Unf*cking Your CX #61 - You Don’t Need a ‘Way of Working’ #CollabEdition

CX Pros: You Don’t Need Another Framework. You Need a Reality Check.

Let’s be real.

Most CX teams are busy perfecting the way they work. While the rest of the business is sprinting to hit targets, cut costs, or unblock ops.

We’ve built org charts, dashboards, and playbooks so polished they sparkle.

But the result?

Disconnected motions. Disjointed teams. Derailed execution.

Tim Thijsse (TT) has been deep in the trenches—across in-house teams, agencies, IT squads, and CX collectives. He’s seen it all:

• The SEO guy flexing about irrelevant traffic
• The IT team launching tools with zero input from customer-facing teams
• The app team selling more than eComm, triggering a political turf war
• The click-happy campaign that sends traffic to an empty cart page

Every team optimizing for their own scoreboard—not the customer.

It’s time to grow up. Not with another maturity model. But with a system that aligns how the business actually works.

What’s F*cked: CX Maturity in Isolation

Let’s get brutally honest.

The idea of “CX maturity” has become just another framework fantasy.

It looks great in a 60-slide deck. It maps nicely into a color-coded heatmap. It checks the box in your annual strategy refresh.

But when CX maturity is framed in isolation—outside of the business operating model—it creates more theater than traction.

Let’s break it down:

Disconnected Dashboards

You’ve got a gorgeous dashboard: NPS, journey scores, theme tags.

But Ops has a different dashboard.

Finance doesn’t even know yours exists.

And Product? They archived your last Notion update 3 months ago.

If your metrics don’t ladder up to business goals—they’re ignored.

Insight Theater

You’re tagging themes. Shipping sentiment. Running feedback loops.

But let’s be honest—you’re not driving prioritization. You’re narrating friction, not removing it.

You’ve become the customer weather channel. Everyone tunes in. Nobody grabs an umbrella.

Change Theater

You’ve got workshops.

Journey maps.

Toolkits.

You declare, “We’re now customer-obsessed!”

Then the next roadmap planning session hits… CX isn’t invited. You’re scoped out. No funding. No pull. No power.

Maturity without ownership? That’s just marketing.

The Real Consequence? You Lose the Trust of the Business.

You say: “We’ve reached Stage 3 maturity!” They say: “Tie it to revenue or don’t come back.”

You say: “We mapped the entire end-to-end journey!” They say: “How many dollars did that save us?”

You built maturity in CX. But you forgot to build momentum inside the business. And that’s the biggest f*ck up of all.

You Don’t Need a CX Way of Working. You Need a Company Way of Working with CX.

Here’s the pivot: It’s not about defining a universal CX method. It’s about embedding CX into how your company already works.

Because if your way of working doesn’t match your org’s execution engine, you’ll stay misaligned forever.

Mature CX isn’t a stage. It’s a system. Not a best practice. A shared practice.

Tim's 3 Player Tips to Actually Operationalize Experience

Player Tip #1 - Foster a Customer-Centric Culture: Ensure every decision prioritizes customer needs and integrates their feedback into processes. If you don’t inject customer insights back into your organisation, organisations can’t work customer centric.

“If you dont adjust your organisation you will keep focussing on what you are doing. The way you organise your accountability and rewards is the link that ensures all teams work together towards common goals. Without this connecting role, silos can arise, and the experience becomes inconsistent for customers. Setting the right goals and structure ensures the environment is safe to focus on the customer. You don’t become customer centric by making somebody responsible for it.”

Player Tip #2 - Leverage Data and Technology: Use data-driven insights and tools like AI for personalization, predictive targeting, and omnichannel consistency.

“User Experience (UX), Conversion Rate (CRO), Customer Experience (CX), and Employee Experience (EX) are not isolated strategies but rather foundational building blocks that support and enhance one another.”

Use AI as a tool to put insights into meaningful context for your employees. Combine ux research with ab-testing and prioritize based on amount of evidence from all teams. Use AI to analyse reviews and as Artificial Inspiration for designs, copy, code, alternative research methods.

Player Tip #3 - Iterative Improvement: Adopt methodologies like design thinking to continuously prototype, test, and refine customer experiences.

“Optimising Customer Experiences is not a linear process, but a dynamic journey in which different teams play a role. Each phase requires the involvement of multiple members, each with a specific contribution. The role of strategy and leadership is to constantly align and prioritise cx efforts to the roadmap and strategy. “

Chapter: ‘What is Customer Experience Optimisation (CXO)?’ “Design thinking helps organizations move beyond assumptions and data points to uncover the human stories behind the numbers.This makes it possible to find solutions that also enable the customer and not just the company.”

2 Frameworks That Aren’t Total Bullsh*t

Straight from Tim’s book—here are two you can actually use:

CX Maturity Model

A real-world progression model to assess where your org is stuck—and the actual internal upgrades (capability, ownership, prioritization) required to move forward. Think of it as a GPS, not a trophy case.

Experience Optimization Cycle

Discover → Define → Develop → Deliver. A tactical engine that turns feedback into prototypes, tests them in the wild, and scales what works. Think Design Thinking—but built for execution, not stickies.

“Optimising the Customer Experience is not something that one team can do. For example; improving a customer problem might be a change in one customer journey but requires different departments to act.”

1 Thought-provoking Question:

“If you stopped saying ‘CX is everyone’s job’… would anyone still do it?”

If the answer is no— Then you don’t have maturity. You have marketing.

Let’s Unf*ck the CX Way of Working

You don’t need another method. You need motion.

Motion that reflects the business. Motion that influences prioritization. Motion that delivers outcomes, not just slides.

The future of CX isn’t defined by frameworks. It’s built by teams that move together.

Let’s stop describing the customer journey. And start orchestrating the company’s.

To learn more about how Tim is helping brands Unf*ck the way they work inside their organization, check-out his book that just dropped: Maturing in Customer Experience Optimisation