Actionable strategies for improving customer experience, customer success, and support operations — from CX design to commercial outcomes.
Introduction: The Invisible Revenue Problem Every CFO knows the agony of arguing over customer acquisition costs (CAC) with marketers and sales leaders. Every marketing budget, sales headcount and demand gen initiative is sized up and torn apart by the CFO. The Cost to Acquire a Customer (CAC) is front and center, always being measured, compared […]
Introduction: The Function That Was Never Given a Real Job Customer Support has been defined for decades as anything other than Sales, Success or Strategy. We are the team that gets called in to clean up the messes that should never have happened in the first place. The messes are quickly and quietly resolved for […]
A Title Without Authority Is Theater I used to believe that the companies that established a Chief Customer Officer role in the last 5 years did it for the wrong reasons. Customer retention was simply a cost of acquiring new customers, and a price that was paid for with a check rather than action taken […]
In 2025, most leadership teams thought they’d finally found the solution to their customer experience challenges. Artificial intelligence (AI) promised the scale, velocity, and personalization they needed, and it did so with a favorable impact on costs. Vendors confirmed it. Dashboards were improved. Processes were streamlined. Headcount growth was no longer a worry. By year-end, […]
Companies must stop discussing customer experience as an abstract concept because it has become essential for business success in 2026. The brand narrative which used to be a marketing promise and set of designed touchpoints for prospect impress has evolved into something different. Customer experience has become something far more operational and far more unforgiving: […]
The customer experience measurement system tracked customer satisfaction levels which customers experienced during their multiple-year interactions. Organizations started using satisfaction scores and surveys and sentiment tracking to measure their performance through these metrics. A satisfied customer, the thinking went, was a loyal customer. The belief which existed in 2026 proved to be incorrect. Customers can […]
Customer Success operated without established operational boundaries throughout multiple years of its business operations. It was important, but rarely decisive. Visible, but not powerful. People appreciate its goals but the program lacks proper evaluation of its actual results. Organizations used Customer Success as a goodwill function which focused on maintaining customer satisfaction and minimizing complaints […]
Most companies do not lose revenue because customers suddenly stop believing in their product. The loss of revenue occurs because customers lose faith in the organization which supports the product. The event occurred without notice during 2025 while it expanded into multiple business sectors at a large magnitude. Leadership teams celebrated their organizational growth achievements, […]
Most organizations organize their customer experience operations into separate boxes which function as individual units. The Customer Experience team functions as the organizational leader which directs all customer journey operations. Customer Success owns the relationship. Customer Support owns the problems. The different teams operate with their own set of responsibilities and performance indicators and management […]
Customer experience has evolved into a fundamental operational requirement which organizations must handle directly since it cannot be handled through delegation or abstraction or dashboard summaries during 2026. The board now recognizes customer experience as a critical business matter because it determines how organizations manage their risks and maintain financial stability and market value. What […]