What makes a good CX professional? What are the defining factors that differentiate leaders from laggards? There are a lot of different answers to this question, however, the variety of responses one might get can lead to more confusion that solutions.

To help reduce some of the noise, a global survey was distributed to over 700 CX practitioners to get their take on what makes a great CX professional. From the poll of responses, there were five habits that stood out from the rest. For CX teams looking to make lasting changes across their company, it is these 5 habits that should be adopted and cultivated.

5 Habits of Effective CX Professionals

1. Define Goals and Business Outcomes: CX metrics are all well and good, but you need to talk to stakeholders and executives in terms they care about. In most cases, this means "show me the money"! Even among Leaders, less than half of our audience feel they can confidently point to Return on Investment (ROI) figures. This has got to change. 

2. Think Innovation (and Action): Change, action and innovation must be tangible and communicated to the wider business. If your CX activities are not driving innovation across the company, you are likely to remain a niche interest at best, and a footnote in your organization’s history, at worst.

3. Listen to More Voices, Combine More Sources: Collecting customer feedback is a given, but what about employees? What about partners? Suppliers? And financial and operational data? All these different voices and sources have something to say. If you want the full picture, it's important to not only capture these different perspectives, but to integrate them to truly understand the reality.

4. Focus on Customer-Centric Culture: Driving a more customer-centric culture, with a high level of employee engagement, is a key area that our audience say they’re focused on. For the more mature programs, with full executive support, culture is cited as a source of pride and growth. For the others, the lack of a single vision and fragmented silos create frustration and confusion. But in all cases, CX professionals view culture as core to a successful program.

5. Continuously Re-think: It was fascinating to see that people with the most experience are not necessarily those with the most successful programs. The ability to look for something new, something innovative, is vital to the long-term success of a customer