My Journey to Becoming a CCXP

I have been in this industry for more years than I care to admit.

I have been in the business of creating memorable customer experiences from the first time I washed someone’s hair at my part-time job at the local hairdressing salon when I was 14, working a summer job, through my university years’ part-time job of being a clown at kids’ birthday parties, not to forget that time I worked as a kangaroo mascot for an Australia Day parade down the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane back in the early ’90s!

After graduating with my master’s degree and working “real jobs” since the late ’90s, I have always been in customer service, clienteling, CRM, or customer experience roles. But it was only after moving to the United Arab Emirates that I learned there was a methodology that brings all this “customer centricity stuff” into a repeatable, scalable framework.

In recent years, I made a pact with myself to do something new and different for myself and my own growth every year. From starting competitive powerlifting to working with refugees fleeing war, this year I decided I would do something a little less physically and emotionally taxing — I would FINALLY get my CCXP!

Supported by an awesome company that has a TEAM of CCXPs ready to support and help, I started attending online and in-person courses to understand what taking the exam entails.

Like anything worth doing, it was more effort than I had initially anticipated. I could deadlift 140 kg before breakfast — but actually documenting examples of where I had led CX strategies took more time and emotional grit than I had prepared myself for!

Once I was accepted to take the exam, I purchased and read cover-to-cover the CXPA CX Book of Knowledge, and signed up to take countless mock exams. After about two months of almost daily study (just 60–90 minutes), I consulted with my colleagues who had already taken their CCXP exams and asked them if they thought I was ready.

After receiving their resounding YES — I booked the exam at the local exam center.

The exam itself went smoothly — I allowed myself enough time to complete and review my answers and then submitted the paper. The time allowed to take the exam felt sufficient, and I was confident that I was able to review and revisit some of the trickier questions.

The results are almost immediate — so I left the exam center knowing that the past six months’ effort had paid off! I was finally accepted amongst a team of people I had been admiring for years.

Some Tips

Prepare to prepare!

Start documenting your contributions across the five disciplines so that you can reference them for your application process. Allow yourself plenty of time to write and review your application — and don’t be shy! This is your chance to really be proud of what you have achieved.

Read the CXPA CX Book of Knowledge!

It has everything you need to know!

Mock exams are life!

For someone who has been in the business for as many years as I have (ahem), the content is not new. 

The “best” or the “most appropriate” questions are the ones to watch out for. All of the answers could be correct, but there is one that is better than the rest. The mock exams were key for me getting comfortable with these questions.

Be like Nike!

Just DO it!