Have you heard about CX Day? Every October, people worldwide celebrate with their employees, agents, and clients. It reminds me of “Mother’s Day” or “Father’s Day.” It’s a time when we intentionally celebrate and express gratitude to people who matter in our lives. It doesn’t mean we stop appreciating people all other days of the year. It’s a time to pause, reflect, and take actions that are extra purposeful. CX Day falls in the same week as National Customer Service Week (NCSW) and has a similar meaning, yet not the same.

CX Day & Customer Service Week: The Basics

CX Day was established ten years ago by the Customer Experience Professionals Organization (CXPA) to empower and unite companies, customer experience (CX) networks, and all people around the world to come together annually on the first Tuesday of October (4 October 2022). Though there are benefits to being a CXPA member, you are not required to be one to take part in the festivities.

Customer Service Week was created in 1991. The U.S. Congress signed a proclamation in 1992 establishing Customer Service Week as a nationally recognized event. The goal is to emphasize the importance of customer satisfaction and listening to customers as critical components of building a successful business. Since then, the commemoration has spread across the United States and internationally to more than 60 countries. Celebrations this year are happening Oct 3-7, 2022.

Who Celebrates?

I recommend everyone in your company celebrate because each person has a CX job, even if it’s not in their job title. If you’ve never be an active participant, then pick a few activities and build on from there. Take the lead, bring cross-teams together and start. You’ll see it will quickly become an annual company tradition.

20 Ways to Participate with Purpose

As people are recovering from the mental and physical impacts of the global pandemic, 2022 is an excellent year to assess how your company is advancing customer experience and service principles. It’s an ideal time to raise awareness, promote involvement, and express gratitude to those who make customer excellence possible. And it’s an opportunity to show others how committed you are to giving them top-notch service. There are plenty of ways you can take part of CX Day and Customer Service week such as:

1. Pay for a meal. Provide lunch or snacks to teams to express appreciation. If in a remote work environment, offer a delivery voucher to pick a restaurant and enjoy together via video conferencing.
2. Measure customer satisfaction and related metrics like Net Promoter (NPS) and celebrate positive scores. Send cake or balloons to top-performers and those with year over year improvements.
3. Recognize employees and service agents when customers mention their names in surveys, social media, and other sources of feedback.
4. Distribute a CEO video email message thanking people for creating passionate promoters.
5. Send customer thank you notes and token gifts of appreciation.
6. Conduct fireside chats (informal yet structured discussion between a moderator and a guest). It’s an effective way to engage customers, and CX experts and provide relevant content that keeps people interested in your brand.
7. Enable people to recognize each other. Gamify experiences. Tie prizes to customer value.
8. Offer a bonus or day off to those who routinely demonstrate customer excellence. Fridays are ideal as a 3-day weekend is a valuable gift.
9. Offer CX swag, like banners, balloons, stickers, buttons, shirts.
10. Provide professional growth opportunities – empathy, customer listening, closing the loop, design-thinking, journey mapping, and more. There are many online certification options.
11.  Host “thank you” events for your customers. Showing appreciation goes a long way.
12. Create a room in your office to share CX projects and progress, so everyone stays informed. For remote teams, leverage platforms for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
13. Highlight CX examples at meetings and have people talk about best practices. Agents and team members enjoy hearing and learning from their peers.
14. Lead a contest that involves both customers and employees.
15. Encourage people to join webinars. Create your own or give them a list of online events.
16. Plan activities and virtual games with different departments in your organization—leverage the week as a way to strengthen internal relationships and break traditional silos.
17. Use the day for branding opportunities. Partner with your marketing / PR team to design assets highlighting admiration for customers.  
18.  Create fun backgrounds for video meetings to keep CX at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
19. Grant people a few hours in the day to volunteer at a local charity.
20.  Host a customer appreciation sale. Create a promotional offer that’s more enticing than other times of the year so it appears authentic.
21. Celebrate your outsourced teams. If you outsource your customer service operations, you can still celebrate. Simply calling in to your customer service line to connect with an outsourced agent can be meaningful.

 Final Words

• Employees and customer service agents are your heroes. If they don’t feel important, your customers will feel it.
• Don’t wait for formal end of year reviews. If you do not appreciate people throughout the year, your competitors will. They’re searching for exceptional talent.
• Do something to celebrate. Get creative and be sincere. People will remember the big and small acts of kindness when CX Day and customer service week ends.

Get more inspirational ideas to celebrate and keep the momentum going by listening to the Doing CX Right podcast featuring CXPA CEO, Greg Melia and Stacy Sherman.