The language used around customer experience (CX) can be dramatic. Companies talk about being “customer obsessed” or making customer experience the “new battleground.” However, these phrases do not often reveal the dependent role that EX (employee experience) plays in shaping customer experience.

This undeniable interdependence begs the question, who exactly “owns” CX and EX? Who should? And in “owning” it, how can CX be enhanced and reimagined through an EX lens (and vice versa) to bring both into clearer focus for the betterment of an organization as a whole? Let’s get into it.

Marketing

Customer Service Team

Frontline Employees

Customer Experience Team or Officer(s)

Depending on the organization, the marketing department may own a piece of CX. Maybe the customer service team also owns a piece. And then theres frontline employees and executive officers – they own pieces, as well.

However, what’s most important is how these pieces come together to form the big picture. It’s also worth noting that any sense of “ownership” should not be confused with being possessive in nature. That could potentially lead companies to have unintended blinders on in their customer experience approach (and create silos in the process.)

Companies that are further along when it comes to CX maturity and customer centricity are more likely to have positions like a Chief Experience Officer (CXO) or a Chief Customer Officer (CCO). These individuals are tasked with providing  holistic oversight to bring departments under them (like marketing and customer service) together to achieve a common CX vision.

But hearing from customers and managing CX is only half of the equation. The other half involves hearing from employees. The most successful companies approach CX using insights from both.

Which employees should you tap into for CX insights? It’s often thought that frontline workers have the greatest impact on CX and therefore should “own” CX to a greater degree than other employees. But what about an employee who works on a product or provides a behind-the-scenes service? The customer will never meet that employee, yet the individual’s work directly impacts the customer experience.

That means their insights and contributions to CX matter just as much as the frontline worker’s, especially with rising customer expectations of a seamless experience from all angles.

The best way to meet those expectations is to develop a culture with a focus on customer centricity where the entire organization owns and improves CX together. When there is universal buy-in from entry level employees up through the C-Suite, there is greater cohesion and higher likelihood of positive growth.

According to Gallup, the percentage of engaged workers in the U.S. declined in 2021 for the first year in more than a decade. And it’s no secret that falling levels of employee engagement directly impacts customer experience and engagement.

Gallup found:

Conventional wisdom dictates that HR owns the employee experience. For example, employee satisfaction or engagement surveys are owned by HR for obvious reasons. The HR department typically measures a variety of EX factors like:

• Job satisfaction
• Work-life balance
• Effectiveness of training programs
• Growth opportunities
• Feedback on manager performance
• Ideas for improvements across the organization

To be truly customer-centric, however, EX needs to grow beyond the traditional yearly survey. Recent work by the HR Research Institute seems to support this.

What HR Professionals Are Saying:

Viewing EX holistically typically starts with the top leadership and cascades down for the benefit of the entire organization. It’s not only about giving employees a reason to come to work every day, but it’s also about giving them a better sense of purpose in their work and life.

It’s well known that there is a strong link between a company’s customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and financial performance.

A recent study found:

83% of customers will brand switch because of bad customer service

73% of Americans would be willing to go out of their way to purchase from a company with better customer service

52% of Americans will pay more if they know they will receive great customer service

Source: Shep Hyken’s 2021 Achieving Customer Amazement Study

Shining a spotlight on the duality of CX and EX makes sense for the bottom line.

For competitive companies, the best path to success starts with communication and advocating for both the employee and the customer when implementing any sort of CX change. It’s critical to have the employee perspective when planning customer-facing initiatives. It’s equally as important to let employees in on what you are hearing from customers.

The DRG’s Chief Customer Officer, Shelley Ahrens, says this approach makes it much easier to break down silos that may exist within an organization because it puts the focus on the end goal, the bigger picture, and collaboration to get there.

WATCH VIDEO: The DRG’s Chief Customer Officer, Shelley Ahrens, explains why a blended CX/EX approach is more important than ever.

Ahrens says if connecting CX and EX sounds daunting, think of it in these terms. When you educate and communicate the value and importance of hearing from your employees when making changes, it provides employees with a sense of purpose and a voice. It proves that their ideas matter and can positively impact the customer. And it’s never too late to start making even incremental changes. View it as an evolving continuum.

If you’re looking for a place to start, Ahrens recommends going for the low-hanging fruit first by checking in initially on those frontline employees. If no employee listening program is in place, commit to having some organic conversations with workers. Ask questions like:

• What are you seeing in your day-to-day job? How is that impacting your ability to deliver for the customer?
• How do you think we could change perceptions for the customer?
• How can we implement a better customer experience?
• Are there things we are doing as a company that hold you back from being able to do right by the customer?
• Are there barriers or processes in place that are inhibiting a good customer experience?

Rarely is there a single source for improving customer experience, so gathering employee feedback can identify connections impacting both CX and EX. From there, build momentum for a more customer-centric culture throughout the organization. Ahrens suggests viewing customer centricity not just as a customer experience play, but also as an employee engagement and retention play.

You don’t have customers if you don’t have employees rallying around a common vision of what they want to achieve. And you don’t have employees if you can’t deliver on what customers want and are expecting.

So let’s get back to the original question: “Who owns CX & EX?”

The answer at any company should be: “We all do.”