Data access is the fuel for customer experience initiatives and was a three-year battle at Cisco, requiring persistent effort to overcome departmental silos. Andrew Carruthers shares insights from his 17 years at Cisco, where he led digital CX strategy during their transition from hardware to software.

• Lack of corporate mandate for the CS function created alignment challenges
• Getting access to customer data took three years due to departmental silos
• The most effective approach was focusing on business metrics rather than satisfaction scores
• Low renewal rates were solved by simply notifying customers about contract expirations
• Creating a separate CRM system was a mistake that created additional silos
• Customer experience should be positioned as a growth engine, not just satisfaction
• Adoption is critical to prevent products from being cut during tech stack consolidations
• With Gen AI, they expanded localization to reach new markets like Arabic-speaking customers
• Consistency in experience matters more than occasional "surprise and delight" moments
• Experience is often the primary reason customers leave, not product functionality

Follow Andrew Carothers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-carothers/

Shoutouts:

Digital Hesitation by JB Wood & Thomas Lah (TSIA) – Book recommendation by Andrew; outlines how to operationalize digital customer experience

Digital Customer Success Podcast — https://digitalcustomersuccess.com/

CX Passport Podcast –https://www.cxpassport.com/

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