Our curriculum

Customer Experience Program Curriculum

Customer Experience is multi-faceted and relies on the strong relationships you build with your customers. The Customer Experience Certificate Program meets the same high academic standards of the Minnesota State University, Mankato graduate programs, with a challenging interdisciplinary curriculum designed to prepare CX professionals to excel in their field.
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Roll up your sleeves to solve real-world challenges and use practices developed by top companies while learning online at your own pace.

Module 1

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE INTRODUCTION​

In this introductory module, you’ll learn the concept of CX, study the basics of Customer Experience, understand what makes a “beloved brand” and consider why businesses fail through poor experiences.

  • Reflect on your own experiences as a customer with beloved brands.
  • Identify key elements to amazing experiences and powerful failures.
  • Examine leaders and laggards, and discover how your company stacks up against the competition.

Module 2

YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY

Learn the value of a well-executed Customer Experience strategy; how it can lead to enormous rewards, higher customer engagement, reduced churn, increased revenue and greater employee satisfaction.

  • Discover the elements that comprise an effective and strategic Customer Experience plan.
  • Develop and discuss a clear Customer Experience vision for your own organization.
  • Create the critical goals and roadmap to help reach your Customer Experience vision.

Module 3

YOUR CUSTOMERS, THEIR EXPERIENCE JOURNEY​

Customer Experience Journey Maps are foundational instruments for capturing customer interactions, both emotionally and cognitively, with your brand. Use these strategic tools to communicate, analyze, plan, manage, innovate and demonstrate ROI.

  • Develop insightful customer personas and stories that promote cultural empathy and impact decisions.
  • Identify critical customer views of interactions throughout multi-channel touchpoints.
  • Use journey maps to capture experiences and emotions, and help improve the lives of your customers.​

Module 4

ACCELERATE & IMPROVE DECISIONS WITH DATA​

Gain approval and keep CX initiatives alive by connecting the dots between your customers’ perceptions and cost of reality. Tie service delivery, churn rates, average handling times and acquisition costs to cost savings, ROI, and wallet share.

  • Explore leading practices and measurements that drive ongoing business improvements.
  • Link customer perceptions with operational costs and profitability.
  • Discover the most relevant, actionable metrics for your organization to achieve desired business results.

Module 5

CUSTOMER-FOCUSED INNOVATION

Innovating on behalf of your customers doesn’t start with a problem statement – it starts with your customers. Learn to invoke passion through empathy techniques and storytelling to break through barriers and close the “knowing-doing” gap.

  • Learn the strength of storytelling and apply emotional strategies that support innovation.
  • Use customer insights to instill a better understanding throughout your organization.
  • Break through walls to gain innovation victory on behalf of your customers.

Module 6

PRINCIPLES OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

Use the Customer Relationship Development Model to identify and define core elements to build relationships and improve overall experiences. Through collaboration and ideation, you create a maturity matrix specifically for your business.

  • Apply modern ideation and relationship building models.
  • Develop your own Customer Experience-based Customer Relationship Maturity Matrix.
  • Discover essential elements and apply the Technology Framework for CRM and Customer Experience.

Module 7

CUSTOMER FIRST CULTURE

Today, the customer is almighty. Now is the time to educate yourself and your workforce to create a customer-first culture that positions you for the greatest, long-term success. This isn’t “blowing up” the culture you already have – it’s embracing what you have and acting together to make a difference in how customers perceive your brand.

  • Accept the reality that your Customer Experience will never exceed your employee’s experience.
  • Engage the hearts and minds of your people.
  • Define “how to work together” to deliver your brand promise and great Customer Experiences.​

Module 8

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION – NAVIGATING POLITICS OF CHANGE​

Change is hard, people are resistant, and the market is becoming more fiercely competitive every day. Organizations must quickly evolve or be left behind. It takes a special leader to navigate these waters and get your entire organization marching to the same drummer. Arm yourself with these indispensable leadership skills.

  • Discover how to drive adoption across your entire organization.
  • Successfully jumpstart your role by gaining quick wins and bring others along with you.
  • Become a successful change-agent for experience-first thinking and inspire change.