CX & Triathlon Training

Consistency is key - Trust the Process

I was out training last week and thought about how my dedication to the sport wasn’t dissimilar to those CX professionals executing their Customer Experience (CX) Fitness within their brand programmes. I've been working in the CX industry for over 7 years, and in a marketing role for over 15 years.

In order to succeed you need to set yourself achievable and realistic goals for that year. You may want to achieve greatness and be the next best thing, however realistically that will never happen overnight or within the first year of a strategic plan.

My personal objective this year was to qualify to represent my country in Triathlon for the European and World Championships.

Now we have an objective we need smaller goals which will lead us there.

My goals, which my coach and I believed could help me qualify and achieve my objective for the year were to achieve:

• sub 21 min 5km run

• sub 43 min 10k run

• sub 25 min 1500m swim

• sub 1:06 40km bike ride

This is what CX professionals should do - break down their objectives in three to five SMART goals which all contribute to the ultimate CX objective. These should be SMART, …. measurable, so we can easily track the progress. Have an objective such as ‘increase customer loyalty by x-amount in a certain time frame’ or ‘obtain new customers in a certain market’…

Nothing you haven’t heard before possibly…

But what about if I said that I would now block out the hours throughout the week, every week which allow me to train for each of these goals. Successful CX professionals will do this in order to achieve their CX Fitness.

For me, I know I need to do interval speed training, long endurance training, stretch and do yoga, and look at my weaknesses and dedicate time on strengthening work. These are your tactics to enable you to reach the goals.

How am I going to achieve my goals that lead to the objective? What will I need to do? AND most importantly WHEN, because for everything we do it needs consistency!

Consistency truly is key - whether it’s to get your body fitter, to get your mind more prepared, to learn something new or enhance skills, then we need to do it regularly. Furthermore, businesses have an extra reason to be consistent, to enhance the brand perception - if you are doing something regularly it becomes the brand value and what that a brand truly stands for.

So focus on what you can control to achieve those goals, and do them consistently because I guarantee if you do, you will succeed.

And lastly, just like CX professionals I rely a lot on the support from others and from data to drive and adapt my plan. Working with a team, a solar system around me as an athlete who watch and measure my actions and fitness levels. CX professionals are doing the same, managing the data and patterns to develop and enhance the service, product or experience for their customers.

Trust the process my coach tells me, development takes patience and time which I truly believe. I’ve invested in great technology to show me the all important data I need, so I can firmly trust my process.