Meaningful Measurement of the Customer Experience

Customer experience has become the primary method of competitive differentiation between most brands today. While most companies claim that customers and their needs drive decisions and priority within their organizations, when it comes time to prioritize customer needs, it can often be more difficult and less clear exactly how and what to do.

There are several reasons for this, and these reasons form the foundation of Meaningful Measurement of the Customer Experience. The book provides guidance on how to create a customer-centric culture that prioritizes customer needs while aligning internal teams around a common goal. It also provides a framework to create a system of meaningful measurement that can not only improve the customer experience by holistically looking at the customer journey, but provide a sustainable method for analysis and optimization with a more agile approach to continuous improvement. This provides internal teams with the metrics and justification they need to continue improving the customer experience, creates a collaborative, customer-centric culture aligned around common goals, and ultimately benefits the customers, who buy, buy more, buy more often, and tell others about their experiences.

Drawing on Kihlström's experience working with top organizations, as well as dozens of interviews with Fortune 1000 customer experience leaders for this book and his podcast, The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström, the secrets of planning, implementing, analyzing, and improving great customer experience in a sustainable way are demystified and made practical.

Meaningful Measurement of the Customer Experience is Kihlström's eighth book, following The Center of Experience (2020), and his Agile series, which started with 2016's The Agile Web, followed by The Agile Brand (2018), The Agile Consumer (2019), and The Agile Workforce (2021). It is his third book on customer and employee experience, following Digital Delight, which was compiled from a series of his articles and released in 2019.

Greg is a best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur, currently an advisor and consultant to top companies on customer experience, employee experience, and digital transformation initiatives as Principal and Chief Strategist at GK5A. Previously he sold his award-winning digital experience agency, Carousel30, in 2017. Before, during, and after that, he has worked with some of the world's top brands, including AOL, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, GEICO, Marriott, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota, and VMware.

He is a member of the School of Marketing Faculty at the Association of National Advertisers, currently serves on the University of Richmond's Customer Experience Advisory Board, was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation's National Innovation Committee, and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board. Greg is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified, is an Agile Certified Coach (ICP-ACC) and holds a certification in Business Agility (ICP-BAF).

Greg's newest book, The Agile Workforce (2021) explores the current and future state of the workforce and envisions a world where individuals thrive in a new world of work opportunities enabled by technology, decentralization, and a shift in the power dynamics between employers and employees. His previous book, The Center of Experience (2020) talks about how customer and employee experience can be operationalized into a cohesive brand experience. Greg's previous book, The Agile Consumer (2019) explores the most recent shifts in the brand-consumer relationship and how companies must become more agile across their entire operation to remain successful. The Agile Brand (2018), follows the evolution of branding from its beginnings to the authentic relationship with brands that modern consumers want, and gives practical examples of what you can do to create a more modern, agile brand while staying true to your core values. His podcast, The Agile World with Greg Kihlström, launched in early 2019 and discusses brand strategy, marketing, and customer experience with some of the world's leading experts and leaders.

Greg is a regular contributing writer to Forbes and CMSWire, and has been featured in publications such as Advertising Age, SmartCEO, Website Magazine, and The Washington Post. Greg was named a DC Inno 2018 50 on Fire winner as a DC trendsetter in Marketing. He's participated as a keynote speaker and panelist at industry events around the world including Internet Week New York, Internet Summit, EventTech, SMX Social Media, Social Media Week, Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit, ABA Bank Marketing Summit, and VMworld. He has guest lectured at several schools including VCU Brandcenter, Georgetown University, Duke University, American University, University of Maryland, Howard University, and Virginia Tech. Greg Melia, CAE, is CXPA's chief executive officer. Greg works with the CXPA Board of Directors to ensure the health of CXPA's culture, strengthen its position as the trusted source for all things CX, and leads the CXPA staff to support the vibrant, growing world-wide CXPA community. Greg is a Certified Association Executive, with 20 years of association management experience.