International Women’s Day 2022 is here! To mark the day, we asked some of our women in customer experience (CX) for the best career advice they’d like to share with our readers. Hopefully these ideas will help you take your career to the next level.
We asked our female CX leaders, “What advice do you have for female professionals starting their career in customer experience?”
Here’s what we heard:
Tip #1: Take Control of Your Career
Wing Poon, VoC & CX Strategy Lead at Medibank
“Restructuring has become a norm which you will encounter at some point in your career. Don’t feel you have to fit into or accept a role that is not what you wanted. Shape your role proactively by talking to your manager and review your career goals and skill set every year to see if you are still growing. If not, it might be time to find another role.”
Tip #2: Bring the Passion!
Trish Roberts, Voice of the Customer Programme Manager at New Zealand Post
“Bring your passion and care to the role. It’s been instrumental in driving engagement from stakeholders and continually connects me back to my reasons for building a career in this sector. Ultimately, my goal is to improve the customer and organisational experience. I also feel when you bring that fire and passion to everything you do in customer experience it makes it a truly exciting and fulfilling place to be!”
Tip #3: Take a Risk
Wing Poon, VOC & CX Strategy Lead at Medibank
“Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs even if your skill set doesn’t 100% fit the job description—because no one’s will perfectly fit!”
Tip #4: Know Your Worth
Wing Poon, VOC & CX Strategy Lead at Medibank
“Don’t be afraid to proactively ask for a promotion and a raise. Arm yourself with evidence of achievements and market salary information for negotiations.”
Tip #5: Take Opportunities When They Surface
Linda Broady, Customer Success Director at Pearl-Plaza APAC
“I discovered my passion for customer experience early in my career, but getting a foothold in the field meant taking on a couple of specialist and operational CX roles before ultimately landing my dream role as Head of CX. My passion for customer experience has since led me in other directions, enabling me to further broaden my experience and in my current role, share that experience with my clients.”
Tip #6: Be Human
Renee Jeffery, Senior Customer Experience Manager, ahm
“I believe the last two years, more than ever, have demanded we put the ‘human’ back into the corporate world. We have seen pets, family, and home space merge with our work space. So, my advice to anyone starting out in the CX space is to not shy away from bringing the human into your work. Customer experience (and work in general) is so much richer when we are all our authentic selves, always.”
Tip #7: Find Your Tribe
Trish Roberts, Voice of the Customer Programme Manager at New Zealand Post
“Surround yourself with interesting, creative and intelligent women, who lift each other up. I’m lucky to have worked with some incredibly collaborative and respected women over my career who I have learnt from and passed those skills on to others. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.”
Tip #8: Bring Others Along the Journey
Morgan Jackson, Senior Customer Feedback Specialist, ACC
“Passion, resilience, relationships, and empathy are the four words that resonate with me as I reflect on my career in CX. Everyone I engaged with when establishing our VoC program advised us not to underestimate the culture change required to implement. If you are prepared to take the time to bring others on the journey with you, understand their challenges, explore solutions together this will result in better outcomes that enable your success long term.”
