Customer experience (CX) plans typically come from the top down, but by their very nature, they should encourage employees at all levels to contribute. In fact, that should be a goal of the White House, Office of Personnel Management and the agency CX community, according to a December 2022 report by the Partnership for Public Service.
They “should further professionalize the customer experience career field and embed customer focus into other occupations, to include establishing career paths that encourage public servants to get experience across the many channels customers use and creating opportunities to help people develop user experience, design, digital, communications and policy skills,” the report states.
For now, here are three ways you can embrace CX efforts no matter your role.
Listen. Sounds obvious, right? But effective listening is a skill that requires you to be open to positive and negative feedback — and can help you calm particularly irate customers. A GovLoop article provides timeless tips on doing this, such as asking clarifying, open-ended questions; summarizing the speaker’s point to ensure you understand it; and considering their perspective.
Enroll in a training program. Digital.gov has a YouTube playlist with 16 videos on CX, including case studies and how-tos, and the Small Business Administration has brief videos totaling 26 minutes as part of its “Understanding Your Customer” course.
Evangelize CX at your agency. Talk to coworkers and managers about why you think CX is important, how you carry it out and what would make doing that easier for you. Arrange regular meetings with supervisors to provide “‘frontline feedback’ designed to collect feedback around critical interactions between employees and customers,” according to the XM Institute.
This article appears in “Improving Customer Experience: A Nuts-and-Bolts Guide.” To read more about how to build a CX culture, download it here:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.