280: Lesley Lykins, CX Day

In this special edition CX Day episode, Adam and Jeannie interview Lesley Lykins, Executive Director of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. Happy CX Day! Customer experience has come a long way, and the whole world is celebrating on this 5th annual CX Day. Celebrating along with us today is Lesley Lykins, Director of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.) Lesley in particular is very excited to celebrate CX Day this year, and we’re delighted to have her on the show! First, Lesley talks about how widespread the global CX Day celebration is, giving us a little history and a rundown of the many ways to celebrate. A lot goes into it! “It feels like a New Year’s celebration for customer experience!” -Lesley Lykins But we’re not just talking about events here. Why celebrate? Lesley tells us how much customer experience has grown and spread throughout the world, as companies continue to create more and more customer-focused roles. She shares some amazing stories of what it’s like for a company to be on the road to CX maturity and succeed. Expert Tip: “You can’t just throw out a journey map and think that all of a sudden overnight you’re going to change your company’s culture.” - Lesley Lykins For those of us who work in customer experience, it has been an amazing journey. Years ago, it was something nobody heard of. And now, we live in an age when we can call it a true discipline. With more than 600 Certified Customer Experience Professionals (CCXPs)  and growing, Lesley is proud to be a part of what makes this possible. What does it take to be a CCXP? Lesley outlines the 6 core competencies for being certified. It’s serious business, but you can do it! We’re delighted to celebrate success in business through creating better experiences. And thanks to Lesley and the CXPA, we have much more to celebrate about and so many great people to celebrate with. Listen in and celebrate along with us! Interview highlights What is CX Day, and why do we have it? [2:25] Lesley shares exciting examples of how organizations are transforming their experiences, and as a result, achieving CX maturity. [4:30] Turning CX into a discipline: What are the 6 Competencies of a CCXP? [9:30] How will CX grow in the coming years, and how will CX professionals need to adapt? [14:00] How can we keep Customer Experience from losing its meaning among tangential business practices? [16:15] About our guest Lesley has been with CXPA for the past six years and has been instrumental in building both the community and member programming available to CX Professionals. Prior to joining CXPA, she served as an officer in the U.S. Navy doing a variety of things from driving warships to standing up the Navy’s social media.  She remains in the Navy Reserve. She and her husband live in Ohio with their four children. Lesley will be the first to tell you there is no better community in the world than that of CX professionals – people naturally inclined to help others in a positive and practical way. Connect with Lesley Website: Cxday.org Email: [email protected] Related Content 360Connext® post, 5 Top CX Trends For Survival in the Age of the Customer Customers That Stick® post, 3 Areas to Focus your Customer Experience in 2017 Episode 274: Nienke Bloem, Gamifying Customer Experience Episode 117: CXPA Live, The Voice of the Customer We’re on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts Sponsor message Give your team the customer service training they deserve Want to bring game-changing customer service training to your team? CTS Service Solutions offers a half-day in-person workshop designed to motivate and educate your customer-facing team members. Using energy, excitement, and interaction, our workshop helps frontline teams embrace a customer-centric outlook, then — using the principles from our book Be Your Customer’s Hero — gives them the skills and confidence they need to handle any service interaction. Don’t leave your frontline team hanging… Give them the training they deserve. Learn more at customerheroworkshop.com, that is customerheroworkshop.com.   Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices