Introducing Kayla Summers, Logiqc’s New Head of the Customer Experience (CX) team

Entering the new year, we are excited to welcome Kayla Summers as the Head of our Customer Experience (CX) team. Taking a lead strategic role, Kayla brings extensive experience in driving effective customer success initiatives. Her appointment not only adds value to the team but also further strengthens our commitment to empowering our customers.

Kayla, could you share with us the main goal of Customer Experience?

To me, the primary goal of Customer Experience (CX) is to create positive and memorable customer interactions, building emotional connections that foster loyalty. It involves exceeding the ever-evolving customer expectations. Our focus is on driving increased customer satisfaction, ensuring retention, driving adoption, and inspiring advocacy, all of which contribute to growth for the business so we can continue to meet customer expectations through our products and services.

In essence, achieving this goal requires overcoming silos within a team, fostering seamless internal collaboration, aligning our processes with the customer journey, and effectively leveraging technology so that we can continue to deliver exceptional customer experiences. A crucial aspect of delivering on this goal is cultivating a customer-centric mindset within our team which we will achieve by providing ongoing training, support and enablement to our frontline staff and executive team members.  

Tell us a bit more about your experience with CX.

I’ve had the honour of working with many different companies where I had the incredible opportunity of being involved in crafting and implementing CX strategies, particularly in software and frontline service-focused businesses.

In past roles, I created and led comprehensive CX programs that, within the first year, surpassed industry-standard customer satisfaction rates and increased the advocacy our customers had of our brand. I have a proven track record in leveraging data-driven insights to drive effective CX strategies and in implementing streamlined customer feedback loops that enable quick and targeted actions at the right time within the right teams so we can deliver on our customer expectations at speed.

I’ve also focused on expanding CX teams to support an increase in the customer base generated through these strategic activities. From a CX perspective, the emphasis is on leveraging data insights effectively – turning them into actionable steps that strengthen the customer journey and effectively align with the company vision.

What are some typical challenges in making CX great for organisations, teams, and individual users?

One major challenge is overcoming silos for seamless internal collaboration, a common issue in companies of all sizes, particularly in this now, very remote-working world. Often, these silos are caused by a lack of not knowing how to identify feedback or how to process the feedback.  For instance, during a product research session, a customer may share a critical insight into a deficiency within our support journey. The staff member may not be trained in identifying CX feedback, and further to this, may not know how or where to raise the feedback.  This breakdown in communication can result in crucial feedback and information being missed, customers not feeling heard and CX not having an opportunity to align journeys with customer expectations.

Aligning internal processes with the customer journey and instilling a customer-centric mindset present additional challenges. Establishing a customer-centric mindset can be particularly challenging in some organisations, where some people may struggle to understand that we aren’t just product, we aren’t just marketing, sales, or marketing.  To the customer, we are one entity, not a plethora of departments. I believe we should act as such.

Aligning the teams is always difficult, however, I firmly believe this starts from the top. Aligning top management to ensure they’re all aligned on the CX strategies can strongly influence consistent messaging throughout the various ground teams. This is one of the hardest things to achieve but in my opinion, absolutely key.  

In my experience serving the ANZ markets (and being an Australian myself), we love being served by a human! With COVID, customers were forced to go digital (from working at home to scanning QR codes) and with this, we’ve seen an increase in our customer’s appetite for self-service solutions and overall technical aptitude. As the market leans into a stronger digital mindset than ever before, adapting to this market change is vital. Adopting empathy and expertise to guide customers through this digital transformation at scale is key to our customer’s success. Using technology (such as well-executed video learning and human-like chatbots) can ensure customers feel supported, enabled, and educated through their self-serve journey, without compromising on quality and value. This approach aims to empower existing customers with more on-demand service than ever before, leaving customers feeling confident in joining the digital transformation and the change management that comes with this.

What do you want to achieve in your position as Head of CX with Logiqc?

My overarching goal is to elevate the overall customer experience, making Logiqc the benchmark for excellence in our industry. This involves enhancing customer satisfaction scores, increasing loyalty, and encouraging advocacy. I plan to implement innovative technologies to enhance personalisation and cultivate a customer-centric culture within the organisation. Through these initiatives, I aim to contribute significantly to Logiqc’s overall growth and solidify our position as a leader in delivering exceptional customer experiences.

In the coming year, we will be focusing primarily on customer education and product adoption. Ensuring customers are aware of new and existing features and have the tools they need to easily implement them into their daily routines without disruptions. Whether they’re new to our platform or have been with us for a while, our goal is to provide an efficient and seamless experience.

I’m particularly impressed with the robust foundation laid by Logiqc. A lot of the leg work has been done, which just goes to show how dedicated the team has been to date in delivering for their customers. This solid foundation allows us to improve at speed based on customer feedback and industry best practices.

As a human, as Kayla, I have a genuine interest in creating an environment where every human feels welcomed, supported, enabled and important. I am confident this aligns with the Logiqc culture. 

How do you usually handle customer feedback?

I implement customer feedback loops and mechanisms to ensure fast and targeted action within the appropriate teams. Emphasising a structured process, the feedback undergoes a full life cycle within the company. Instead of merely presenting feedback to the board as feedback, we actively act on it – whether it’s processed by a product team for product development considerations or directed to our accounts team for specific actions.

Efficiently managing feedback involves having the right technology and well-trained staff to identify trends. It’s often the small details that significantly impact a customer’s perception of our brand and their overall experience, so being able to quickly find those trends allows us to take appropriate action that aligns with our company values and strategy.

What emerging trends or technologies are currently impacting the field of customer experience?

AI is beginning to take over many initial customer interactions, but it brings challenges, such as change-managing our customers through the transition to AI-first interactions and providing the service at scale while also balancing manpower costs for the company. It’s crucial we help customers realise the value of AI-driven services to ensure they too can reap the benefits of this incredible technology.  

An interesting trend is the growth of CX roles across all industries. More and more businesses are recognising the importance of cohesion and how CX plays a key role in unifying an organisation, which is extremely exciting to see. Experiencing the CX journeys of other companies as a customer myself is very insightful and means our approach to CX here at Logiqc can be far more holistic. I feel this consideration is the difference between a standard software journey and one that can truly exceed the expectations of customers.