The bold approach to CX frameworks: Designing for customers, minus the customers

Creating a top-tier customer experience (CX) framework without involving actual customers is revolutionary. It’s an exclusive club for the daring, the risk-takers, the brave souls who think, “who needs feedback when you’ve got gut instinct?” 

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It’s like preparing a five-course meal for a food critic without ever stepping foot in a kitchen or knowing what their preferences are. You’re bound to impress with the following strategy:

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Step 1: Ignore the customer journey 

When strategizing on a customer experience model you must first refuse to dive into the complex, messy, unpredictable world of the customer journey. 

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Your product, your business—it’s your baby. You’ve nurtured it, fed it marketing budgets, and watched it grow. Forget the notion of "walking in your customer’s shoes." Stick to your own. 

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Brainstorms are the best part of the week. You get to commandeer a boardroom and discuss hypothetical customer-centric pain points, all over a tray of stale croissants. Who needs first-hand accounts when you can simply imagine—and then whiteboard—your customer’s frustrations.

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Step 2: Design personas based on hunches 

Customer personas: The experts will tell you these should be based on research, data, and actual human experiences. But why fuss with all that tedious work? Instead sit down with a blank legal pad and dream up a couple of personas. Don’t worry about precision; winging it is much faster. 

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While you’re at it, make it a game! Give your personas catchy alliterative names like Optimistic Oliver and Cynical Cindy. That way, you’ll at least have something fun to reference while you explain your reasoning for ignoring actual customer feedback.

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Step 3: Rely on annual surveys

Ah yes, the time-honored tradition of the annual customer survey. This noble relic from a bygone era will give you all the information you need, once a year, like clockwork. 

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Nothing screams, “We value your opinion!” like a one-time, 30-question survey with mandatory open-text fields. Who wouldn’t want to spend a spare minute of their day rating inconsequential features on a scale of 1 to 5? They’ll practically beg you for more follow-ups.

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Step 4: Take no action until a crisis forces you to

If there’s one thing profitable businesses know, it’s the value of reactionary decision-making. Being proactive? No thanks. The real thrill of CX is the fire drills. 

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Why address customer dissatisfaction in real-time when you can wait until a crisis befalls you? It’s like waiting for a spark to turn into a full-blown wildfire before realizing you should’ve probably invested in a fire extinguisher. There’s no excitement in dealing with problems early; the adrenaline rush only comes when it’s too late.

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What’s the worst that could happen? A Twitter storm? One-star reviews flooding Google? Surely customers will see and understand your dedication to them in hastily crafted, panic-fueled PR responses.

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Shaking your head? That’s because building a CX framework without customer insights is utterly impossible

Now that we’ve indulged the out-of-touch, old notion of what building a customer experience framework without listening to customers looks like, let’s get serious.

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Today, where companies are fighting tooth and nail for customer loyalty and retention, the idea of designing a CX framework in isolation is as ludicrous as it sounds. In a recent study, Forrester stated that regardless of budgets, CX leaders are investing in initiatives that drive customer-focused action—because it matters.

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Your customers are the blueprint, not an afterthought

Customers are no longer passive participants in the buying process; they are active collaborators. They dictate trends, shift expectations, and aren’t shy about voicing their frustrations on social media. If you don’t listen to them, someone else will—probably your competitor.

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Fast response times, not just in customer support scenarios, but to new customer complaints or market disruptions is a trend Forbes reports isn’t going anywhere.  

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But here’s the kicker: For companies with an online presence, collecting customer feedback is a lot trickier than just striking up a conversation at a checkout counter. 

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It’s not that digital-first companies don’t want to listen to their customers; it’s that engaging with them in a meaningful way is a different kind of challenge when the interaction happens entirely online.

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Why collecting customer feedback digitally feels like chasing ghosts

No physical storefronts equals infrequent human interaction
Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, SaaS and digital-first companies don’t have the luxury of greeting customers face-to-face or watching their reactions in real time. 

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Instead, every interaction happens through the pixelated interface of a website or app, where customers are seen as clicks and keystrokes. The physical cues of satisfaction—or dissatisfaction—are invisible.

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Feedback fatigue is real
Customers are bombarded with requests for feedback, reviews, and ratings from every digital service they interact with. From ride-sharing apps to meal delivery services, everyone wants a piece of their feedback pie. 

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Collecting feedback in this digital arena often means sending out email after email, crossing your fingers that someone will click on your message instead of the other hundreds sitting in their inbox. It’s a little like sending messages in a bottle, except the ocean is cluttered with a thousand other bottles.

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Treat customer feedback like the precious resource it is—and use an AI-platform to make sure you don’t waste a drop

Customer feedback, when you do receive it, is gold. Whether you get it through a public channel or a private one, qualitative customer feedback is where you can home in on what matters to your customers and build a CS framework that’s adapted to their needs.

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Collecting customer feedback at scale and turning it into actionable insights requires sophisticated tools—specifically, an AI-powered customer analytics platform. According to Forrester, 68% of companies plan to invest in a customer analytics platform in 2024 and beyond.

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Here’s why:

• Real-time feedback, real-time action
  Instead of relying on outdated, once-a-year surveys or waiting for complaints to pour in, AI tools can collect and analyze customer feedback in real time. This allows you to take immediate action on emerging trends or address pain points before they escalate into a full-blown crisis. In a world where customer loyalty is fragile, this responsiveness can be the difference between growth and decline.
• An understanding of nuanced sentiments
  AI-powered platforms can help you pick up on how your customers are feeling—at a glance. With help from customer sentiment analysis, they can summarize feedback—both video and text—and pick up on emotional signals that a person reviewing thousands of entries might miss.
• Pinpointing what actually matters
  With an AI-powered tool, you’re not just collecting feedback—you’re understanding it on a deep level. These platforms can sift through mountains of data, sorting the valuable insights from the distracting ones. By understanding which pieces of feedback truly matter, you can focus on what will move the needle for your customers instead of drowning in a sea of conflicting opinions.

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TLDR; Listening to customers isn’t an optional part of your CX framework—it’s essential

Building a customer experience framework without customer feedback is like trying to run blindfolded. You might make it a few steps, but it’s only a matter of time before you trip and fall. 

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For modern companies, collecting customer feedback requires a different approach—one that leverages the power of AI to gather, analyze, and act on insights at scale. Once you do that, then you can start to build a CX framework that's worthy of being called top-tier.

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Read how AI-powered platforms, like Unwrap, use text analysis to transform how you work.