The Art of the Possible: An Interview with Jen Walsh

For Women’s History Month, we are spotlighting a few of RevGen’s incredible women leaders. These interviews will highlight their experiences, their accomplishments, and what keeps them motivated in this busy, complicated world.

“I love painting a vision for clients and helping them to see the ‘art of the possible’ and what they could achieve with a new future state for both their customers and their employees,” Jen Walsh says of her consulting approach.

Now RevGen Partners’ Director of Customer Experience (CX), Jen’s background in Lean Six Sigma operational optimization and customer experience transformation has finely tuned that vision. Her approach has also been molded by the evolution of CX, a transformation led by technological advances.

“Early on in my career, I helped coach clients on the fundamentals of operational optimization to improve customer experience. The core tenants of Lean Process Improvement center on understanding and measuring customer expectations and identifying root causes of not fulfilling that optimized experience. I found an early passion for helping clients to understand, measure, and optimize their customer experience.

“Nearly all of the Customer Experience strategies I have designed, led, or coached clients on have a technical solution component to fulfilling their goals. Technology has continued to become an even greater focus and priority as the demand for better digital customer experiences increases.”

Truly, it’s impossible to be a business without considering the end user’s digital experience. Even the smallest of companies need a website. Online shopping has boomed, especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so digital storefronts are key revenue drivers. As of 2021, the Apple Store was hosting over 4 million mobile apps.

This digital transformation has reached every step of the customer journey. Modern contact centers have shifted from 90% voice agent supported channels to a mix of voice agent, RPA, chat, and SMS.

All these digital touchpoints create another opportunity for an optimized customer experience, whether it’s using an algorithm to recommend a product, collecting data on technical issues to improve support scripts, or just making how-to videos more widely available.

“Typically to achieve that vision of the ‘art of the possible’ requires technology enablement. I got a taste of what it was like to share best practices where new tech was applied early on in my career,” Jen continues, “and I could see the value of the injection of new thought, new ideas, and new processes that newer technology brings into focus for an organization. The new future-state vision enabled by technology can be quite galvanizing for teams and accelerate the momentum for change.”

That said, not every technology project is going to be smooth sailing. Jen has seen her share of frustrations over the 20 years she’s spent in the industry.

“Once I had a proof-of-concept project trialing a new technology that I had invested two years in researching, refining, and positioning with clients that I had to abandon before I could see it become reality due to economic investment constraints and risk aversion. I learned from that experience, though. I found that I need to be in an environment and culture that is willing to support experimentation and values innovation.”

With such rapid change happening, Jen finds a few specific technologies particularly exciting. “Applying AI and Machine Learning to augment and enhance customer experience is often still in the experimental/proof-of-concept phase for many companies. Finding partners who are willing to invest in new technology to move from a conceptual vision to conducting trials to seeing real tangible impact on results is an exciting space to be in.”

A businessperson first and foremost, she knows that as captivating as innovative technology can be, a good CX strategy keeps the company, and their customers, top of mind.

“It’s easy to get caught up in exciting new tech, but the key is to stay focused on the business goals and what the technology will do to drive that desired outcome. Everything we do or recommend related to technology needs to come back to how it drives the bottom line.”

Jeniffer Walsh is the Director of Customer Experience. She specializes in CX transformation, digital optimization, and Artificial Intelligence technologies for growth.