Eric Smuda has built a distinguished career based on the belief that taking care of customers to drive organic growth is the most reliable way to help companies succeed. In his various roles, he has focused on translating the voice of the customer into operational improvements, new product and service introductions, and transformational customer experiences that have led to market share, revenue and profitability growth. The list of companies he has worked for as a CX leader or consultant represents some of the most well-known brands in the world: Hertz, Avis Budget, Hewlett Packard, Walgreens, Duke Energy, Humana, Mattress Firm, and TopGolf, among others. He is currently the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) for Likewize, a device protection company in Dallas, TX.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CXO Magazine, Eric shared his professional trajectory, insights on the role of customer experience in shaping the future of business, significant career milestones, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Eric. What inspired you to pursue a career in customer experience, and what motivates you to continue driving CX innovation and growth?
My father had a long career in market research, and growing up I used to ask him why he did what he did and why it was so important. And he would tell me that what he did helped determine what customers want and how they want it and that this would determine what products companies would make and try to sell. So I’ve always had this core belief that taking care of customers is the best way to grow a company. And that starts with understanding customer needs, wants and expectations, delivering against those – or hopefully exceeding those – in order to drive repeat purchases and long-time value. We all know that it is far cheaper to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. And then if you believe in the power of referrals – the premise of the Net Promoter movement – your existing customers become your marketing budget by telling their friends and family about your company.
What motivates me to continue driving innovation and growth is that customer expectations are constantly changing. I worked in the rental car industry just as apps were really starting to take off. We used to talk all the time about how the Starbucks app or the Amazon e-commerce experiences were setting customer expectations for our industry. Being better than our rental car competition was not enough because the bar was being raised by companies outside of our industry. These days we have expectations around self-service and 24/7 convenience and availability. There is plenty of data out there that indicates consumers prefer to solve their own problems and will do less business with you, or even abandon your business, if they can’t self-serve or have to wait too long for service from your company.
What do you love the most about your current role?
Working with people all across the company. As the Chief Experience Officer, you influence everything that touches customers, whether that is communications, our staff, operations, supply chain, customer care, etc. So, you are working collaboratively with people all across the company in every function to ensure we deliver the best customer experience that we can. There is a quote by former minister Halford Luccock that says, “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” And that is what being a CXO is about, getting the entire orchestra to create your customer experience.
Moving forward, what role do you believe customer experience will play in shaping the future of business?
Customer experience is the growth engine for your company and always will be. In the last 20 to 30 years, we have created this profession called CX with a cottage industry of tools and platforms and methodologies. But let’s be honest, customer experience goes back to the early days of trading, when the silk and spice traders in Asia would go to India or the Middle East. You found partners and traders that you could trust to do business with, and you learned who not to do business with.
The notion of understanding customer needs and expectations and delivering against those is not going away. Those who do that better will always win and generate growth. Sure, the technologies and techniques have, and will continue to, change, but this basic premise has existed for thousands of years. So let me repeat, customer experience is and always will be the growth engine of companies.
What is your leadership philosophy and how do you keep team engaged and motivate them?
I try to be an authentic servant leader. Leadership to me is about painting a vision of what we want to accomplish or where we want to be and how we are going to get there and then building the right team and enabling them to do their best work to achieve those goals. At an individual level, I want to understand what makes a person tick; what interests them, what motivates them, what goals they have. Then it is about balancing and meeting both the business and personal goals.
What has been your most career-defining moment that you are proud of?
We often see athletes break records or achieve career milestones and get asked to reflect on the achievement. So many of them say something to the effect of “Now is not the time to consider that. I will reflect on that when I am done with the game.” And I feel that way too. And who knows, maybe I haven’t had my defining moment yet, or there is a better one coming.
That said, I’ve done a lot of things that I am proud of. I had my own consulting company that started from scratch, and I’ve led corporate functions in Fortune 100 companies. Most important to me are the relationships that I’ve built along the way and the people I’ve helped or mentored and continue to do so.
How would you describe your leadership style?
Approachable and collaborative. I want my team to know that I have their back, but I also want them to know that I will make the time to listen to them, understand their issues or challenges and help them find solutions or growth. And as a CX leader, you have to be collaborative across the organization. The nature of CX is that you are working across the traditional organizational silos and trying to ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in delivering the customer experience.
What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a CX leader?
For me it is about staying on top of new technologies to see how they can be applied to enable the customer experience. And I also pay attention to the experiences that other companies have and who is doing innovative or smart things to deliver a better experience or solve an operational issue. My wife gets frustrated with me when we go out because I can’t not see poor experiences and what a business should be doing differently. And I will admit to getting impatient with that. On the positive side, I have dozens of pictures on my phone from great ideas or experiences that I want to remember and see if or how I can incorporate them into what I am working on.
What are your passions outside of work?
I have been bitten by the pickleball bug, so that is a passion of mine. It is a great game that combines social interaction, exercise, and the spirit of competition. And it keeps you young and healthy.
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
A tiger doesn’t change its stripes, so I will always be doing something related to customer experience. With persistence, and maybe some luck along the way, we will have driven significant growth for Likewize and be considering our future as a much bigger company.
What advice would you give to organizations looking to drive CX transformation and growth, and what are some common pitfalls to avoid?
- Start with talking to your customers and customers in your market. Understand what they really want and need. Where are their expectations being met and where are you or your competitors falling short? And continue talking with them. Take them on your journey and ask for their feedback along the way.
- Have patience. It takes time to drive real and lasting change. Customer perceptions don’t change overnight. I believe it takes at least three experiences for a customer to change their mind or perception about your company and the experience it delivers. If you have a mediocre or poor experience, the first time they experience something better, they tend to think “maybe I got lucky this time.” The second time they start to think “maybe it wasn’t a coincidence; maybe something is changing here.” And the third time they believe that change has truly happened.
The other thing about patience is what many of us call the “dreaded year two.” It is relatively easy to fix low hanging fruit and make quick changes and see results. But then things stagnate a bit because you have solved the easy things to change or implement. In that figurative “year 2,” you are now working on larger projects, with more cross-functional involvement, and working things that take longer to fix. Some companies get stuck on that plateau and don’t have the patience or discipline to manage through that.
In terms of pitfalls, I will highlight two:
The first is to avoid is what I call “scoreboard watching.” Too many companies are focused on their score – their NPS, the OSAT rating, etc. – and reporting that out in their weekly or monthly reports. What is more important is what you are learning from your customers about their needs and expectations and most importantly, what changes you are driving in your business as a result. If you are doing those two things – learning and driving continuous improvement – with diligence, the score will take care of itself.
And the other is being too focused on break/fix and not designing the best customer experience for the future. What I mean by that is you must not only fix the broken areas of today’s experience – some of the low-hanging fruit I talked about earlier – but also thinking on the positive side about what you want your experience to be and designing that instead of just fixing today’s issues.