{"id":4636,"date":"2021-07-30T11:50:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T11:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acefone.com\/blog\/?p=4636"},"modified":"2026-06-12T06:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:41:20","slug":"expert-opinion-interview-ingrid-lindberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acefone.com\/blog\/expert-opinion-interview-ingrid-lindberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert Opinion: Why Customer Retention Drives New Customer Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Customer service has undergone a paradigm shift owing to the increasingly competitive landscape. The fundamental principle of enhancing customer experience is retaining existing customers to automatically win over new ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

A remarkable customer experience keeps your customers coming back while promoting your services to others. Businesses with excellent customer experience reported <\/span>higher customer referrals and customer satisfaction are key to a successful business<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, to be able to deliver unparalleled experiences, you must equip your employees with the requisite resources and authority. Train your employees to provide quick and effective solutions to resolve customer issues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking with us today is Ingrid Lindberg, the first-ever CXO (Chief Experience Officer)<\/a> in the USA. Lindberg is a certified CX professional, CX specialist and founder of Chief Customer. In continuation to our \u2018Expert Opinion\u2019 series<\/a>, we discuss the finer details of a superlative customer journey with the virtuoso who has over 20 years of unbeatable experience in the industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. What made you choose a career in customer experience?<\/h2>\n

I truly fell into the field of customer experience. I worked in financial services, placing trades for people when we started to bring the ability to place trades online for the public\u2014the beginning of financial services on the web! I had ideas about making it easier. MY CIO (Chief Information Officer) encouraged me to learn how to design web pages so people could easily use them.<\/span><\/p>\n

That indeed was the beginning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had ideas, and education in sociology, studying people, and curiosity. I was lucky enough to get formal training and then the opportunity, not just to design web pages but pieces of paper. Then came contact center interaction design. The next thing I knew, I was doing multichannel designs with strategies behind them. And that became the customer experience field.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2. What\u2019s the key criterion for a CX expert\u2019s success?<\/h2>\n

In my experience, there is no such thing as a CX expert. Customer experience is too big of a bucket for one person to be an expert on the whole thing!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are expert journey mappers; experts at designing interactions; experts at building strategies; experts in research and creating the voice of customer programs and the likes. It is like any other industry\u2014you must declare your major.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I am an expert at developing strategies and designing company transformations. I am not great at building Voice of Customer programs. I\u2019ve led people who have done that work, but I am not a market researcher.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. How did you motivate a business during uncertain times?<\/h2>\n

One of the most significant transformations that I designed and led was at Cigna during the recession. We were facing tremendous pressures and a rock-bottom stock price. The motivation for that transformation was indeed a burning platform\u2014change or die.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And we changed that company completely\u2014and they continue to thrive on the platform of customer-centric decision making.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4. How does it feel to be the country\u2019s first CXO?<\/h2>\n

It is such a weird thing. I downplay it all the time because I cannot believe it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I did not choose the title; my CEO and CMO did. They had read about the need for a CXO in a Harvard Business Review article and decided that the company needed one. I have been told repeatedly that I am the first to have held it, but I had no idea what it was!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember going to LinkedIn when I was offered the job in 2007. I searched for CXO. There were no results. So, I had to make a lot of it up as I went along. We had to create job descriptions for Voice of Customer leaders and Customer Experience Architects. Every step was an exhilarating battle because there were no best practices. So, we learned a lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love to say that we built an aeroplane in the sky, successfully flew it worldwide and safely landed it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. What tough CX situations did you encounter in your career?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Customer experience<\/a> should not be such a tricky thing, should it?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We consistently see pushback on whether or not it works, what the ROI is, whether it should be funded. The most challenging situation I have found myself in as I advise businesses is coming in <\/span>after<\/span><\/i> they have already spent a ton of money on CX and have not seen any results.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So often, a company will buy a piece of software to manage customers\u2019 voices or map journeys and then they do not see any results. Spending money without a clear strategy and plan is pointless. It creates so much dissonance and dissolves trust between CX activities and executive teams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I implore the leaders out there to just say no to CX efforts until you have three things in place:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n