End-to-End Customer Experience
VP and Director-level UX leaders oversee all aspects of user experience, aligns the UX team, and advocates the value of the UX team to the rest of the organization. UX leaders ensure great customer experiences through intentional design at all customer touch points. They are responsible for the end-to-end customer experience, which ultimately contributes to the organization’s overall revenue. As organizations transition towards digital transformation, the user experience aspect of business is becoming increasingly significant in an increasingly digital world.
Here are the top three things to consider when hiring your next VP of User Experience:
1. Well-Defined Vision and Strategy for User Experience
Designers need a leader who can align their teams and advocate for the contributions of great user experience design. The UX leader must possess and communicate a well-defined vision and strategy for the organization’s user experience.
This well-defined vision and strategy will align efforts across the organization, so it’s important that the leader’s vision aligns with organizational needs. What specific outcomes should great user experience design accomplish for your organization? Great customer experiences lead to increased customer engagement and ultimately, increased revenue.
A UX leader must have a broad lens and a multifunctional perspective in order to work productively with professionals from numerous other disciplines and effectively implement their well-defined vision for the organization’s user experience strategy.
2. Experience in Executing User Experience Strategy
A User Experience leader needs to have more than just a well-defined vision, they also need to be able to successfully implement their design strategies. Positive customer experiences are an important component of an organization’s overall success, and the value of great user experience design relies heavily on great execution of UX strategy.
This role tends to be very hands-on, and often requires ‘soft skills’ that can only be gained through adequate experience in implementing successful UX strategy. You aren’t searching for a manager, you’re searching for a leader.
A leader in User Experience requires practical knowledge of successful execution of UX strategy. The role of great user experience design in attracting and retaining customers is becoming more and more critical in the digital sphere. Your next Vice President of User Experience should be able to successfully effectuate their strategies in order to realize organizational goals.
3. Ability to Provide Measurable Progress
User experience refers to the complete series of interactions an end user has with the organization. In developing and implementing an organization’s user experience strategy, a User Experience leader must be able to continually evaluate and reevaluate the effectiveness of their strategy. A User Experience leader has to connect the business to the product to the user experience in order to measure, estimate, and forecast positive end-user interactions.
Measuring user experience is key to measuring the success of a UX leader. Most importantly, they have to be able to effectively communicate the progress achieved by their user experience strategies. A successful leader determines key performance indicators and reports on that progress in reference to the fulfillment of organizational goals.
In Conclusion
Growing and developing user experience is an essential part of an organization’s digital transformation journey. A of User Experience leader should be fully dedicated to these intentional design efforts. When searching for your next VP of User Experience or Director of User Experience, ensure they have these three things: a well-defined vision and UX strategy, experience in successfully executing UX strategy, and the ability to provide measurable progress towards the fulfillment of organizational UX goals.
The Critical Key to Recruiting Success
We used to live in a world where the big ate the small. Now, we live in a world where the fast eat the slow. The velocity of business may be rapidly increasing, but the business world is facing a talent shortage. An organization’s ability to identify and hire talent will be directly proportional to their success, so talent acquisition should be a core strategic focus for today’s business leaders.
Hiring Your Digital Marketing Quarterback
As author Roy T. Bennett once said, “If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.”
Marketing changed drastically when the internet became everyone’s main source of information. Digital marketing is now cheaper, faster, more measurable and more engaging than traditional marketing.
3 Keys to the Champion Mindset of a CDO
The Chief Digital Officer (CDO) is typically a company’s principal leader in the digital transformation process. 84% of companies fail at digital transformation, and the average tenure of a CDO is shorter than other C-Suite roles. Of course, there are many reasons for this; it isn’t easy to serve as the primary transformation leader and intermediary between other executives and functions in the creation and rollout of digital initiatives. In order to be successful as a CDO, you must have a champion mindset.
