most folks won’t...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Sometimes the biggest business wins come from the smallest... almost sneaky... shifts. This week’s CX Passport Live conversation with Dom Hodgson, reminded me how often we chase complicated strategies when a tiny move can create a huge ripple. Dom built his pet adventure business by choosing to see the world just a little differently. And honestly, that worldview is something every CX leader can steal. “I called it adventures instead of walks… I had elevated myself above the competition...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Lasagna or money? In this week's CX Passport, Sara Abbott, the GM of Metropolis Resort, shared a simple solution for recognition. Nothing dramatic… just a clear look at how teams actually experience gratitude. After a demanding spring break week, she offered her staff a dollar per hour bonus for every hour they worked. A reasonable gesture. Practical. But it didn’t land. No one reacted. It came and went. Then she approached the next busy stretch differently. “Next time... I made lasagna and I...
3 months ago • 1 min read