Get Your C-Suite Leaders to Support Your CX Initiative by Connecting the Dots of Success for Them

In this episode, I interview Amy Shore, Executive Vice President and CCO at Nationwide. Join us as we discuss how one of the nation’s Fortune 100 companies uses customer data and insights to improve and build upon their customer experience. We talk about aligning the C-Suite to a customer-focused initiative, leadership accountability, and the operationalizing of business according to the goals.

Plus Amy and I discuss the many ways in which Nationwide focused on their employee and customer experience during the pandemic. She shares ways the organization has been able to boost internal morale and celebrate successes along the way, despite the challenges presented.

Find The Red Dot on The Map That Indicates Where You Currently Stand

Amy, who’s been with Nationwide for over 20 years, stepped into her CCO role over a year ago, and shares that she was lucky to have a strong support team to help her assess the CX work that needed to be done. She explains that first, she needed to find that “little red dot that says you are here on a map.” Amy needed to know where the organization stood, and worked with her team to pull together internal and external surveys to understand how all of the parts of the machine were functioning together.

Strengthening the customer scorecard from the JD Power survey was an important customer-driven initiative that Amy and her team focused on. She shares that they added another page to the scorecard to focus on customer outcomes, which helped them understand where they would need to make improvements. Amy was able to incorporate results of the scorecard into their incentives plan. In the incentives plan, associates have an MBO around the customer. She explains that she needed to show the organization that they’re going to keep track and hold themselves accountable.

So are we getting more new customers? are they buying more? And are they staying longer? Or in our financial services business, are we seeing a higher level of enrollment? Are we seeing a higher level of assets under management? And are we seeing a higher level of retained assets under management?

So really metrics that are already on the business scorecard, ultimately measure the outcome. Then as we break it down into the details, for example, around billing, we have a billing scorecard that’s measuring specific outcomes from the customer’s perspective as it relates to billing starting with, are we getting fewer calls per policy, because people can’t understand their bill.

When it comes to customer-driven success, how are your leaders going to keep track and hold themselves accountable? Listen to my chat with Amy Shore @shorea45, CCO of @OnYourSide #nationwide Click To Tweet

Is Your C-Suite on the Same Team as You?

Amy knows that the best CX leaders work with the C-Suite, not for them; it’s important to be partners in this work as it serves the whole organization. She explains that she was able to align with the leaders around what they were going to measure against and agreed on the milestones to set on their updated scorecard. Amy spends time building trust with the other leaders and engaging with them, so they understand the aspects of the initiative that impact their section of the business. She recognizes the need to customize solutions for different leaders. This way, they all know their “red dot” on the map, and can understand how all of these dots come together.

Spend time building trust and engaging with the other C-Suite leaders, so they understand the aspects of the initiative that impact their section of the business. -- Amy Shore @shorea45, CCO of @OnYourSide #nationwide Click To Tweet

What Do You Know Now That You Wish You Knew Then?

Amy says:

“Keep the score sooner. As you are focusing on making improvements and delivering wins, identify those early wins that you can deliver, and celebrate those and keep score. We tended to be a little under the radar and not necessarily focusing enough on what we could continuously deliver. I use the analogy, crawl, walk run to build this capability at Nationwide. When you’re in the crawl phase, there are wins that you can be delivering for the customer and for the business outcomes. Making that linkage happen earlier is something that I would recommend for folks.”

About Amy Shore

Amy Shore Nationwide CCO Amy Shore is executive vice president and chief customer officer for Nationwide. She is accountable for developing and executing Nationwide’s customer strategy to maximize customer acquisition and drive retention to ensure that Nationwide delivers on its mission.
Amy has over 30 years of experience in the P&C industry, including over 20 years in varying leadership positions across Nationwide. She has leadership experience in a variety of business functions including sales, underwriting, product/pricing, customer service and general management. She has served as executive sponsor for the Nationwide All Women’s Associate Resource Group and national chair of the company’s United Way campaign.


The presenting sponsor of The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show is Wix Answers, the industry’s first customer support platform to solve modern support challenges and create impactful change for your business.

This partnership ensures that I can continue these shows that you’ve shared such positive feedback on. Thanks so much to Wix Answers! Enjoy the show!

Get every new episode

sent straight to your inbox!

0 comments to " Get Your C-Suite Leaders to Support Your CX Initiative by Connecting the Dots of Success for Them "

Leave a Comment