^{CX STRATEGY MISTAKES}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

The guy behind the success of Apple retail stores was hired as CEO of a $17B department store chain with 1100 stores. Exciting, right? JC Penney, among the largest US retailers, was popular with customers of all ages since 1902. They loved finding bargains through 600 promotional campaigns annually.

To modernize JC Penney’s strategy, a new “fair and square” logo represented everyday low prices — with zero promotions annually — pitched by gay comedian Ellen DeGeneres. Pivotal decisions, truly.

Then sales dropped $250M the next quarter. And the next. And the next. After losing $985M in one year, the Board got a loan for $1B and hired a new CEO. Dozens of stores closed and the beloved frequent campains resumed.

Have we seen similar strategic moves in the 2020s?

Oh, yes! AI. Customer Success. Shrinkflation and sneakflation. Digital transformation. All well intended! With catastrophic results.

Pivotal CX strategy decisions include how you’re equipping your CEO’s team to get in-sync with customers. It’s essential to avoid travesties like JC Penney’s. Yet, this CXM practice is not yet mainstream.

Starting your CXM Strategy with Expectations VoX is an absolute must! As shown in the diagram above, step 1A is identifying core-growth customers and their ultimate aims. Step 2 is clarifying those aims to 2 simple words that can guide steps 3-8.

These are tremendously pivotal decisions. Without them, you’re flying blind, unclear about who’s really driving both top-line and bottom-line growth.

The flowing steps 1-8 in the diagram are the ideal CXM System or framework, because this is your path to simultaneously increasing EX, CX, revenue, profit, and all other growth metrics!

Red in the diagram shows where today’s CX Strategy is costing you in being made redundant (lost jobs) repeatedly. Red is costing you in competing agendas chronically. Red is siloed.

Your success hinges on the non-red steps. Listen to my 2-minute strategy overview of today’s CX practices.

Just because something affects what customers experience does not make it “CXM Strategy”. If that were true, then Billing is CX, delivery drivers are CX, Legal fine-print is CX, etc. Nope. Customer Strategy is outward-oriented: getting customers to think and do something specific. CXM Strategy is inward-oriented for outside-in running of the enterprise: getting internal thinking and doing in-sync with customers.

• Engaging customers to buy and recommend? Marketing Strategy.

• Ensuring customers got what they bought, to repurchase? Customer Success Strategy.

• Answering inquiries to stem negative word-of-mouth and churn? Customer Support Strategy.

• Embedding gap-free performance company-wide? CXM Strategy.

• Senior leaders shared vision of how customer-centered business will maximize value for all parties? CXM Strategy.

In my 4 new Strategy Power Guides, you’ll see and hear pro tips galore in what’s needed to avoid strategy mistakes — and how you can influence all other strategies in your enterprise!

Famously quoted by Mark Twain and Winston Chruchill, in 1657, mathematician Blaise Pascal said, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” That’s what’s happened at ClearAction. We took the time to shorten — and increase pro tip value in — what you get from us. Try it!

• CX+EX+PX Strategy

• Governance

• Strategic Planning

• Strategic Analysis

Bring this to life immediately in your work:

1) CX Playbooks are super-detailed guides that show you exactly how to achieve top-tier maturity in any topic below — and any topic you see in these newsletters. Tailored to your unique circumstances, lingo, goals, and where you’re starting from — or choose standard playbooks. Before the pandemic, we charged $30K+ for consulting projects like this. In 2026, you get it for $500 or $900 or $1800, depending on the topic’s complexity. Take a look!

See https://ClearAction.com/cx-playbooks

2) Thursdays in August (Asia+Oceania and EMEA+Americas) are 90-minute CX-Aligned Strategies Masterminds to remove revenue roadblocks! Join us! Set up a 15-minute call or email me your questions to see how your unique situation fits with our approach. Encourage your CX Leader(s) to enroll!

Also available as Playbooks, standard or customized

3) Stretch you budget amazingly by giving your team all needed skills to do all this in 2026-2027 with ClearAction Retainer Credits.

See CX Retainer Options

How are you avoiding strategy mistakes?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

^{CX LEADING INDICATORS}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

NPS is not a CX leading indicator, because you can only measure it after customers’ experience.

A true leading indicator is the root cause of a prevalent issue.

Without aiming at the true leading indicator, you’re flying blind,
sacrificing growth potential in your capabilities and money.

So, what can you measure before customers experience you?

Someone told me “Nobody wants to be embarrassed, so root cause analysis is avoided for job security.”

Not true! Yes, it’s naively avoided, but true root causes are rarely a person’s fault — they’re usually a system/process fault.

3 keys to accurate root causes:
1. Go all the way to the 5th Why answer.
Otherwise, the symptom continues.
2. Get diverse views on each Why.
Otherwise, your answers are skewed, inaccurate.
3. Ask “Why our firm allows ____” for each Why.
Otherwise, you’re digging down the wrong path.
⇒ See 6 steps for accurate root cause identification

Another key is unbiased data collection!
Otherwise, it’s garbage-in, garbage-out.
Bias is rampant in CX. It’s killing your value.

5 Examples

A. Support Agent Leading Indicator

Situation: Your review of customers’ questions and reactions have led you to establish Standard Operating Procedures that you train every agent in mastering.

Measurement: So, the agent keeps track of each time the SOP is or isn’t used.

Or your recording software can be data-mined to tally each use of SOP or absence of use.

Value: Then, you can compare post-contact behavior of the group of customers served by each agent to the agent’s SOP usage, allowing a couple weeks lag time to see what customers do next. This connects the Leading Indicators and Lagging Indicators, so you can manage compellingly with executives and agents alike.

B. Supervisor Leading Indicator

Situation: Your observation of employee performance shows distinctive differences between those who are certified versus those who aren’t (i.e. Level III vs Level I).

Measurement: So, you require all employees to advance their training, and you track % fully certified.

Value: You can show executives how the trend chart for % certified is an early indicator for subsequent months’ performance in your organization: capabilities resulting in time saved, money saved, improved stakeholder satisfaction, etc.

Note: if it turns out to be more complicated to get people certified, this means there’s a deeper obstacle that must be addressed. For example, time obstacles, motivation obstacles, process obstacles, etc. This means the “Measurement” section in “C” below is essential toward achieving your goal.

C. Middle Manager Leading Indicator

Situation: Customer experience data shows a high level of inquiries about something that’s confusing customers. This “confusing topic” is also cited in reasons for returns, refunds, escalations, negative social posts, and churn.

Measurement: You realize this confusing topic is a symptom of something deeper. So, first, you data-mine your CRM, ERP, and customer comments on-hand to quantify the frequency of the confusing topic’s subtopics. This becomes a bar chart in descending order. Using 80/20 analysis, you know the top 80% must be permanently solved.

Second, you bring together several business-savvy mid-level managers for a small group exercise for each of the 80% subtopics separately: someone from Sales, Support, Engineering, IT, HR, Operations, etc. First, you share customer comments about the subtopic (text, audio, and/or video clips). The group puts sticky notes on the wall as a top row for “Why are we allowing customers to have these percpetions?”. Then they ask this question again about the top row, adding new sticky notes in the 2nd row. Repeating through the 5th Why.

Third, the small groups identify an action plan for each of the 80% subtopics to eradicate the 5th Whys.

Fourth, they identify an internal method of tracking 5th Why eradication progress. This is the true CX Leading Indicator.

Fifth, allow ample time for the action plan to eradicate the 5th Why, with urgent momentum maintained by giving this plan high visibility in meeting agendas. There is typically several weeks’ lag between what you'll see in the 5th Why metric and the subsequent progress in the “confusing topic”. When you do notice an uptick in the Lagging Indicators, then show them side-by-side with the Leading Indicator. This will spur more managers to get onboard with the power of Leading Indicators.

Value: Track the cost savings of progress in each of the “confusing topic” symptoms. Include cost savings to customers. Then, include productivity gains in capabilities, margin, revenue, share of wallet, etc.

D. Marketing Leading Indicator

Situation: Retention is necessary for achieving revenue targets promised to investors. In your campaigns, customer engagement is high, but you’re noticing drop-offs in retention in fiscal quarters when campaigns aren’t as ambitious.

Measurement: You follow the Measurement sequence in “C” above to get to the heart of this conundrum. First, data-mining for 80/20 analysis; second, small group exercises for 5 Whys analysis; third, action plans to eradicate the 5th Why for each 80% subtopic; fourth, internal metric tracking action plan progress as Leading Indicator; and fifth, tie it all together.

The root cause is likely to reveal inconsistencies that ironically worked against you. For example, campaign elements at-odds with your company values or mission or brand essence or overall value proposition. (We often see this surface in our CX Leaders Masterminds!)

Value: Track savings in lower campaign costs, faster sales cycle, lower acquisition costs, higher sales velocity, higher margins, higher profit, higher share of wallet, and greater market share and revenue.

Why will these happen? Because when you eradicate the roots, less is more, because every growth metric multiplies.

E. Executive Leading Indicators

Situation: Your investors expect a certain increase in revenue this quarter, and you notice that the first month’s gains are a growth trajectory that’s lower than needed for the 3 months of this quarter. So, you’re tempted to put pressure on organizations by cutting some costs to free-up more budget for more marketing campaigns and sales incentives. But, since this has been a typical scenario over many quarters, and you don’t see a better path for upcoming quarters, you’re worried about long-term effects, and even short-term consequences.

Measurement: This phenomenon is a symptom of much deeper causes. Follow the Measurement sequence in “C” above.

The root cause will be perpetuating things that bother customers. When you get to the heart (policies, processes, reviews, rewards, coordination) of what bothers them, you free-up costs wisely, with minimal harm in the domino-effect, and maximum gains for all parties. Cost your customers less in hassles, and they’ cost you less and grow you more!

Value: Track teamwork in preventing customers’ pains, by engaging all groups in identifying and eradicating their internal customers’ key issues. This makes it natural to meet investor expectations without short-term pressures and sacrifices.

Bring this to life immediately in your work:

1) Thursdays in August are 90-minute CX-Aligned Strategies Masterminds to remove revenue roadblocks! Join us! Set up a 15-minute call or email me your questions to see how your unique situation fits with our approach.

Also available as Playbooks, standard or customized

2) CX Day and Service Week are coming fast! 5-9 Oct! Warm-up your leaders and team members to embrace these concepts and tool kits with Fireside Chat(s) and C-Suite Guide to CX=EX=Growth workshop(s). It’s amazing to see what’s accomplished in just an hour with several banks’ CEO+Senior Leadership Team. Click to see testimonials!

Set up a 15-minute discovery call

3) Strategic Planning? Stretch you budget amazingly by giving your team all needed skills to do all this in 2026-2027 with ClearAction Retainer Credits.

See CX Retainer Options

How do you want to establish CX leading indicators?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

^{CX+EX BONUS PAY}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Bonus pay based solely on leading indicators builds higher ROI in numerous ways.

As a young VoC Manager in our company’s initial year of formal CXM, I said:

“Survey scores are a popular basis for CX bonus pay.”

“Never put critiera in bonus pay that an employee cannot control,” is what I was advised.

So, we did NOT include survey scores (lagging indicators) in CX bonus pay.

Leading indicator bonus pay means people must eradicate root causes of prevalent issues.

Why lagging indicator bonus pay is a bad CX metrics practice:
⊘ Financial pressure on employees backfires as insults to customers.
⊘ Score obsession is self-centric, not customer-centric.
⊘ Data overload (too frequent surveys) is not helpful to managers nor CX nor growth.
⊘ Over-focus on NPS, FCR, CES, etc. asks customers to say what’s already obvious.
⊘ Score benchmarking is a waste due to bias and low statistical confidence and validity.
⊘ Surveys have insufficiently driven higher value to customers and to the business.

Advantages we achieved with leading indicator bonuses:
✓ Huge hours saved for customers and us.
✓ Productivity increases for customers and us.
✓ Revenue increases beyond historical marketing moves.

Win-win! Multi-year high ROI was acheived on each year’s CX-related bonus pay.

This means our business value increased far more than the cost of the bonus pay — not only for each year, but with continuing value gains in subsequent years because of that specific year’s achievements.

Examples:

How to Do This:
1. Give each product team, account team, and functional team their own VoC report, highlighting their top 2 priorities to solve.
2. Hold an action-planning workshop with each group.
3. Collect action plan updates quarterly for exec review.
4. Meet with each group’s leader at fiscal year-end:
Judge their progress with 0.5X demerit to 1.5X multiplier.

This is what I did for several years: 15-minute year-end video conferences with every leader. Their enthusiasm for maximizing (1.5X) their CX bonus was strong. This is pivotal to higher growth!

How can you use leading indicators for customer-facing employees?
✓ Use 5 Why’s to go beyond poor CX symptoms to the root causes.
✓ Mistake-proof the root causes via new process, procedure, and/or policy.
✓ Customer-facing employee self-monitors their own mistake-proofing in-action.
✓ Make this a fun contest based on sharing lessons learned, etc.

Leading Indicator-based bonus pay means you can survey customers less often — but always keep an open door for customers to give you feedback anytime, any way, about anything. Same for employees.

⇒ See 4 steps to better VoC Dashboards 

⇒ Using X-O data? See a better approach

⇒ See 6 steps for accurate root cause identification

Other ideas for leading indicators in CX bonuses:
⇒ See 3 CX P&L Methods

Bring this to life immediately in your work:

1) Order a CX+EX Playbook, standard or customized to your unique situations. Specific playbooks are available for any of these, and many more topics:
✓ Bonus Criteria
✓ 6 A’s Workshops
✓ Close Top Gaps Root Causes
✓ Internal Customer Experience
✓ CX in Employees’ Purpose
✓ CX in Everyone’s Strategies
✓ CX+EX+PX Sync

Available as a Playbook or Mastermind or Self-Paced Class

2) Get your private portal for quarterly self-assessment anywhere in your enterprise, plus online guidance for self-managing your organizations going from strength to strength quarterly: Customer-Centric Growth Accelerator.

3) Set up a Fireside Chat to warm-up your leaders and team members to embrace these concepts and tool kits.

4) Plan now to give your team all needed skills to do all this in 2026-2027 with ClearAction Retainer Credits that stretch your budget amazingly.

How do you want to get higher ROI from CX+EX bonus pay?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

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^{VALUING CXM}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Who values CXM? What is your CXM value?

Ideally, every Senior Leader sees CXM as their top ally, instrumental to their success.

Ideally, the value is obvious, ongoing, and elevating their performance.

This way, job security is high . . . for you and everyone else!

So, how can you do this? Here are 3 keys:

When you start here, you discover the golden thread to connect everything and everyone to outpacing your industry in customer preference, efficiency, capabilities, and ongoing growth. To discover metrics and moves that identify this golden thread, see my Customer Value Creation article and Execs’ Guide to CX Value articles: Metrics and Top-Tier Leadership.

If you’re trying to guarantee CX excellence on your own, you’ll be scrambling constantly to make up for mis-steps across your enterprise. Whatever anyone does that bothers customers ends up costing a lot.

So, get ahead of it. Take inventory of who’s helping or hurthing CX. See my article on CXM governance for this inventory and cross-pollination, eliminating silos, and re-positioning yourself as an ally to each Senior Leader’s success.

Give credits and debits as financial scores to each work group across your enterprise. To do this, see my newest article: 3 Customer Experience P&L Methods. Shown here are the fundamentals:

Don’t wait for your execs to “get it”. Don’t be a bull in a china shop and push things by yourself to ask forgiveness later. Don’t preoccupy yourself as cleanup crew. This way, you’ll never reach top CXM maturity. You must aim for it early to get there.

Instead, get clear. Stop mixing CX/CXM. Stop mixing reactive/proactive CXM. Stop mixing investor experience as trumping customer experience. All that’s backwards thinking.

To do this, see the steps recommended in my newest Bad CX Metrics Practices articles: Prioritization and Business Value. Note the case studies from 2 Chief Customer Officers who’ve figured out how to do this, at the end of point 11-Customer Value in the Business Value article. And get new inspiration from my summary of 6 books that pivoted my thinking: Valuing Customer Value Management.

What you can do:

1) Upgrade your subscription to receive this newsletter’s templates for rapidly bringing each issue’s ideas to life in your work.

2) Plan now to give your team all needed skills to do all this in 2026-2027 with ClearAction Retainer Credits that stretch your budget amazingly. (see a $300/month example below — dozens of possible customized configurations)

How are you driving CXM credits, capabilities, and clout?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

GOOD FIND:

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^{HUMAN EXPERIENCE?}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Commonalities are greater than differences in experience management for:

• A2A Experience: AI Agent-to-AI Agent

• Pet Experience, Animal Experience

• Patients, Donors, Citizens

• Employees, Contractors, Execs

• Partners, Affiliates, Suppliers

• Pre-purchase, Post-purchase

• Brand, Product, Digital, Users, etc.

Wow! Silos galore. It can get overwhelming.
What do other professions do?

Advertising is a great example: outdoor ads, print ads, digital ads, sponsorship, political ads, and so on . . . unique tactics needed for sure, yet all starting from the same place: (1) focus first on who you’re attracting and how they see things, and (2) based on this, become relevant (contextually) and resonant (convincingly) to them, and (3) then figure out all the tactics.

Any other starting place gives you subpar results. Starting with tactics is the worst mistake: lots of extra costs and lower conversion. Same for Marketing. Same for Sales. Same for Experience Management of all types.

Most interesting is TRUST as pre-requisite for all this.

In CX AI, trust is emerging as Number One criteria, even for “A2A experience”.

CX AI articles and studies show top priorities for A2A and humans: “the outcome they came for, delivered fast, without repeating themselves, without being transferred, and without losing trust in your brand.”

What does this mean?

So, keep it simple!

So, it makes no sense to call it Human Experience: are customers not human? are employees and partners not human? For non-humans — animals and AI — experience management principles are the same. So, calling out HX as something separate doesn’t really make sense. Same for BX, PX, DX — like CRM and HCD (human-centered design), all these are universally useful to all 3 groups you rely on to build investor value: Customers + Employees + Partners. They’re the ones who experience the brand, the product, the digital, and even all collective decisions across your enterprise. They experience decision by Legal, Facilities, Finance, HR, Procurement, Engineering, and so on. So, it’s not helpful to silo-ize every facet.

From their view, it’s a total experience, cumulative over time.

What you can do:

1) Find the intersections across your customers, employees, and partners: coordinate experience management across all 3 for best investor experience!

2) Share these diagrams (above and below) and this article with your leaders:
Executives’ Guide to CX Value: Top-Tier Leadership

3) Set up a C-Suite Guide to CX=EX=Growth workshop to instill all this among all your senior leaders:
Let’s discuss it!

Download this image

How are you simplifying total experience management?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

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Cheering for your success,
Lynn

GOOD FIND:

Become An AI Expert In Just 5 Minutes

If you’re a decision maker at your company, you need to be on the bleeding edge of, well, everything. But before you go signing up for seminars, conferences, lunch ‘n learns, and all that jazz, just know there’s a far better (and simpler) way: Subscribing to The Deep View.

This daily newsletter condenses everything you need to know about the latest and greatest AI developments into a 5-minute read. Squeeze it into your morning coffee break and before you know it, you’ll be an expert too.

Subscribe right here. It’s totally free, wildly informative, and trusted by 600,000+ readers at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and beyond.

^{RIGHT THINGS RIGHT?}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

As I researched for my new CustomerThink series article — Business Value: Part 5 of 26 Bad CX Metrics Practices to Stop in 2026 — 2 recent studies put together a big question:

Are CXM teams focusing on the right things?

Apparently not!

Top CX problems are increasing yearly for what’s most important to customers.

Here’s what I discovered:

See the 2 study reports:

• 2026 Global Customer Experience Trends Revealed

• Businesses Risk $3 Trillion in Sales From Poor Customer Experiences as Consumers Cut Spending

Here’s an example of CXM guaranteeing high value that’s practiced in companies like UBA, NCR, Dell, CIBC, Applied Materials, Virgin, Disney, Nordstrom, and Ritz Carlton:

“Our core CXM team has fully embedded ourselves in a lot of the operational procedures. So, now we certify every solution — internal and external — as suitable to be launched. In all business units across our holding group, customer experience is a core strategic objective with a Head of CX in each business, and CX metrics specific to each group. When CX issues arise, the relevant business unit is responsible and accountable for solutioning.” — Michelle Nwoga, Group Chief Experience Officer at UBA (hear the podcast)

What’s revealing is absence of Michelle’s emphasis in CXM jobs, skills, certificates, conferences, awards, and Senior Leaders’ intentions.

This chart proves how unbalanced our CXM profession is:

We’ve got Marketing CXM and Support CXM (customer engagement strategy).

But what about Leadership CXM (customer alignment strategy)?

Right Things Right is a train-the-trainer certification you can earn from ClearAction — how to teach non-customer-facing groups to use customer intelligence as starting point for everything they design: products, services, pricing, policies, processes, cross-org coordination, etc.

Get Your Certificate!

How are you improving what’s most important to customers?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

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^{P4 METRICS}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

It’s not just CX struggling to prove value and drive growth.

Marketing managers, senior leaders, and Boards are making costly mis-steps that rob investors, stunt jobs of all types, and damage reputation, profit, and market share.

This phenomenon stood starkly in Boeing and other examples shared in Laura Patterson’s complimentary Strategic Clarity Lab this week.

Forever, and through the 1990s, Boeing was tops in CX reputation, innovation, and growth. After Boeing’s ‘97 merger with McDonnell Douglas . . .

Good news: Boeing recently switched their top priority metrics:
— What matters to customers.
— Value increasing to customers.
— And everything else supports this, and flows from this!
— A long trend of losses is pivoting to positive financial gains.

This is why CX managers hold the keys. Executives cannot magically know what matters to customers. You’re collecting it in everything customers tell you in Support inquiries and other sources. You must data-mine it to correctly identify what matters and how value is seen by customers.

P4 Metrics are what’s shown above — and below. They are not specific equations for one-size fits all. They’re customized to YOUR customers, their aims, their value. And every metric supporting this and flowing from it is customized to each cost / growth endeavor and each functional area.

In the Strategic Clarity Lab, I assessed ClearAction’s score on P4 criteria. It was eye-opening. You’re invited to join this complimentary lab that runs every other Wednesday: see the schedule.

Coincidentally, the day before, my LinkedIn newsletter was also on this topic:

You Get What You Measure: Stop Backwards CX & EX Metrics shows Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report with appallingly low employee engagement: 80% disengaged! Obviously, disengaged employees make sloppy outcomes, and that harms CX, which skyrockets costs, and starves revenue. All CX professionals I know are passionate about the EX=CX connection — yet what are CX Leaders doing about it?!? If you are, then hooray!

Here are better EX measures used by Gallup. Start with value to employees — and even better, within the context of value as customers are pursuing it.

Here are better CX measures: value to customers.

— How you contributed to their goal.
— How you maintained or increased their opportunities.
    (reduced their opportunity costs of pursuits in their life or business)
— How you avoided or reduced their risk, worry, or stress.
— How their interaction with you met their expectations.
— How their interaction with you was judged as time well spent.
— How you respected or reduced their time, effort, or money.
— How quickly they received the value you promised. 

See more in my article:
Executives’ Guide to CX Value: Metrics

I hope you’ll continue exploring P4 metrics to emphasize value to employees and customers as your accelerated path to far greater prosperity for investors and beyond!

How are you using value to customers?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

Increasing Value to You

The fastest, least costly, and most successful way to bring these things to life in your enterprise is Playbooks: step-by-step implementation guides — without expensive consultants, endless internal debates, or costly mis-steps. See the wide range of Playbook topics, or request a specific topic.

^{HAVE A GOOD WEEK!} 

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

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^{LTV METRICS}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Do you report Lifetime Value? LTV is a powerful CX metric . . . and probably the most accurate view of actual value achieved.

Lifetime Value is cumulative profitability.

It drives investors’ Earnings Per Share (EPS).

LTV is better than NPS, CSAT, Effort Score, FCR, ROI, and so on.

• Money value, not just a score.

• Return on investment over time.

• Highlights gains after expenses.

• Motivates CX-aligned efficiency.

• Inspires productivity.

See 4 ways LTV can be increase in my quick Q&A post: What is Customer Lifetime Value?

So, why isn’t LTV reported more often? A customer may have multiple ways of buying from you, and multiple ways of costing you to serve them. So, managers may give up too soon.

My advice: baby steps! Report any revenue . . . or any cost . . . or profit — whatever you can easily access. Start with money!

It’s a game-changer when you tell managers “X is costing us $___ in [specific area]” or “This customer segment is spending $___” or “our profit from customers wanting X is $___”.

Start with baby steps. The more you talk about money, the more people pay attention. And the more they will want to help you access the multiple sources of revenue and costs for eventual LTV accuracy.

In our 5-year global study of B2B CXM, we discovered that many financial advantages coincide with making LTV highly visible. See the graphs in my article: CLV Prioritizes CXM.

LTV is powerful for 1) buy-in, 2) prioritization, 3) follow-through, 4) reviews, 5) recognition, 6) bonus pay, 7) benchmarking, and more.

1) Buy-In:
Use 1 cost for 1 customer type when you talk about 1 CX gap. Say it’s one small example of a much bigger picture: the tip of the iceberg in reality. Ask your audience whether they’d prefer to get that amount back for salary increases, empowered budget spending, hiring, and/or profit-sharing. Buy-in happens when they’re amazed at what’s lost by not acting on CX data. This is how you make buy-in personal to each manager.

2) Prioritization:
Rank CX gaps (negative and positive) by LTV costs or revenue or profit — using whatever data you have. This way, what you improve is directly tied to value growth for investors, no further proving needed.

3) Follow-Through:
Make a graph showing cost reduction as CX gap resolution plans proceed. Visual reminders like this motivate people to follow-through.

4) Reviews:
Make LTV the primary lens for reviews of product development, market share, survey scores, department performance, individual performance, and so on. Almost everything can be connected to operational costs of getting and keeping customers and/or revenue opportunities.

5) Recognition:
Set up a portal for employees to submit what they’re doing to reduce costs, increase revenue, or best of all, grow profit along with cost savings or revenue gains. Give extra credit for reducing costs to customers and increasing gains to customers: your LTV is sure to follow suit.

6) Bonus Pay:
When managers are rewarded in bonus pay for LTV gains, then you know your bonus pay has a good ROI. With other criteria, higher scores may actually cost you more than what you’re getting, so a lot of bonus pay these days is a lose-lose situation, ironically.

7) Benchmarking:
When you compare what you get for what you spent — internally and externally — you learn a lot more about what not to do, and what to do more. LTV is also powerful in executives’ reports to shareholders, either directly or as a lens on business decisions and outlook for the future.

See what LTV communicates, assumes, implies, and serves in my article: Modern Thinking for Customer Experience Indexes.

How are you using lifetime value?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

Higher lifetime value of your budget? 
. . . your CX career? . . . your CX team’s jobs?

Yes! Get much more with CX Retainer Credits:

Save money, time, and paperwork with a subscription that (1) keeps your budget steady, (2) empowers you to decide anytime in the future exactly what capabilities you need, (3) gives you new capabilities immediately without separate permissions, (4) multiplies the value of your budget, (5) multiplies the value of your achievements through superior methodologies.

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Cheering for your success,
Lynn

^{RISE ABOVE SHRINKFLATION}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Shrinkflation is the opposite of CXM purpose!

Shrinkflation is a word coined in 2021 by NPR (National Public Radio in US) after companies began making up for Covid-related revenue losses by shrinking the size of their products.

It’s happening in dozens of industries — not just supermarkets and restaurants. And it continues 5 years after Covid began. (?!?!)

Is this how you want your children’s world to be?

What do customers say about shrinkflation?

“Do they think consumers are stupid? Not cool”

“They don't make anywhere near the same amount. It ruins recipes.”

“Those used to be really big with minimal packaging, but now they are half the size and bigger wrapping than before! Makes me furious 😠”

“Who are you trying to kid?”

“I got back a lame excuse. I am no longer buying”

“We haven’t been back and never will.”

See examples and comments in this 2025 article:

19 Sneaky Examples Of Shrinkflation That People Spotted On Grocery Store Shelves

I never would have noticed a lot of these if people didn't point them out...

www.buzzfeed.com/meganeliscomb/shrinkflation-examples-2025

It’s happening globally. Just this week, a LinkedIn newsletter featured shrinkflation in Africa:

Shrinkflation Is Ending. Prices Are Rising More Directly Now

By Olaitan Adebayo For a while, companies tried to hide it. You’d open a biscuit pack and feel like something was off.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/shrinkflation-ending-prices-rising-more-directly-now-veegilmedia-dihvf

He says: “There is a noticeable shift in behaviour. People are trying different brands, buying in smaller quantities, or moving toward unbranded alternatives that feel like better value. Spending is becoming more deliberate, more selective. Push too far, and consumers walk away. Hold back, and margins erode. For the broader economy, it signals something deeper.”

In Gartner’s study, 45% of consumers recommend executive pay reduction instead of shrinkflation or inflation. Gartner suggests better marketing messaging to be transparent with customers.

Really?!? Not hold back from joining the shrinkflation bandwagon to keep margins? Reduce pay? Explain in marketing messages? These lame moves have led to CX Stagnation, as described by Curtis Kopf in his LinkedIn newsletter this week. Indexes and studies abound in showing that despite CX gains in companies, our CX profession is not keeping up with what’s really needed.

I disagree with this: “Hold back, and margins erode”. Nope! Do not jump on the bandwagon. It’s killing trust! Choose a better way to grow margins!

My suggestion is better. It’s not a bandage on disease. It’s removing the source of these value-stripping moves. What we did when I led company-wide CX alignment is called CX Annuities: you not only stop costs, but you actually raise budgets and ongoing gains. Read about it in my article: CX Leaders Can Prevent Shrinkflation.

Solution? Using customer comments more cleverly with AI data-mining. Striving to maximize your Insights Usage Rate. Unless your firm is efficient in-tune with customers, then your costs are too high! Unless all managers and employees coordinate with one another in-tune with customers’ priorities, you’re causing a lot of sloppy handoffs. These are the real reasons why costs skyrocketed.

Step-by-step guides to doing this are in the CX Value Multipliers Forum.

Give it a try! https://ClearAction.com/forum-info

Everything at ClearAction helps you prevent inflation, shrinkflation, skimpflation, sneakflation, and trust erosion. This is what we mean by multiplying CX value!

NOTICE:
This newsletter is now bi-weekly.
Nope, not shrinkflation: sometimes less is more.
To reduce overwhelm for you, we’re making our LinkedIn newsletter (Ease of Work & Business Drive Growth) available every other week, and this newsletter in those off-weeks. This decision is based on analysis of readership, striving to be in-tune with you.

How are you preventing shrinkflation?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

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Lynn

^{INTERNAL CX}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Everyone has an internal customer. 

Does everyone know:
Who their customers are?
Their customers’ views?
Their value gaps?
Their ripple-effect on external customers?
See my short blog post: Everybody Has a Customer.

When I led company-wide CXM, we showed every functional area how to answer these questions. See the short blog: Improve Customer Experience by Eliminating Customer-Focus Boundaries.

A core problem: Internal customers don’t take initiative to speak with their internal suppliers. For their internal suppliers’ mis-steps, they rely on workarounds instead of getting right things right the first time. This makes a LOT of waste.
- Budget squandered
- Less $ for growth
- Talent squandered
- Less creativity and productivity
- Less coordination
- More chaos for external customers

We created templates and mini-workshops for every manager to answer the questions above.
- For their internal suppliers.
- For their internal customers.
- For external customers.
See the short blog: Improve Customer Experience by Overcoming Ethnocentric Customer-Centricity.

Why?
Like attracts like.
How we are internally is how we show up externally.
See the short blog: Customer Loyalty Boomerang Effect.

Internal CX is a mirror image of what external customers actually experience.

When internal CX is great:
- Employee experience is great.
- Cost to serve customers is lower.
- Customers engage naturally.
- More budget is freed-up.
- Growth expands in new ways.
See my CX ROI Handbook article: Connecting Business Outcomes and Customer Outcomes.

To help you drive this easily, at low cost, with minimal effort, for maximum outcomes, we’ve created several tools for you. One of them is Right Things Right Workshop. This is a live remote train-the-trainer session where you learn the lingo, pressures, goals, and CX triggers for every functional area . . . and a streamlined way to teach them human-centered design (HCD) for their internal customers.

Stop costly CX gaps at the source when every non-customer-facing team starts with HCD for their products, processes, and deliverables
to external and internal customers.

How are you experimenting with internal CX?
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Lynn

^{CX TECH PRIORITIES}

Hi {{first_name|there}},

“What if you do that the other way around?” is what my manager often said. 

Why? Stand out from the crowd. Re-think what works, and why. Start with the end in mind.

I made this my habit!

So, how about CX tech priorities the other way around? 

2 Ways
✓ Selection
✓ Deployment

Tech Selection
Typical: solve a touchpoint issue.
Then, prove value to execs.
Instead, try this:
1-What’s causing this touchpoint need?
2-How to prevent occurrence of the issue?
3-How to stop recurrence of what exists?
4-How to resolve instances of the issue?
Why this works:
◊ Prevention frees resources for growth.
◊ Big-picture view opens more choices.
◊ Quantify bigger picture from the start.

Tech Deployment
Typical: decide, install, persuade adoption.
Instead, try this:
1-What issue are we solving?
2-Who has a stake in this issue?
3-What do THEY see as NOT in their favor
. . . to solve this issue? . . . using new tech?
4-What can we solve in these roadblocks?
5-What would give highest value to all?
6-After FIRST addressing as much of the above as possible, then: which tech solution makes the most sense?
Why this works:
◊ Perfect tech is not perfect CX or EX.
◊ Resistance always trumps advantages.
◊ Addressing resistance before purchase decisions opens your eyes to alternatives that drive higher success faster.

^{GET MORE ADVICE LIKE THIS}

1-CXM Pro Tips for a Tight Budget
Tuesday, 3 March, LinkedIn Live
2-CX Prioritization: Bad CX Practices
My article in CustomerThink
3-CX Value Multipliers Forum
Try it for $5 Friends Membership
4-Templates version of this newsletter
5-Experts Masterclass
6-Leaders Masterminds
7-Playbooks: request what you want

How are you experimenting with CX tech prioritization?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

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Lynn

^{AI ORCHESTRATOR CX SKILLS}

“The mental model needed for the next several years are doers, organizers of chaos, people who can make sense of things and know what to create and why/when. AI transformation is about elevating human judgment to the right altitude and designing systems that make that judgment scalable. AI only creates advantage when it is deliberately aligned, operationally grounded, and responsibly governed.” says Thomas Wilson in his LinkedIn post. (73 comments, 183 likes, 17 reposts in 1 day)

Needs
✓ Who defines the boundaries of autonomy?
✓ Who sets escalation logic?
✓ Who owns cross-functional agent workflows?
✓ Who ensures AI decisions align with regulatory, ethical, and brand constraints?

Needed Skills
✓ Insatiable Curiosity
✓ Humility: to accept we don't know everything
✓ Intentional Reframing: to see if we understand the problem
✓ Influence: ability to help others take ownership of new ideas
✓ Critical Thinking: navigate ethical trade-offs top-down, bottom-up
= Redesign on the socio-political level
= Strategic and moral clarity
= Designing human decision architecture at scale
= Collective Intelligence: sensemaking and better decisions together

All this applied to this model:

Why This is Vital 
◊ Integrates EX+CX.
◊ Injects customer-centricity.
◊ Prevents issues.
◊ Inspires all development.
◊ Cross-pollinates your industry.
◊ Multiplies value for all parties.

Where You Learn This
CX Value Multipliers Forum gives you 5-minute guides to show you how to instill Insatiable Curiosity, Humility, Intentional Reframing, Critical Thinking, Ability to help others take ownership of ideas, and catalyze Collective Intelligence — for yourself, and among managers of all types across your enterprise — based on CX and EX data. And prove giant gains in profit margin and revenue.

Try the CX Value Multipliers Forum for $5

. . . . . . . .

See more like this in my recent article:
Top Tier Leadership: Execs’ Guide to CX Value

. . . . . . . .

How are you experimenting with AI Orchestration?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

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Cheering for your success,
Lynn

Hi {{first_name|there}}, today you’ll see:

• Churn You Chose: Marketing+Sales+CS Approach

• Good Finds
  Speak Your AI Prompts
  Truly Private Email

• 20 Loyalty Myths

• What’s New at ClearAction

• Templates for Paid Subscribers

CHURN YOU CHOSE

I saw this phrase today, “Churn You Chose”, about Microsoft’s “lean left” approach to integrating Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Customer Support, and Customer Experience Management.

Lean Left = bring CS and CXM into lead nurturing actions and data, and allow lead nurturing (Marketing+Sales) to see CS actions and data.
◊ Operating as 1 system
◊ Proactive partnering
◊ Consistent team interface to customer
◊ Shared goals, metrics, actions
◊ Customers co-creating journey
◊ Start everything with customers’ outcomes
◊ CS as “journey coach”
◊ CXM as cultural syncing from top-down

Here’s how it’s described by Ray Otero, Director of Global CX at Microsoft: https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxI2LS1t_V3Z_63Bh1VEn8BnuT7Koxypl4 (58 seconds)

So . . . “churn you chose”?
Yep. How you did or did not:
◊ Propose value
+ Coordinate value delivery
+ Make customers’ changes easy
+ Prevent issues
+ Facilitate everyone learning rapidly from issues that should have been prevented.

See my article: https://clearaction.com/growth-customer-experience-your-cost-decisions

Why this works:
◊ You all start with customers’ view.
◊ Value prop is coordinated.
◊ You’re nimble.
◊ You prevent issues.
◊ You free-up customers and yourselves.
◊ Your career has more flexibility and cross-pollination.
◊ You’re multiplying savings and relationship and revenue and EX.

Here’s what Ray says will further multiply value: https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxhHLeh6Z_nE2nQCZWvJ4ntlnLhxy7QICs (58 seconds)
◊ Right on! This is what ClearAction is all about.
= Best protection for jobs of all kinds.

◊ 5 ways I can help you do this:
⇒ Fireside Chats
⇒ C-Suite Guide 
⇒ Playbooks
⇒ AI for CX DNA
⇒ Coaching

Are you independent?
ClearAction Affiliate or Licensee

. . . . . . . .

See more like this in my new article:
CX Prioritization: 26 Bad CX Metrics to Stop in 2026 (Part 4 of 8)

. . . . . . . .

How are you experimenting with Marketing+Sales+CS+CXM?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

HAVE A GOOD WEEK!

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes: free!)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

MAKING CX EVERYONE’S TOP PRIORITY

“Competing priorities” is a chronic dilemma . . . beyond CX in firms! So, how do you conquer it in every day life? (fitness, etc.)

You don’t wait for others to fix it . . . and don’t give up.

You re-think it!
What you emphasize:
◊ Your own KPIs
◊ Costs of inaction
◊ Others’ actions

See why Success and Support are gold for this (LinkedI)

What to Start:
1) Set your own KPI target as % of growth endeavors and cost decisions using CX data. (see Insights Use Rate: Don’t Fly Blind)
2) Show costs of inaction. (see last week’s newsletter)
3) Suggest what each audience role should do. (see the table here: Every Group Can Use CX Insights)
4) Track others’ CX outcomes across your firm. (see CX Dashboards & Compensation)

What to Stop:
1) Thinking how leaders limit you.
2) Relying only on customers’ actions.

Why this works:
◊ Others get growth facts.
◊ They start with CX view.
◊ They expand budgets.
◊ You’re all rewarded for customer prosperity as your best path to prosperity.

. . . . . . . .

Pro Tip: Get skills to do this expertly! CX Financial Savvy ◊ Stakeholder Motivation ◊ Right Things Right ◊ Lean Six Sigma for CX ◊ Customer-Centric Growth Accelerator ◊ Fireside Chat

. . . . . . . .

See more in my new article:
CX Prioritization: 26 Bad CX Metrics to Stop in 2026 (Part 4 of 8)

. . . . . . . .

How are you experimenting with CX prioritization?
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

. . . . . . . .

See What’s New at ClearAction!

. . . . . . . .

ATTENTION:
See next green section below for sneak peek at new templates for subscription upgrade

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1) Set your own KPI target as % of growth endeavors and cost decisions using CX data. (see Insights Usage Rate: Don’t Fly Blind)

See Re-Thinking Costs: 3 Surprising Growth Drivers

2) Show costs of inaction. (see last week’s newsletter)

3) Suggest what each audience role should do. (see the table here: Every Group Can Use CX Insights)

4) Track others’ CX outcomes across your firm. (see CX Dashboards & Compensation)

Want help? Get coaching for this

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Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes)

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Lynn

Hi {{first_name|there}},

How do you tell a story to your friend at lunch? . . . This happened, and ___ was what it cost me as inconvenience. And, not only that, ___ was affected!

And you both say: "Unbelievable! Outrageous."

Pro Tip: You want this response whenever you talk about what you're seeing from customers.

Why this works:
It’s a flow with consequences.
They say: “That Can’t Stand!”
You cause wide & deep action.

See advantages of this approach in LinkedIn

What to Stop:
1) Reporting a CX/CS metric as a silo.
2) Starting with your pain.

What to Start:
1) Report your metrics as one leading to the next.
2) Starting with customers’ pain.

See more examples of CX metrics flows in my article published today!
CX Prioritization: 26 Bad CX Metrics to Stop in 2026 (Part 4 of 8)

How are you experimenting with metrics flow? 
Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

See What’s New at ClearAction!

STARTING FEB 2026

Your free subscription will give you an intro concept like the one above.

Only paid subscribers will receive the Insiders’ Advantage.

Here’s your sneak peek:

INSIDERS’ ADVANTAGE

1) Tell the flowing CX metrics story, like you talk to your friend over lunch: what leads to what, illustrating the cost consequences (verbally or graphically).

See the natural flow of all CX metrics in my article:
24 CX ROI Metrics for Your Chief Customer Officer Prosperity Playbook

2) Involve your listener in quantifying the costs. Accuracy is less important than well-informed estimates of the whole iceberg versus estimate of the 1-time root cause fix.

The only things that matter:
1) The cost size is astounding.
2) The 1-time fix is smaller.
3) This motivates root cause eradication.
4) You multiply CX ROI because:
✓ Others are solving CX issues.
✓ The issue ceases every year in future.
✓ Othewise, budget is tied-up in infinity.
✓ Re-assign budget to growth:
hiring, salaries, market expansion.
✓ New growth expands value in future.

💎 This is far more powerful than an uptick in revenue!

Pro tips: (a) The actual fix is usually in mindsets and habits: what will it take to adjust your policy and process? (b) Focus here for bonus pay.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK

Discuss your challenge with me (15 minutes)

Cheering for your success,
Lynn

Download this newsletter app to post comments without a password

Hi {{first_name|there}},

If your aim is customer experience excellence, it’s imperative to smooth silos.

These 5 Execution Silos (vision, assumptions, goals, metrics, handoffs) hold the keys to solving data silos, organizational silos, etc.

Quantify a gap to motivate managers to take action.

Vision Silos

Different people managing different parts of customers’ experience have different visions of CXM strategy. IT’s vision may be at odds with Marketing’s vision, and so on across the C-suite.

Furthermore, VoC managers envision survey responsiveness that maximizes referrers, while Loyalty managers envision renewals that hit monthly quotas, DX managers envision personalized interactions, and Support managers envision first contact resolution.

In customers’ minds, this means enticements to behave when and how the company wants them to, and policies and requests that don’t always seem to be in their best interest.

Businesses have targets for growth, cost containment, and risk reduction, adjusted for each functional area.

What’s missing for customers’ experience is an irrefutable feeling that their well-being comes first, when and how it best fits their objectives, as a trust-builder and precursor to organic growth, cost containment, and risk reduction. Ways to solve this:

Customer Experience Vision Silos Dictate Value

Does your customer experience vision match your customers’ vision? If yes, then you’re on your way to customer-centricity and growth.

clearaction.com/customer-experience-vision-silos-dictate-value

Assumption Silos

Different people throughout a company have different understandings of customers’ realities.

Bad practices blinding an accurate big picture of the end-to-end customer life cycle: focus on survey scores rather than customer survey verbatims, journey maps focused on a touchpoint, and other common practices.

In customers’ minds, this means inconsistent empathy for their plight, and inconsistent experience across their end-to-end journey or life cycle.

Businesses are busy with running the business, and it takes a concerted effort to create a common understanding across thousands of employees.

What’s missing for customers’ experience is “doing the whole job” across customers’ needs and feeling valued as a long-term customer as much or more than a new customer is valued. Ways to solve this:

Assailing Customer Experience Assumption Silos

Faulty customer experience assumptions at any step often require remedial investment. It’s wise to re-channel those precious funds to value creation.

clearaction.com/assailing-customer-experience-assumption-silos

Goal Silos

Customer-facing staff have CX goals, but staff that doesn’t interface with customers typically do not see a connection of their work to CX; they’re focused on productivity or other internal criteria.

In customers’ minds, this means products, processes, policies and business models that don’t always respect customers’ expectations.

Businesses have multiple obligations: shareholders, industry analysts, customers, and so forth. It’s easy to dilute the over-arching importance of customers as the lifeblood of funding for all the business does. 

What’s missing for customers’ experience is getting things right the first time and all the time, as much as is humanly possible — preventing the need to rely so heavily on customer-facing staff and enticements. Ways to solve this:

7 Customer Experience Goal Silos Are Gotchas

Customer experience goal silos are unpleasant surprises — gotchas — in customer experience management ROI (return on investment).

clearaction.com/7-customer-experience-goal-silos-gotchas

Metrics Silos

Performance measurement of the business may be different from performance measurements of organizations, individuals, and teams — particularly when it comes to dashboards, incentive pay, and recognition.

In customers’ minds, this means heroics take precedence over prevention of issues, they’re directed to give a certain rating when the survey comes around, issues are resolved for individuals rather than customers collectively, and the supplier is content with industry-leading survey scores rather than resolving chronic issues once and for all.

Businesses measure what’s tied to goals; this may work well if the goals are accurately tied to accurate assumptions and well-founded shared vision for customer experience excellence. 

What’s missing for customers’ experience is prevention of issues and anticipation of their expectations and reactions. Ways to solve this:

8 Customer Experience Metric Silos Mask Momentum

Metrics selection can be the most pivotal decision you make in your customer experience management strategy. That’s because what gets measured gets managed.

clearaction.com/8-customer-experience-metric-silos-mask-momentum

Handoff Silos

“That’s not my job” may be heard anywhere in a company, and anywhere across a customer experience journey or the customer life cycle.

“That’s the fault of Y” is often heard by customers when sloppy handoffs occur between software or hardware or services, or between headquarters or branches, or between alliance partners, and so forth.

In customers’ minds, this means headaches in trying to achieve their objectives, a possible bottomless pit of time and effort to figure things out on their own.

Businesses need to define scope and boundaries to maintain productivity and return on investment.

What’s missing for the customer experience is prevention of surprises and true solutions toward their objectives. Ways to solve this:

Customer Experience Handoff Silos are the Heart of Success

Customer experience handoff silos are at the core of CX ROI. Since customers experience our companies horizontally, ...

clearaction.com/customer-experience-handoff-silos-heart-success

CXM Silver Lining in Silos

Your CXM team can quantify missed opportunities caused by silos!

Missed opportunities mean precious resources are wasted, potential growth is unrealized, money is left on the table, avoidable churn of customers and employees takes a toll on the whole business, and ROI across a wide variety of business endeavors could be much higher.

Quantify just the tip of the iceberg for any of these silos to get the attention of senior leaders and managers of all types — and most importantly, drive action at root causes which customers will continually reward.

If you want to thrive in ease-of-doing-business, smooth these silos. This multiplies CX value.

See 4 universal keys in this capstone article: Soving 10 CX Silos

How are you experimenting with a silo smoothing? Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

Hi {{first_name|there}},

Operating System is a software phrase for coordinating and executing tasks, applications, and peripherals (printers, etc.).

CX Management frameworks have adopted Operating System or Performance System phrasing for its symbolism to emphasize creating an integrated CX movement inside your enterprise.

CXM Frameworks are often shown as a a list of standards, table, pyramid, wheel with spokes, flywheel, infinity loop, or a set of stair steps, pillars, pie wedges, or overlapping circles.

Vital keys missing in nearly all CXM Systems / Frameworks:

• Universal to employees’ and partners’ experience.

• Encompassing the entire customer life cycle.

• Respecting how an enterprise works.

• Honoring customers as paying for your existence.

• Clear starting point.

• Clear sequence.

• Inter-dependencies.

• Synergies.

• Financial outcomes.

I made this diagram after my first global CXM practices study that revealed extreme focus on building-blocks #1, 7, and 8. It’s the CXM System that trumps all others. It is the centerpiece of my CX+EX+PX Experts’ Strategy Masterclass:

Replace “Customer” with Employee or Partner for EX and PX.

1—Start 

Start with identifying your true core-growth customers and why they prefer you.

Like the best starting point for EXM: high-potential employees’ preferences, right? Similar for CXM.

Similarly, to be favored by your boss, you’d start with what makes them tick, what turns them off, what they’re aiming for, right? Same for CXM.

After all, CX is customers’ experience, not your company’s. (Note: calling CX = CS = CXM is a mishmash: not your ideal framework.)

False ideal customers are the norm, since Business Development rarely checks in with Support to know what types of customers drive costs up! You’ll want your ideal CXM framework / performance system to correct this.

2—Sequence

Role of Senior Leaders in honoring or dishonoring #1 above.

Anything you try to do at touchpoints can be undermined by a Senior Leader’s decision, right?

Senior Leaders’ mindsets and habits [SunTrust example] shape your culture, and “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, right?

So, obviously, this step must be one of the first — but not the first.

See Top-Tier Leadership: Execs’ Guide to CX Value article for how to do this.

“Culture” as last step in a framework is a clear sign that the model/system reflects our profession’s mistakes — not success factors for you.

Influencing culture is the weakest skill set [influencing resources] among CX experts of all types. This is why they put it last or leave it out, or suggest tiptoeing or bulldozing your way with quick wins — our profession’s mistakes — not success for you.

3—Inter-dependencies

Under-scoping and under-focus on who’s doing what about CX gaps and value to customers.

Listen to a few Support calls and you’re reminded that CX gaps are caused by every area [examples] across your enterprise.

Empower each work group in your company to do their part for CX accountability and value. This must be in your ideal CXM System.

This is what HR requires: performance reviews by managers of all types, no exceptions. Same by IT for data privacy, and same by Finance for budget responsibility.

Hear Carolyn Muise (CCO-EMC, Dell, NCR) talk about this at the 15:20 minute-mark.

4—Synergies

Over-focus on specific tools/techniques.

Look at the brands with best reputation for CX excellence: they don’t talk about specific CXM or CS tools or techniques as their success story. They talk about mindsets and habits [examples: J&J, IBM, Toyota, JetBlue].

Hear Michelle Nwoga (CCO-UBA) talk about CX synergies at the 19 minute-mark.

All tools/techniques are optional, but using them wisely [VoC examples] is what we’re still learning as a profession, evolving.

5—Financial Outcomes

Almost-automatic ROI by deploying the System.

VoC metrics measure what customers already experienced (= lagging indicators), yet they’re the proper prioritization criteria for who should do what.

As you engage every work group in progress of CX Design and Improvement (block 5 below = leading indicators of what customers will soon experience), you’ll see exponential growth in the vital lagging indicators: more external engagement, retention, loyalty, market share, profit, and revenue.

See more about leading and lagging in my CX ROI Metrics Roadmap article.

After 30+ years studying CXM Frameworks and Systems, benchmarking global practices, teaching certification prep 10 years, writing 2000+ CXM articles — and most importantly, 15 of these years leading company-wide CX alignment with giant annual growth achieved — here’s what I’ve found to be ideal:

See your tool for 7×7 deployment

See ideal CXM budget allocation model video clip (4.5 minutes)

How are you experimenting with a CXM Operating System? Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

Hi {{first_name|there}},

ROI means outcomes exceed what you put into it.

It shows “after” versus “before”: what led to what.

For example, in fitness, we’re tempted to focus only on the outcome as something we can immediately achieve with a pill or treatment: quick fix.

Stress management is at the heart of fitness outcomes: Stress = Leading Indicator.

Unrealistic: everyone knows quick fixes are temporary mirages for true fitness. Someone can look good without being fit. And quick fixes inevitably slide back to worse status, instead of better.

Truth: fitness requires strength and endurance and healthy organs. This requires a cardio/strength routine (% of days), which is more likely when you eat healthy (% of days), which is more likely when you sleep well (% of nights), which is more likely when you manage stress well (% of days).

Fitness Key Leading Indicator is stress management. All other fitness metrics are outcomes of that. Outcomes are lagging indicators.

By linking each fitness metric — in a chart together — you can monitor what leads to what, where the breakdowns are, and health of your fitness system itself, in addition to realistically true fitness.

You can do this for customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) and partner experience (PX), too:

See article: CX Dashboards & Compensation

Read from bottom left to upper right

3 Lists of CX Leading Indicators: Do these better and CX + revenue value multiply!

How to get started? Give highest visibility to the metrics shown above!

See articles about this:
Growth + Customer Experience = Your Cost Decisions
5 Best Experience Management Metrics

Intrigue managers to mistake-proof the root causes of bad CX by showing them the % of customers or instances with undesirable outcomes. This gives managers a sense of what’s at-risk. Show managers one aspect of the cost of this %. This shows them what outcomes they have by doing nothing. This is how you can light a fire under their seat to take action.

Focus managers on the costs of doing nothing: best motivator for action = ROI.

When managers who originate bad CX are taking ownership to prevent recurrence, you are multiplying CX value (see graphic on LinkedIn). You’re scaling your CX team’s outputs. And, most importantly, savings from prevention can be re-assigned to new growth opportunities! Just like true fitness, this is value that continually thrives.

Fastest way to learn how to do this? 5-minute guides in the CX Value Multipliers Forum! Join our wait list.

See https://ClearAction.com/forum-info

FREE SELF-ASSESSMENT: get a personalized PDF to share with your team and leaders + insiders’ offer for a 5-minute lesson on each of these 25 keys to your full potential value!

Get your free self-assessment

GET SKILLED: What’s your goal?

1) Proving CX Value: Increasing Revenue, Increasing Value for Price, or Multiplying Growth 

2) Customer-Centricity: Getting CX Buy-in, Follow-Through, or Governance

3) CX Career Growth 

COMING UP:

January: Thursdays for EMEA + Americas + Asia + Oceania (or schedule at your convenience!)
Performance Revenue Roadblocks Masterminds

Experts + CCXP + Enthusiasts 90-minute masterclasses
— Wednesdays EMEA+Americas
— Fridays Asia+Oceania
— or schedule at your convenience!
— or get the self-paced version, 1 topic at a time or full course

How are you experimenting with linking Lagging + Leading Indicators? Add your comment to the online version of this newsletter!

Who do you want to see to this newsletter, too?

Hi {{first_name|there}},

In the 2025 movie, F1, the pit crew heard: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”. Slow wasn’t about non-urgency. It was about stepping back for a moment to re-group, to re-think how everything fits together, to take an “umbrella approach” to their work collectively.

They shifted their mindset and habits from solo crew members’ speed to coordinated teamwork with crystal-clear shared vision.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast!

This meant aligning and embedding unified success factors in everyone’s mindset and habits.

This shift was also needed by the F1 leadership team’s outlook and play-by-play guidance to the drivers, designers, testers, and entire organization. Success is more than the driver or car — success absolutely requires the whole team to get in-sync.

It’s the same in business success, along with customer experience, employee experience, and partner experience success.

“Umbrella thinking” is influencing everyone and everything to get in-sync. This is Experience Leadership.

See ClearAction.com

Gain-&-Retain roles thrive when Align-&-Embed prevails.

When CX+EX align-and-embed are missing, gain-and-retain loses power.

Umbrella thinking is the CEO’s and Board’s role, but they were not trained for Experience Leadership in business school, nor by the media, etc.

So, once-loved brands — Nokia, Mosaic, Shiseido, Blockbuster, Toys R Us, Sears, Southwest Airlines, and other brands worldwide — lost what made them special.

Hundreds of brands today may be in danger of the same fate, as noted by massive layoffs in 2025. (See Snowball Effect issue of this newsletter.)

Heads up! Can you teach your CEO, CFO, and Board? Yes! It’s all about how you talk about what you’re seeing and hearing from customers.

Is your role Green? Weave gold into green! Shift-up financial gains by how you report what you’re doing.

Gold is shifting YOUR mindset in how you talk internally and expanding who you talk to in ways that light a fire under their seat positively, energetically, harmoniously to adapt what they're already doing in-sync with core-growth customers' aims to prevent pebbles in their shoes and continually increase value for price paid.

See how easy it is to gain gold skills: 
1—Right Things Right
2—CX Financial Savvy
3—CX Council
4—Interaction Bridges
5—Stakeholder Motivation
6—Silo-Smoothing
7—C-Suite Guide to CX=EX=Growth
8—AI for CX DNA Infusion

With your access to customers’ comments, you can drive umbrella thinking for coordinated teamwork with crystal-clear shared vision. You can get the ball rolling for aligning and embedding customers’ aims into how your business is run. This is your ticket to multiplying gain-and-retain value for years to come.