The Exponential CX Team

What does it take for a customer experience team to produce 50x the value with a fraction of the people? It takes a move to the power core of its organization.

In today's edition of the CX Patterns podcast and newsletter, I want to share a case study bringing to life the value of Jeanne Bliss's classic concept of the Power Core.

For the past year, I’ve been observing and learning from an interesting customer experience team case study. The team, like so many others recently, was downsized from dozens of team members to just a small handful.

It lost a charismatic leader, was stripped of some its core functions, had its work and value questioned, and the remaining team members were reorged.

It’s that last part of the story that deviates a bit from the all too familiar story of other teams. Because this CX team was moved into the Power Core of its company.

The same people doing the same work but in a different spot can move the world.

What Is The Power Core? 

If you not familiar with This concept, it was coined and described by the OG Chief Customer Officer, Jeanne Bliss. She explained the importance of a CX team being able to “dance with the power core of its organization.” The power core of every company can be different – yours could be a product-driven org, or it could be that engineering, sales, or marketing run the show. Whichever department it is, CX teams need to be aligned to the power core to have any chance of influence. Even better if they’re located within the power core.

Every organization has a Power Core - whether it's Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing or some other department.

Change Your Place In The Org - Change Your Leverage

Coming back to our case study, this CX team was reorged into the power core of its organization, and since then, its value-creation has exploded. The work of 4 is now more impactful than previously the work of 40 had been.

Let’s break down the math of what happened to them:

Projects executed:

• Before: 4 people per project, 1 project per quarter.

• Now: 1 person per project, 8 projects per quarter.

8x increase in number of projects completed.

Why? Because, everything the team did was questioned and doubted. And so the team had to overstaff on all projects to run interference with the political infighting of the org, and had to overstaff to overcommunicate with all of the skeptical stakeholders and partners.

Today, as members of the power-core of the organization, the value and validity of the team’s work is assumed, not questioned.

Implementation Of Recommendations:

So they complete 8x the projects, but that doesn’t matter if their work doesn’t turn into useable insights that are translated into tangible improvements for customers, right? Right.

• Before: 25% chance recommendations got implemented

• Now: 75% chance recommendations get implemented

In the power-core, they’ve seen a 3x spike to 75% likelihood. Yes, some projects still don’t lead to change, but sometimes that’s a feature not a bug, as you can discover that the change isn’t needed, or wont’ make a big difference to customers, to business results or both.

The likelihood of change outside of the power-core has gone up 6x, from 1 in 10, to 6 out of 10 times that the project leads to substantive change. Cross-functional partners are far more likely to work with and listen to a team located in the Power Core.

Blended together, and yes, this is simple math, but if we assume a 50/50 split in terms of importance of impact from the power core and everywhere else, then it’s a 4.5 x increase in impact on 8x more projects.

Speed To Implementation Increased:

But wait, there’s more. The speed at which these recommendations are getting implemented has doubled, which means that the team is seeing it’s insights taken up almost immediately by teams across the organization, cutting from 6 months to 3 months the time it takes.

8x x 4.5 x 2 x is 60x. Let’s be conservative and say it’s a 50x increase in impact from moving to the power-core of the organization.

50X Is The Beginning, Not The End Of The Increase In Value

This is the value of the Power Core in action. This case study continues too as this team is still there, and it’s influence and impact continues to grow. What can you do with this information?

Well, first make sure you know where the power core of your company is. You should already know this, but if you can’t answer, figure it out.

Then, do everything you can to partner more closely with that part of the org, and look for opportunities to make the case for your team to move into that part of the org.

If that doesn’t work, and you’re looking for your next great opportunity, make sure you investigate the power cores of the companies you’re looking at. Don’t join a team in marketing at a product-driven organization. Don’t agree to start a CX team in marketing if the real power lies elsewhere.

Be smart about the power-core. It has so much power, which is in the name after all, to determine your fate.