Because it is impossible to reach global performance without mastering the subject of experience, CXB HUB aims to help companies and their CEOs bridge the gap between their vision and the customer and employee experience. Explanations of Claire Bonniol and Alexis Grabar (MBA.02), founders of CXB HUB.

CXB HUB aims at targeting “the CX gap”. Can you tell us more about that concept and why you have decided to help companies face this strategic challenge?

A gap exists between the vision of the CEOs and what the customers actually experience. Business has changed from selling products to selling services, experiences and ideas. Nowadays, when there is an issue with the results, CEOs do not always know where to look.

They tend to think that everything is fine with their products/services, yet customers are disappointed and expect much more, and easily switch to other brands. While it is becoming obvious that successful CEOs in the future will be advocates of customer experience, we have also noticed an interesting trend confirming that the CX gap is a major concern among large organizations and fast-growing companies, particularly those operating across cultures: an increase of 300 % in the number of Customer Experience Officers hires in 2019.

Furthermore, while it is common sense to say that if a company can deliver a better customer experience, it will also be in a position to deliver a better employee experience, this is not necessarily the case. It is not so easy to connect the two. We have therefore created CXB HUB to help support these transitions and connections. We believe that customer experience programs should be interdisciplinary, and based on the idea that engaged employees and happy customers are linked. We are at the intersection of these gaps and issues, and design end-to-end solutions that are bespoke, scalable and focused on driving customer experience and profitability.

What are the main aspects you are focusing on?

Our work focuses on 3 main aspects: – the relationship between customers and employees to increase the level of service: this is the core of what CXB HUB does ; – the balance between the human touch and the technology solutions: as companies go through technological transformation (digital, AI, blockchain), we help them keep people at the centre of these changes ; – the impact of improving customer, employee and brand experience with clear and relevant KPIs: the idea is to be able to measure our impact on subjects which are difficult to quantify.

“We bring large companies new ways of building in-house capabilities that improve the overall customer and employee experience”

How can you help Fortune 500 companies on these questions? Can you give us examples?

Concretely, we bring large companies new ways of building in-house capabilities that improve the overall customer and employee experience. For instance, we have worked for AUCHAN in Romania, and then in Russia and China on a Customer Excellence Program. For these emerging markets, the idea was to improve the level of the customer experience to reach global standards. In Russia therefore, we established benchmarks, set up the program with a steering committee including HR, Customer Experience Innovation, Marketing and different stores representatives, and issued a new way to deal with the standards of customer relationship. This was implemented at the manager and employee level through a pilot in 4 stores in Moscow, to test the methodology and improve this relationship. With Eurotunnel (leader in cross- Channel transport for passenger vehicles and for trucks), we worked on a strategic program named “Simply Better”, which was triggered by the CMO and the COO to improve the customer experience. With the help of Hiveworks (a member of our hub) we analysed the customer and staff feedbacks and behaviours. With a dedicated Eurotunnel project group, we mapped out how the service is delivered on a daily basis and how it should be in the future, taking into account the traffic level and its technical possible disruptions. We and Eurotunnel teams have turned all of this information and thinking into an innovative app that is now used by staff to improve the way they handle customers. We have also trained first line managers and internal trainers in the UK and France to help them develop further the customercentricity.

How would you describe your added value?

We put people at the centre of the strategy and empower employees to deliver powerful customer experience, enabled by innovative technologies. The idea is to accelerate and increase the impact on the bottom line by connecting customer experience and employee engagement. We find the right balance between technologies, digital solutions and people. We are completely focused on these aspects. Our clients appreciate our passion for this subject and the way we work with them to build their internal capability and develop tangible results.

You have designed a 2025 vision for your start-up. What are your ambitions and objectives? What are therefore your main challenges?

Our aim is for CXB HUB to grow to 5 millions euros in 10 countries with 3 local offices: London, Paris and Shanghai, with a 15 people team and 15 Fortune 500 clients. In the next 3 years, we are also hoping to expand to China and Russia, where we already have programs running with clients, and have invested into researching and preparing the development of our own technology to support these programs. Indeed, we believe customer experience and transformation accelerate faster in these emerging markets.

What advice can you give to our readers that are interested in this topic of customer experience?

If tech and innovation can help a business grow better and faster, the people remain at the core of this. The main challenge is to find the right balance. For CEOs who are leading the company, this is difficult because of the surrounding bias. To accelerate progress, it is useful to involve experts with a successful track record and the ability to deploy experiences and best practices from different companies, industries and regions. We can help them design a solution that is scalable and will give them access to the best digital tools on the market, but one that is also adjustable, through the continual analysis of live variables and feedback to improve the program. And remember, engaging every member of the team on a human level is the root of all change and progress.

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