THE CX IMPERATIVE

Management consultants Fithian and Rosenberg offer a manifesto for businesses aiming to refocus on the customer experience.

The authors argue that modern corporations are deeply out of touch with their customers, and they call this “The Great Distancing”; in their view, big companies have philosophically and operationally drifted away from creating a valuable customer experience (or CX), preferring to focus on shareholders and optimize internal processes. This puts firms at risk of becoming irrelevant, they assert, by missing opportunities and alienating customers. Mainstream management theories and business models focus too much on efficiency and siloed operations, they note, and not enough on delivering long-term, meaningful CX. The book proposes five areas (insights, strategy, blueprints, operating models, and culture) into which one must incorporate CX to counter this phenomenon. According to the authors, CX shouldn’t be a department or set of marketing tactics, but rather the substance of the entire business: Every product, interaction, and relationship, they say, needs to be part of it. The book provides assessment tools and practical frameworks to help leaders make this a reality. Overall, the authors present CX as a companywide capability that can drive growth, employee engagement, and operational efficiency. Stylistically, the book is clear, well-organized, and propelled by clear enthusiasm. The writing is concise and pragmatic, with bullet points galore, which will make it accessible to practitioners and executives alike. Issues such as corporate inertia, systems thinking, and empathy are explored at length, and convincing statistics and real-world anecdotes round out the arguments. At times, the “CX Champion” rhetoric romanticizes business challenges, and readers looking for empirical rigor or industry-specific playbooks may feel the advice to be somewhat conceptual. The book also often feels like a pitch for the authors’ consulting services. Still, it’s a convincing call for business leaders to work differently.

An often effective argument for the importance of customer experience.