Most brands are doing CX wrong—and it’s costing them.The secret to getting it right? It’s not just about data, and it’s not just about empathy—it’s about both.In this episode, Lauren Wood sits down with Stacy Sherman, CX expert, author, and host of Doing CX Right, to break down her ‘Heart and Science’ framework. With 25 years of experience leading CX for major brands, Stacy shares the real impact of emotional intelligence, AI, and cross-functional collaboration in creating customer experiences that actually work.They tackle the tough questions: How do you balance data and human connection? Where do most brands fail in their CX approach? And what’s the real cost of getting it wrong?If you want practical insights, real-world stories, and actionable strategies to drive customer retention and satisfaction, this conversation is a must-listen. Stay tuned until the end for an unforgettable example of human-centered CX in action.Are you delivering the experience your customers deserve? How far are you from your goals? Discover the gap with our Customer Experience Assessment and improve your strategy today.🔗 Get your free assessment now! https://forms.gle/VqXGtybjLhWQAsiL8Check out Doing CX Right: https://doingcxright.com/ Key Moments:00:00 Who is Stacy Sherman, CX Speaker & Expert?02:23 Why Customer Experience is Vital to a Business’s Success04:41 Designing Proactive & Delightful Customer Journeys10:19 The Key to Breaking Down Silos16:51 What is the Cost of Doing CX Wrong?25:33 The Importance of Emotional Intelligence (EQ)26:17 Addressing Fear & Psychological Safety in the Workplace27:41 Human Connection & The Role of AI in CX40:40 The Role of Accountability in Customer Service48:27 Key Advice Every CX Leader Needs to Hear –Are your teams facing growing demands? Join CX leaders transforming their AI strategy with Agentforce. Start achieving your ambitious goals. Visit salesforce.com/agentforce Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org
Chapter 1: Who is Stacy Sherman and what is her expertise?
Everybody listening, stop measuring satisfaction. Satisfaction is mediocre.
What patterns do you see the companies that are doing CX right do?
Chapter 2: Why is customer experience vital for business success?
They intentionally design the experiences based on real customer needs, not based on what the internal teams think. There's generosity. There's the desire to give more. And it's because you love the brand and the brand loves you back in action, not just words. So what's the cost of doing CX wrong? Acquisition sales is sexy. Retention, staying in the relationship, it takes work.
It's not an overnight thing. It's that consistency and that intentionality. That's where transformation happens. Own it. Don't pass it on to someone else. It's someone else's job, that department. Own it. It starts with you. You have a customer experience role, regardless of job title.
Chapter 3: What are the patterns of companies doing CX right?
Hello everyone, and welcome to Experts of Experience. I'm your host, Lauren Wood. Today, I am joined by Stacey Sherman. She is an author, advisor, professional speaker, as well as founder and host of the award-winning podcast, Doing CX Right. And as you can tell from that title, that is what we are going to dive into today is how to do CX right.
Stacey brings 25 years of experience leading teams at major brands like Verizon and AT&T. And something that I love about Stacey's work is how she really combines empathy with data-driven strategies using her heart and science framework. So we're going to dive into all of that today and really dive
understand the best practices of driving customer outcomes for CX leaders, as well as any business leader, because we know that CX does not stop in the CX function. It really impacts the company as a whole. So Stacey, I'm so excited to have you on the show. How are you doing? Great. And I love your recap.
You said it better than me.
I don't know about that, but we'll see how you do. Thank you. So Stacey, your name has been mentioned to me by multiple CX leaders who we've had on this show. And I wanted to just kick things off by asking you, why do you do what you do?
It is truly a passion. It's a lifestyle. When I was working in corporate for the past 25 years, I was continuing to breathe and think and do CX right. because I care both from a consumer perspective, frustrated by bad experiences that don't have to happen, but then also from within certain companies and departments that were frustrating that didn't have to happen.
So some people play golf at night and weekends. For me, I found myself blogging and podcasting and educating people. Whoever would listen to me, I was standing on the mountain, any mountain, just to help people understand that doing CX Right is in their control and make people care because it really impacts lives.
Mm-hmm. I could not agree more. I always say that the reason I do what I do and we do very similar work and helping people to learn about what great CX really entails is we're making the world a more enjoyable place. If people have good experiences.
They are able to live their lives in happier ways if we're having bad experiences that are frustrating, that anger us, that make us feel like we just can't get what we need to get done done. Life is just less enjoyable. So I appreciate you doing what you do. And I see you.
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Chapter 4: What is the cost of doing CX wrong?
They are intentionally designing experiences across an entire journey, how a customer learns and buys things. gets, uses, pays, get help, as we know, customer service, which is not the same thing as customer experience, but an important part. And so they intentionally design the experiences based on real customer needs, not based on what the internal teams think it could be or may be.
And they validate it with real customers. And then they fix the gaps where the needs are not addressed. They measure along those micro moments. And When they do it right, the people that have bought from them come back again and again. And the internal teams who are championing the brand, they stay and they keep championing the brand because they love it so much.
There's a lot to that. And we're going to get into all of it today. The thing that I want to start with is really thinking about the customer's needs, putting yourself into your customer's shoes and understanding what is it that they need throughout this journey. Through every step of the way, because like you said, it's not just like CX is not just, okay, how do we handle customer service?
It's the entire thing. How do we first approach our customer? How do we engage with them in the beginning? How do we bring them on board? How do we ensure that throughout their experience, we are thinking about what it is that they are here for and what they need from this experience for it to be something that they want to come back to.
Yeah, I was going to say my book coming out next month is literally the transformational journey management and the impact of that. It's not just the customer journey and it's not just journey map. It's really the holistic ecosystem of the journey from all the different stakeholders and partners and employees and the customers. It's an ecosystem.
And I think that's important for people to realize.
Mm-hmm. Well, tell us a little bit more about that. Tell us about the ecosystem and how you approach that and how you speak about it in your book.
Yeah, it's taking what I think has become a cliche word of journey map. We do journey mapping. Mm-hmm. That's kind of just a little bit of checking the box and not really understanding what it is and how you go deep and how does it actually design the experience that meets the customer needs. And it's an opportunity to learn.
not only just walk in your customer's shoes every micro moment and know that you're doing it right from each doorway of the learn awareness, as we call the marketing department might handle that, down the journey line. And And it's breaking the silos.
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Chapter 5: How important is emotional intelligence in CX?
It's showing the domino effect so that every team understands where they begin and end, but the effect, because what happens is a lot of times people focus on their role, their goals, and then they're just like done. And you can't be that way because it becomes so disjointed. A great example is, And by the way, I say ecosystem because it's your vendors, your partners, your interns.
It's everybody that's involved in this experience. So here's an example. Recently, I was on United Airlines and we were sitting on the runway. And it was about an hour waiting and not really knowing why. So there was a flight attendant that walked down the aisle and I said, do you know what's happening? When are we taking off or what's going on? And she said, I really don't know.
I'm kind of learning the way you are when the pilot gets on and tells us. I said, okay. So then I go onto the app, United app, and I see an explanation that they're working There's baggage that is like kind of in backlog trying to get onto the plane. So I'm like, oh, it's a baggage problem. Then I happen to go onto the website, not the app, and there's another reason.
So you have inconsistent reasons. For me, the customer sitting there frustrated, and I'm the lucky one because my neighbor next to me had to catch another flight, right? From when we land. So that inconsistency is not okay. And that's because the experience is disjointed. The communication is disjointed. The teams are working in silos and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing.
And that's not okay. That doesn't work.
It is something that I come across this so much in my work and whether it's a small startup or a very established company, we want to stay in the silos of each team because it creates clarity or it seems simpler if we say, okay, sales, you are focused on new business and customer success, you are focused on renewals and customer service, you're focused on tickets and everyone stays in their lane and then everything is simple and clear and we can do it.
The problem is, is that that's not what the customer experiences. They experience the company. They don't know or care that you're in that role or you're in that role or you do that or you do that. What matters to me is my experience. What matters to me is that consistent experience.
And so how can companies... I know this is a big topic and we're not going to solve the world right now, but how can companies start to break down those silos in the face of the customer while still keeping the... clarity internally about who owns what role or what piece of that customer's experience.
Yeah. So when I was working in all different companies, I remember going to different departments and asking them, what does doing CX right mean to you? And a very common answer was, well, I don't touch the customer. I'm back office, so it's not my job. And I would say, well, actually, let's sit down.
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Chapter 6: How can companies break down silos for better CX?
I've experienced that as a CX leader, as a customer service leader myself, so many times. And there is nothing more frustrating than No. To learn about something that your company is doing for the first time from your customer instead of your peers. You came up with the idea in the first place. There's nothing more frustrating.
No, that is doing CX wrong. And here's the thing, though. While people listening might realize, okay, that's intuitive, right? But also the reality is when I've been in certain companies and I said, let's do this, let's bring the different stakeholders to the table who are in charge of those departments and go through the journey and see the gaps.
A lot of times I would get pushback and say, you know what? We don't have budget for that right now. And I would say, how do you not have budget? How do you, first of all, it doesn't take, this isn't sophisticated technology. This is bringing humans to a room and really solid communication. But time, okay, it takes time to bring people out of their roles. and their day-to-day. And it's a cost.
It's a cost to actually not do this exercise and this practice because you're losing customers and then you're losing your team who are frustrated and not empowered.
So I do a lot of workshops, as I know you do as well, around customer experience and helping cross-functional teams to align on what the customer's needs are throughout the journey. Call it journey mapping, call it, I mean, there's many different ways or reasons that teams can come together.
But the point is, and I find honestly, no matter the workshop that I do, when we bring teams cross-functionally into one room to talk about the customer, It is one of the most... I mean, it's literally my favorite thing to do because it's one of those magical experiences for everyone involved to be able to say, oh, you see that too? Or I didn't know that you feel that way.
I didn't know that you're getting frustrated by the fact that we're rolling out these promotions and... You're not able to support the customer. And now I understand the impact that has on the customer. So I'm innately going to do something to help mitigate that because I can.
And just gaining the awareness of our actions and gaining the awareness of what it is that the customer really cares about so that teams can start to find their own solutions. is I think one of the most powerful things that companies can do.
It's really empowering your team to see the opportunities for improvement because they're getting outside of their little boxes of focus, which focus, I'm all for focus. I'm all for here's your role, here's what you need to do. But we have to step out of it sometimes so that we can really see the bigger picture and work together.
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Chapter 7: What are effective strategies for engaging passive customers?
And, but there were many human people who touched my tablet to get it into the box, into FedEx to me and didn't need the recognition, didn't look for the pat on the back, which I would have done. And so I made a TikTok to say, you know, thank you, whoever's out there, that there's really good people in the world. And this was an experience that the airline did, the human did, FedEx did.
It was this... multi-touch that did really good. So that stands out to me in this very moment. How did they know to send it to you? How did they know it was yours? My tablet, when you opened it, has my contact information. I didn't even remember doing that, but that was the only one.
Maybe it was also remarkable, like prompted you to do that. Who knows?
Exactly. It is a remarkable experience. So it makes sense to be a remarkable product. Completely. I hope remarkable is hearing this. Yeah.
And then my last question for you is what is one piece of advice that every customer experience leader should hear? Oh, own it.
Own it. Don't pass it on to someone else. It's someone else's job, that department. Own it. It starts with you. You have a customer experience role regardless of job title. Every leader is a customer experience leader. And you don't need leader in your title to be one.
Well, Stacey, thank you so much for coming on the show. I've learned so much. I love this conversation and I'm sure our listeners will as well. So I hope you have a wonderful day. Oh, and last but not least, how can folks find you?
Yes, I welcome it. So one is my website, doingcxright.com. And my newsletter, I'm giving tons of free wisdom and advice. I also have a free audit tool that I can give to you for the show notes. Amazing. People can take this and it'll give you a score of how... much you're doing right and where are some of the gaps and happy to discuss it.
So between my website, I'm on all the social channels, predominantly on LinkedIn, giving tips and tactics every day. Stacey Sherman. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Stacey. And I hope you have a wonderful day.
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