What is a customer experience specialist?

A customer experience (CX) specialist is a professional responsible for ensuring customers have positive interactions with a business/brand throughout their lifecycle.

They play a crucial role in identifying and removing friction from the user journey and improving customer satisfaction and retention. Ultimately, a CX specialist drives customer loyalty and improves a company’s bottom line.

Customer experience specialist’s main responsibilities

Whether a company is looking to retain customers or grow its user base, customer experience specialists play an integral role. Key responsibilities of a CX specialist include:

• Customer journey mapping – A CX specialist identifies customer interaction touchpoints and the challenges they face at every step. The idea is to remove friction from each touchpoint and ensure a seamless journey from start to finish.
• Customer engagement and support – A CX specialist is responsible for interacting with customers before, during, and after a conversion. They have to address customer queries and help them overcome any issues they face when using your product.
• CX strategy development – A CX specialist works with different departments, such as account management, product development, marketing, and sales, to identify strategies to enhance the customer experience. Also, they’re responsible for keeping an eye on emerging industry trends and changes in customer behavior and needs. Then, they use these insights to adapt CX strategies accordingly.
• Data analysis and reporting – A CX specialist analyzes qualitative and quantitative data from various sources to identify areas of improvement. These include feedback surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews. Also, they use product analytics tools to analyze user behavior patterns and product metrics. They retrieve actionable insights from the available data and create meaningful reports to help other departments make data-driven CX-related decisions.
• Training and development – A CX specialist is responsible for educating their team members, as well as employees in other departments, about user needs and preferences. They train employees in various departments to embrace a customer-centric approach.
• Technology and innovation – A CX specialist identifies and uses tech-driven solutions to streamline functions like customer support and feedback collection. They also have to identify and implement processes to deliver outstanding CX without compromising efficiency.

How much does a customer experience specialist make?

According to Glassdoor, the average base pay of a customer experience specialist ranges between $39,000 to $60,000 annually.

Your experience level is a key factor that impacts your salary. Here’s how a CX specialist’s annual salary varies based on experience, according to Glassdoor:

• CX representative – $35,000 to $50,000/year
• CX specialist – $39,000 to $60,000/year
• Senior CX specialist – $44,000 to $74,000/year

Additionally, where you live influences your pay as a CX specialist. Here’s how your annual salary can vary across major US cities:

• San Francisco – $49,000 to $75,000/year
• New York – $44,000 to $70,000/year
• Boston – $44,000 to $63,000/year
• Washington, DC – $43,000 to $70,000/year
• Chicago – $42,000 to $61,000/year

Customer experience specialist career path

A CX specialist’s career starts with an entry-level role like a customer service representative or sales associate. It can go all the way up to Chief Experience Officer (CXO).

Common customer experience roles include:

• Entry-level positions (0-2 years) – Roles like customer service representative, sales associate, or retail associate act as an entry point to a career in customer experience.
• Customer Experience Associate (2-3 years) – A CX associate communicates with customers to understand what they want and keep them happy.
• Customer Experience Specialist (4-5 years) – After gaining experience as a CX associate, it’s possible to move to the role of a CX specialist. This role focuses on analyzing customer behavior and feedback, addressing gaps in CX strategies, and improving interactions at different touchpoints.
• Customer Success Manager (CSM) (5-7 years) – If you gain adequate experience as a CX specialist and demonstrate leadership abilities, the next step is to become a customer success manager. As a CSM, one of your main responsibilities will be to understand customer needs and communicate them to other departments. You’ll also have to lead cross-functional teams when implementing strategies to enhance CX.
• Director of Customer Experience (8-10 years) – This senior-level position is for professionals with significant experience in customer success management. In this role, you’re responsible for overseeing multiple teams and strategies aimed at improving CX.
• Chief Experience Officer (CXO) (10+ years) – This is usually the highest-ranking CX role in an organization. Besides customer experience, a CXO is also responsible for ensuring a positive experience for employees.

Best practices to be a great customer experience specialist

Making a mark as a CX specialist isn’t all about getting the right degree or certifications. Instead, you must be willing to go out of your way to ensure your product lives up to customer expectations and makes them happy.

If you want to build a career as a customer experience specialist, consider the following tips:

• Build your soft skills – Traits like empathy, active listening, and problem-solving are critical to becoming a good CX specialist. While you’re getting the necessary experience and qualifications, make sure you focus on building these skills.
• Be a team player – A CX specialist’s job requires them to work in cross-functional teams involving multiple stakeholders. Being able to communicate your ideas, understand others’ perspectives, and lead team members (when needed) is crucial.
• Prioritize product knowledge – You must have a deep understanding of how the given product works and how it addresses customer pain points. It’ll help you provide customers with the right guidance when they face problems.
• Develop an eye for problem-spotting – Beyond addressing customer queries and solving their issues, a CX specialist must have the ability to predict problems that might arise in the long run.
• Embrace continuous learning – As a CX specialist, you must stay curious about industry trends, consumer behavior patterns, and tech innovations. Also, don’t hesitate to modify your approach as customer preferences change or new technologies emerge.

Best resources for customer experience specialists

Here are some handy resources that’ll help CX specialists develop and improve their skills. Let’s take a look.

Best books for customer experience specialists

• The Effortless Experience – This book by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi outlines a four-step framework to delight customers with a hassle-free experience.
• The Power of Moments – Written by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, this book decodes what goes into creating memorable moments for customers.
• What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You – This book by Melina Palmer digs deep into consumer purchasing habits and the science behind them.
• The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary – Written by Joseph Michelli, this book talks about the customer experience successes of Starbucks and how you can take inspiration from them.
• What Customers Crave – This book by Nicholas Webb breaks down how you can understand your customers better and elevate their experience.

You can find these books on online stores like Amazon and eBay.

Best webinars for customer experience specialists

• Userpilot – The product growth platform offers various live and on-demand webinars on user onboarding, customer feedback, and product analytics.
• Cisco – If you want to learn from CX experts and stay on top of the latest trends in the field, Cisco offers a selection of webinars.
• BrightTALK.com – The platform features a vast collection of talks, videos, and webinars on CX-related topics by industry experts.
• Qualtrics – This platform offers numerous live and on-demand webinars that can help you improve customer experience.
• Oracle – Their webinar series focuses on CX trends and challenges along with tactics to elevate customer experience.

Best blogs for customer experience specialists

• HubSpot’s Service Blog features a variety of content on customer experience and success.
• Userpilot’s blog covers CX-related topics in the context of SaaS products.
• Customer Bliss features insights from Jeanne Bliss to help you attract, convert, and retain customers.
• Seth Godin’s blog includes numerous resources related to understanding customers and improving their experiences.
• CX Journey blog covers numerous topics related to customer experience and gives unparalleled insights to help CX specialists satisfy customers.

Best podcasts for customer experience specialists

• Amazing Business Radio by Shep Hyken – Leading CX experts and other business professionals come together to share their insights and tips; available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
• The Intuitive Customer by Colin Shaw and Prof. Ryan Hamilton – The dynamic rapport between the hosts makes this podcast as much fun as insightful; available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
• Experience This! by Joey Coleman and Dan Gingiss – Featuring a lively, upbeat vibe, this show covers all things CX, from core values to new trends; available on Apple and Spotify.
• Crack the Customer Code by Jeannie Walters and Adam Toporek – This podcast aims to understand how business owners and customer experience specialists can create stellar customer experiences; available on Apple.
• CXChronicles by Adrian Brady-Cesana – In this podcast, Adrian welcomes numerous guests and discusses all things customer experience with them; available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

Best tools for customer experience specialists

On an average day, CX specialists have to perform several tasks, from communicating with customers to analyzing their feedback. Also, you have to collaborate with multiple teams and find ways to minimize friction in the customer journey.

Having the right tools at hand can help CX specialists do their jobs better. Here are a few tools worth considering:

• Best tool for project management: Trello – The Kanban-style platform makes it easy for cross-functional teams to collaborate on projects and monitor progress, regardless of their location.
• Best tool for product management: Confluence – The remote collaboration tool serves as a digital workspace where CX specialists can work with other teams involved in product development. You can use it to share insights from customer behavior data and feedback and guide the decision-making process for cross-functional teams.
• Best tool for CX: Zendesk – It offers a robust CRM solution to organize and manage customer data. Also, it offers customer service software with helpful features like AI-powered messaging and live chat.
• Best tool for customer success: Custify – It comes with an easy-to-use interface that lets CX specialists monitor customer health and minimize churn. Also, you can create automated workflows to onboard new customers and collect their feedback.
• Best product analytics tool: Userpilot – The powerful visual analytics platform helps CX specialists decode customer behavior patterns and map user journeys. It even comes in handy for generating easy-to-share reports.

Conclusion

Now that you have a better understanding of the salary range for a customer experience specialist position, you can take steps to improve your earning potential. Consider pursuing relevant certifications, developing your skillset, or negotiating effectively during the job offer stage.

Looking into tools for customer experience specialists? Userpilot is an all-in-one product platform with engagement features and powerful analytics capabilities. Book a demo to see it in action!