Navigating the ambiguity of CX

Customer Experience (CX) is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot but rarely lands with clarity. Part of the reason is that CX is not a single thing. It is an aggregation of moments.

An experience (the X in CX) is less like a “thing” and more like a chemical reaction. It happens when someone encounters your service through a website, a conversation with staff, a piece of marketing, or even a story told by a friend. These reactions build up to form a lasting perception.

To make sense of CX, it helps to start with something people already understand: brand. A brand is not defined by a logo or a tagline, though those are the visible cues. Brand is the meaning people attach to an organisation, built over time from everything they have seen, heard, and felt. Take Nike: the swoosh is iconic, but the real brand lives in the moments we have witnessed, such as the world’s greatest athletes wearing it, the history of investment in sport, the mix of sharp product design and polished marketing. All of those interactions accumulate into what “Nike” means to someone.

CX works the same way. It is not one interaction, but the overall perception of a service or offering. It is shaped by:

• What people hear about you before they ever engage

• How expectations are set, and whether they are met

• The feel of the very first interaction

• The speed, tone, and quality of a response when something goes wrong

Just like brand, CX is the sum of all signals. The difference is that where brand is perception at a high level, CX is the lived reality of engaging with your service. That reality is complex and often ambiguous, but understanding it is the foundation of building meaningful connections.

What a good CX engagement looks like

One of the biggest challenges with CX is that no one inside an organisation holds the full picture. Leaders see strategy. Frontline teams see pain points. Marketing sees brand signals. Operations sees processes. Everyone holds a part of the story, but nobody sees it end to end. That is why CX work is often messy.

Most organisations have already tried to “fix CX” in some way, through data dashboards, a new digital initiative, or a strategy document. The issue is that these efforts usually stop short. Dashboards describe the problem but do not change behaviour. Strategies outline intent but do not dictate specific actions. Digital projects are often built in isolation from the rest of the experience. It is no wonder many CX initiatives stall or quietly fade away.

That is where bringing in experts helps. The role of a CX partner is not just to add more data or another layer of strategy. It is to connect the dots across the business and translate ambition into something actionable.

A good CX engagement should:

• Be a shared learning experience. Researchers, strategists, and designers work side by side with internal teams, uncovering truths together rather than handing down findings.

• Deliver actionable outputs. Assets such as CX roadmaps, experience documentation, and guiding principles that can actually be used to prioritise and act.

• Enable smooth transitions. From external practitioners to program delivery teams, or better still, ongoing partnership between the two.

• Build momentum. Ensuring the work does not just live in reports, but becomes part of how the organisation makes decisions and delivers services.

At the heart of it, CX is not an abstract discipline. It is fundamentally simple: understanding what matters to people and delivering it in a way that is true to your organisation. The outcome is not another dashboard, it is meaningful human connections. That is the measure of success.

How we make sense of CX

Here are some of the tried and tested approaches we use. If you are tackling CX yourself, these are worth trying. And if you are working with a vendor, these are the things you should expect them to bring to the table.

Listening to the whole organisation

Numbers can tell you what is happening, but not why. To really understand CX, you have to hear from the people delivering it. What are they capable of? Where are they stretched? What do they actually care about? Often, the most powerful insights come from stories, small artefacts of how the organisation shows up for customers. These stories cut through more sharply than any vision statement or communications plan because they are real, lived proof of the experience.

Building hypothetical views early

Most organisations are not starting from a blank slate. There is usually a trail of reports, customer data, and even past initiatives that did not quite land. Rather than ignore these, we use them to move quickly. By creating hypothetical versions of the final assets early, such as draft experience maps, early roadmaps, and strawman blueprints, we give everyone a glimpse of the bigger picture. These are not final answers, but working hypotheses that teams can interrogate, test, and refine. The effect is faster learning and earlier momentum.

Equipping teams with practical tools

Insights and strategies only matter if they can be lived day to day. That is why we focus as much on designing for those delivering the service as we do for the end user. The role of CX experts is to leave behind usable resources such as playbooks, principles, guidelines, or templates that teams can pilot and adapt. This becomes even more important as AI takes over routine processes. Without clear documentation and practical tools, valuable intent gets lost in the handover.

A simple path through the complexity 

CX is often discussed but rarely understood. At its core, it is simple: know what matters to people and deliver it in a way that is authentic to your organisation. Done well, this creates momentum, not just reports. The goal is not more dashboards. The goal is meaningful human connections. That is what customers remember, not the swoosh.