As organizations seek to ensure success, an increasing number are adopting customer experience as the cornerstone of sustainable return on their investments of time and money. With interest in customer experience on the rise, the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2021 by dramatically expanding its role as the trusted independent professional association. CXPA is committed to equipping and empowering its members with the knowledge and skills to lead organizational customer experience strategies.
CXPA is uniquely qualified to be a trusted advisor on customer experience due to its status as a consensus-based nonprofit organization. Founded in 2011 in Boston, CXPA has grown to become a worldwide community of over 40,000 CX advocates in more than 70 countries worldwide. Since 2014, it has issued the Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) credential, a vendor-agnostic professional certification that establishes a common framework for assessing CX knowledge. CXPA is led by a Board of Directors drawn from leading organizations across the globe, including 2021 Officers and newly elected Board members:
New 2021 Board Members
- Jayalakshmi Sudarshan, CCXP, Customer Experience Leader, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, India
- Mark Ratekin, CCXP, Global CX Principal Director, Confirmit
- Mark Slatin, CCXP, SVP Director of Client Experience, Sandy Spring Bank
- Roxie Strohmenger, CCXP, Vice President, Customer Experience Strategy, UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group)
- Stacey Nevel, CCXP, Voice of the Customer Director, Prudential Financial
2021 Board Officers
- Chair: Barbie Fink, CCXP
- Vice Chair: Nancy Porte, CCXP, Global Customer Experience VP, Verint
- Treasurer: Tabitha Dunn, CCXP, Chief Customer Officer, Sweden
- Immediate Past Chair: Annette Franz, CCXP, Founder/CEO, CX Journey, Inc.
“CXPA members are customer experience thought leaders who come together to support each other in sharing ideas and information that help strengthen and advance customer experience practices in every sector around the globe,” said Barbie Fink, CCXP, CXPA 2021 Chair.
Recent CXPA priorities have included adopting consensus definitions to eliminate confusion about key terms, including:
- Customer Experience (CX) refers to the perception that customers have of an organization – one that is formed based on interactions across all touchpoints, people, and technology over time.
- A CX professional is a catalyst who enhances an organization’s results by understanding, designing, and improving experiences across the entire customer relationship.
Additional definitions and advice for organizations seeking to utilize customer experience as a strategy can be found at http://www.whatiscx.com.
During 2020, CXPA welcomed over 10,000 new social media followers and launched new member Networks in Dubai, India, Australia, United States and Canada. It began offering the CCXP examination through online remote proctoring, and surpassed 1,000 certified individuals. After extensive member listening, its Board adopted a new mission: “We support CX professionals to share, learn, inspire, and grow throughout their entire career.”
Key 2021 initiatives include building bridges between the CX community and institutions of higher learning, developing guidance to help CX professionals develop and execute CX strategy in accord with community consensus practices, and celebrating CXPA’s 10th Anniversary, anchored by CX Day on Tuesday October 5, 2021. CXPA has also introduced new membership options to better serve the varying needs of organizations, offering both individual and team memberships from only $225 per year. More information is available at https://www.cxpa.org/joincxpa .
“As we enter 2021, I am filled with optimism and hope because of the vibrant and supportive CXPA community that is committed to ensuring customer experiences that deliver better results for companies and their customers. When customer experience professionals are empowered, good things happen,” said CXPA Chief Executive Officer Greg Melia, CAE.