CXPA CX Framework

The CXPA CX Framework serves as the CCXP Exam Blueprint

The CCXP exam is based on the CXPA CX Framework. You can gauge your readiness to take the exam by reviewing these Core Competencies to ensure that you are aware of all the topics on which you might encounter questions. If you find a particular area with which you are not familiar or comfortable, that is an area where you should focus your study or review.

The competencies are required knowledge for CCXP candidates. Each competency encompasses job tasks that should be known to candidates, as well as knowledge and skills or abilities that a candidate should possess.

The CXPA developed the CXPA CX Framework to document the knowledge, skills, and abilities essential to serving as a customer experience professional. It was created through intensive research into the tasks performed by CX professionals and verified through an industry-wide job task analysis conducted by psychometricians. The Framework is regularly reviewed to ensure it is relevant to current CX practices. Over 300 global customer experience professionals provided feedback in the most recent job task analysis, conducted in 2020. 

List of Competency Areas

  1. Customer Insights and Understanding (22%)
  2. Customer Experience Strategy (20%)
  3. Metrics, Measurements, and ROI (20%)
  4. Design, Implementation, and Innovation (19%)
  5. Culture and Accountability (19%)

Job tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities are presented for each competency area. A Job Task is an activity regularly performed by a CX professional. Knowledge refers to the process and concepts a CX professional should be familiar with. Skills and abilities refer to a CX professional’s proficiency in applying knowledge to the practical tasks necessary for professional success.

Quick Links

Customer Insights and Understanding (22%)

Building collective insight into customer needs, wants, perceptions, and preferences through the capture and analysis of the voice of the customer.

Job Tasks

  • Assess infrastructure mechanisms and methodologies to capture internal and external CX data
  • Design voice of the customer programs
  • Identify customer and employee touchpoints in the customer experience
  • Determine gaps and research strategies to address deficiencies
  • Collect experience feedback from customers
  • Collect customer experience and improvement feedback from employees

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Journey mapping
  • Process mapping
  • Persona mapping
  • Operational data
  • Customer data
  • Qualitative research methods
  • Quantitative research methods
  • Behavioral science techniques
  • Ability to conduct root cause analysis
  • Ability to conduct predictive analysis
  • Ability to analyze and redesign processes

Customer Experience Strategy (20%)

Development of a strategy that articulates a clear vision of the experience that a company seeks to create in support of the company’s brand values, including its direct linkage to CX activities, resources, and investments.

Job Tasks

  • Create a CX Strategy
  • Align the customer experience strategy to organizational strategy, goals, and brand values and attributes
  • Determine the strategic focus, business case, and tactics into programmatic components
  • Develop a plan for communicating the CX strategy to stakeholders

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • CX best practices across industry
  • Business strategy frameworks and planning
  • Intended customer experience
  • Cross-business unit efforts
  • Interdependencies across people, process, and technology
  • Ability to translate corporate strategy into well-defined customer experience strategies and programmatic efforts
  • Ability to engage executive suite in CX strategy design and execution
  • Ability to take branded experience strategy and engage all functional business areas (product, marketing, operations, etc.) in creation of action plans
  • Ability to clearly communicate the importance of the customer experience strategy to deliver the organization’s business goals

Metrics, Measurements, and ROI (20%)

Creation and reporting of the measures of CX success including their use in business cases to illustrate the ROI and business value of customer experience.

Job Tasks

  • Design and implement voice of customer programs (solicited through surveys, focus groups, communities, etc.)
  • Collect unsolicited experience feedback from customers (by mining calls, web data, emails, etc.)
  • Gather input from employees about customer experiences and opportunities for improvement
  • Analyze VOC feedback drawn across sources to identify customer pain points and opportunities to improve and differentiate
  • Identify and map major customer touchpoints in the customer experience

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Perception metrics
  • Descriptive metrics
  • Outcome metrics
  • CX data mining and analysis
  • Experience measurement and research methodologies
  • Key drivers and impact on business performance
  • Communication, reporting, and presentation of information
  • Self-service access to data, vies, and analytics
  • Documentation and tracking of changes in CX metrics
  • Business value and ROI of investing in customer experience
  • Tools and methodologies
  • Ability to create measurement strategy in support of broader CX strategy
  • Ability to quantify business value and ROI of investing in customer experience
  • Ability to illustrate ROI of CX investments
  • Ability to assess effectiveness of metrics platform design
  • Ability to translate data into clear communication of results, progress and actions
  • Ability to drive executive support and engagement in CX metrics and results

Design, Implementation, and Innovation (19%)

Implementing practices and approaches to continuously improve, design and differentiate customer experiences.

Job Tasks

  • Utilize customer insights to define and prioritize experience requirements and opportunities
  • Establish a defined CX design process
  • Facilitate an end-to-end CX design
  • Implement the CX design
  • Develop a list of top customer experience improvements
  • Integrate processes and tools for continuous customer experience improvements

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Design thinking and customer co-creation approaches
  • Experience gap analysis and prioritization
  • Human-centered design and innovation
  • Future state journey mapping
  • Control and response plans
  • Operating plan and capabilities
  • Tactics
  • Change, project, and process management
  • Interdependencies
  • Iterative ideation and prototyping
  • Ability to identify key moments of truth affecting customer perceptions
  • Ability to conduct experience gap analysis and prioritize recommended improvements
  • Ability to drive customer centered design and innovation
  • Ability to accurately map and depict customer touch points
  • Ability to drive action and execution of key CX improvements

Culture and Accountability (19%)

Creating and nurturing a culture, through behaviors, practices and standards that encourages all employees to focus on delivering outstanding customer experiences. Driving change and developing cross-company experience accountability from the C-suite to the front line.

Job Tasks

  • Assess and determine ongoing strategies for sustaining a customer-centered culture
  • Manage and maintain executive accountability for CX strategy

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Established best practices for cultivating a customer-focused culture
  • Employee hiring, training, and coaching alignment
  • Reward, recognition, and other engagement strategies
  • CX communication strategies
  • Stakeholder and change management approaches
  • Assess and guide an organization's CX maturity
  • Customer experience impact as criteria for business decisions
  • KPI ownership
  • Sponsorship and engagement
  • Business goal alignment with customer-centric culture
  • Problem solving skills
  • Relationship building skills
  • Ability to coordinate diverse resources to create value
  • Ability to engage “hearts and minds” of an organization across employee groups
  • Ability to align employee behavior with customer-focused culture
  • Ability to communicate the importance of customer experience and corresponding strategy
  • Ability to recommend initiatives based on customer experience data
  • Ability to report CX data to different audiences in an understandable manner
  • Ability to plan, implement, and manage change
  • Ability to lead cross-functional efforts
  • Collaboration, influencing, and relationship skills

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Page updated: July 2024