A global community for CX professionals: interview with Diane Magers CXPA – E10

Diane Magers, CXPA president and CEO, shares her insight on CX industry trends and the evolving professional field. Learn about the CX career development resources that are available for global CX practitioners as Diane and Julia discuss the role of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) in growing the profession.

Customer experience is a relatively new profession. Some larger businesses have established a CX team, but others have just one or two dedicated resources – and that’s in mature markets like the US and Europe. In developing markets, CX is still gaining traction. This means that the number of CX practitioners is continually growing, but that many in the field are still working in relative isolation, Diane Magers, CXPA president is on a mission to remedy this.

You’re not crazy, and you’re not alone

Thanks to the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), the growing global number of CX practitioners have an international network that they can tap into. Founded in 2011 by CX thought leaders Jeanne Bliss, Bruce Temkin and others, the CXPA strives to support CX professionals through knowledge sharing, networking, and career development. The CXPA also established a CX philosophy around 6 core competencies, which became the basis for the CCXP certification. These conceptual foundations and community network helped provide structure to the evolution of a burgeoning field of work.

As the field of CX continues to gain steam in South Africa, I have personally been involved with efforts to grow the local CXPA network. Through this, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with the CXPA leadership team based in the US, including the CXPA’s CEO, Diane Magers.

A leader and a calling

Diane Magers

Diane has over 25 years experience transforming customer experiences – everything from front line to infrastructure – working in and with brands such as Sysco, AT&T, Dale Carnegie, Invisalign, Ciena, Freeman, Sodexho, Sandy Spring Bank and MoneyGram. She is a passionate customer experience executive and change agent. In addition to being the CEO for the Customer Experience Professionals Association, Diane speaks and conducts workshops all over the world to help transform CX strategy into action.

Diane has been actively involved with the CXPA since day one and is a driving force behind the association’s ongoing evolution, including strategies for supporting international CX communities as the profession grows and takes root in new regions. Diane will be visiting South Africa to speak at the 2018 CEM Summit, South Africa’s longest-standing CX conference. In the lead-up to her visit, we had the opportunity to have a conversation about the CXPA, her insights on the genesis of the Age of the customer, and her vision for the future of the association.

Decoding the Customer is a series of customer experience podcasts created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is a customer experience strategist, speaker and business advisor. She is one of Southern Africa’s foremost experts in Customer Experience Management. For more information about Julia’s services including her customer experience analysis methodologies, click here. To hear other episodes of  this CX podcast, click here.