The Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) has named Alec Dalton among the inaugural recipients of the Emerging Leader in CX Award. During a virtual ceremony on February 12, judges and members of the association's awards planning committee conferred the recognition on Dalton and four fellow CX innovators.

Launched this year, the Emerging Leader in CX Award recognizes rising voices that are shaping the customer experience discipline. The selection of winners factored nearly twenty traits, among them professional experience, an ability to generate bold new thinking, creative innovation and decision-making, and strategic leadership. Former CXPA Board Chairman Bob Azman, CCXP, who first conceived of the award, noted an intent to celebrate "the professionals that are just coming into the CX profession and are beginning to really demonstrate some breakthrough ideas, some innovative approaches to design, ways to look at employee experiences differently, [etc.]."

Dalton was originally nominated by his longtime mentor Karl Sharicz, CEO of HorizonCX, whose consultancy includes Alec as an Advisory Board Member. Sharicz saw the award as an opportunity to recognize Dalton for his professional accomplishments within hospitality quality management, as well as for his active engagement within the CX community. When conferring the award, CXPA Board Member and awards judge Göhkan Kara, CCXP further described Alec as a "lifelong learner" while praising him for sharing his knowledge with the community: "[Alec] is giving keynote speeches, judging in some organizations, and writing articles about CX."

In addition to Dalton, other honorees include:

• Gloria Gupta, MS, FCXP (CX I-III),
• Branden Schossler, CCXP,
• Laura Tramm, and
• Danielle Wipperfurth, MBA, CCXP.

Beyond pure recognition, the intent for this award is to create a platform for honorees to hone their CX leadership skills and operate on the forefront of the field. The cadre of winners will receive unique opportunities for professional development throughout the year.

Click here to watch the awards ceremony, in which you can hear from Dalton and the other winners about their shared passion for CX and about their visions for the future of the field.

With the new year well underway, two lists separately acclaim Customer Experience 2 as a must-read for 2021. Co-authored by Alec Dalton, this latest volume in the best-selling Customer Experience series offers CX insights and strategies from a cadre of global thought leaders.

Qualtrics short-listed the book among their list "10 Books Every CX Leader Should Read in 2021".  They praised the essay-style format in particular, noting, "Why get one view, when you can have 24?

Additionally, BookAuthority celebrated the best-seller on its list "7 Best New Customer Experience eBooks to Read in 2021". This recognition is BookAuthority's second for the series, as the original book Customer Experience was named to their 2020 list; that first book currently ranks #52 on their list of "100 Best Customer Experience Books of All Time".

To order a print copy of Customer Experience 2, or to download a digital edition today, visit Amazon. If you missed the original volume, you can get a copy of Customer Experience while you’re at it!

On December 21, 2020, the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) named Alec Dalton a finalist for the first-ever Emerging Leader in CX Awards. According to the Association, the goals of the awards are to "identify, recognize, and support the professional development of customer experience practitioners who are new, emerging leaders in the experience management profession." 

Selected from a global pool of candidates, Alec was nominated by CX veteran and past CXPA Board Member Karl Sharicz. Karl, who is also Alec's longtime mentor, noted the nominee's leadership within Marriott in addition to his engagement within the CX community in the form of books, speaking engagements, and other activities focused on knowledge-sharing.

Alec, along with other finalists, will move on to the last round of vetting. Five winners will be announced in February 2021.

The original announcement of finalists can be found in CXPA's 2020 year-end recap, and more information about the award can be located on CXPA's website.

Shortly after the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic, Alec Dalton began partnering with Profs. Suzanne Bagnera (Boston University) and Peter Szende (Oxford Brookes University) to answer a critical question:  what does "clean" mean for hotel guests amidst COVID-19?

In May 2020, the team shared preliminary research findings in their Hotel News Now article "Conveying Hotel Cleanliness During COVID-19 Crisis". In essence, guests expect communications about cleanliness just as much as the cleaning in and of itself. The "cleanliness theater" mentality can help brick-and-mortar operators be both practical and performative to convey clean spaces for customers and employees.

Primary research continues as Dalton and Drs. Bagnera and Szende survey hotel guests, employees, and owners to understand the current state of cleanliness practices and communications. Research is also forward-looking, to anticipate evolving customer and employee preferences for "staying safe."

To share your own feedback to support the hospitality industry's recovery, click here for a brief survey:

​ARCET Global has appointed Alec Dalton as an Official Judge of the 2021 Customer Centricity World Series. This global program recognizes best-in-class organizations working on the cutting-edge of customer experience management.

The array of awards categories encompasses a broad spectrum of priorities in CX, including:

• Best Customer Experience Strategy
• Best Digital Strategy/Digital Transformation
• Best Measurement in Customer Experience
• Best User Experience
• Business Change or Transformation
• Client Relationship Management
• Crisis Strategy and Management
• Customer-Centric Culture
• Customer Complaints
• Customer Experience Leadership
• Customer Experience Professionals (Team & Individual)
• Customer Insight & Feedback VOC
• Customer Touchpoints
• Employee Experience

The Customer Centricity World Series coincides with one of the largest virtual CX knowledge-sharing events, with keynotes, panels, and access to over 150 CX case studies featuring qualifying finalists. The conference and virtual ceremony will be hosted virtually between May 18-19, 2021.

Click here to learn more about the Customer Centricity World Series, to submit a competitive entry, and to register for the conference.

On October 2, 2020, in conjunction with its annual Alumni Weekend, Boston University's School of Hospitality Administration (SHA) will celebrate graduates and industry leaders with a series of special awards. Alec Dalton is among the honorees and will be recognized as the "Young Alumni of the Year" for 2020.

“As BU SHA approaches our 40th anniversary (2021) we are proud to boast about our alumni who are in leading roles in various sectors of our business,” noted Dean Arun Upneja. “Alec Dalton’s achievements as an undergraduate were notable; honoring his professional accomplishments so soon after his graduation is not surprising. We look forward to following along with him through what will no doubt be an illustrious career.”

Alec graduated from Boston University in 2015 with dual bachelor’s degrees from the School of Hospitality Administration and the Questrom School of Business. His involvement in the SHA community included co-founding the university’s chapter of AH&LA, recruiting prospective students as a Dean’s Host, and ultimately serving as President of the school’s student government in his senior year. Alec earned membership in several distinguished organizations, including Eta Sigma Delta, Beta Gamma Sigma, Alpha Kappa Psi, and BU’s Scarlet Key Honor Society. Upon his graduation, he was conferred the Dean’s Leadership Service Award for his contributions to student life. In honor of his faculty advisor and trusted mentor, Alec now serves on the leadership committee for the Mike Oshins Freshman Experience Fund.

Between October 19-22, 2020, customer experience leaders from around the world will gather virtually for the inaugural conference of the Customer Experience & Service Association Middle East (CXSA). Titled E3, this event will "Educate, Engage, and Empower" attendees to enhance customer experiences in their own organizations.

​With great enthusiasm, Alec Dalton is pleased to present a masterclass entitled "Building a Better Business: Service Blueprinting and Its Benefits in Hospitality and Beyond."  Service blueprints effectively help CX leaders understand those underlying processes, which further helps them find ways to improve both revenue and profitability. By attending this session, participants will be able to:

• Build customer journey maps and extend them into detailed service blueprints;
• Exhibit best-practice techniques for designing effective blueprints; and,
• Navigate the simple process for improving customer journeys and business processes using blueprints as guides.

Consider joining this exceptional conference, with an array of world-class thought leaders and ample opportunity to network with CX colleagues across industries and continents. Click the link below to register, but contact Alec first before you do: he's happy to share a promotional discount off your registration fee!

Recently, Alec Dalton connected with Janelle Mansfield, CEO and Customer Experience Evangelist of AmplifiedCX. During his segment in her series of "60 second" soundbites for amplifying customer experiences, Alec highlighted service blueprinting as a technique CX leaders can use for understanding the operational implications of their experiences.  Check out the recording below, and continue reading to learn more.

As Alec shared in the video, service blueprinting is an extension of customer journey mapping. Blueprints use process flow diagramming to show the steps customers take along their journey, as well (and perhaps more importantly) the steps the business takes in parallel. The benefits of service blueprinting include:

• Understanding the actions and effort required of customers;
• Visualizing business processes that support the customer journey;
• Identifying critical touchpoints and moments-of-truth where customers and the business co-create the experience;
• Tying performance metrics to customer and business processes; and,
• Exposing opportunities for greater operational efficiency, effectiveness, and overall excellence.

​The following screenshot shows some of the basic elements in a simplified service blueprint:

Looking vertically, you can see an array of actions and lines that form the core components of a blueprint:

• Customer actions represent the customer journey (this row can be borrowed directly from existing customer journey maps).
• The line of interaction delineates between what the customer is responsible to do (above the line) and what efforts the business owns (below).
• "On stage" business actions display employee actions and digital activities that the business conducts but that the customer sees and participates-in.
• The line of visibility distinguishes what operations the customer can see (above the line) and what is hidden from view (below).
• "Back stage" business actions are the operations that keep the business running, even though the customer doesn't see them.
• The line of internal interaction separates the business processes impacting the customer experience (above the line) from the "overhead" mechanisms (below) that keep the business running.
• Support processes do not directly impact the customer journey, but they do allow a business to operate; examples include IT systems, HR management, and financial planning.

As the example shows, each of the actions and processes is connected with flow lines to depict the movement of tasks and effort as an experience is prepared, created, and evaluated. Additional features common on blueprints include metrics like the duration of each task, the quality of outputs, and customer satisfaction at key events. The level of depth a single blueprint provides explains why the tool is a prized addition to any CX toolkit.

If you're keen to learn more, consider joining Alec's blueprinting masterclass during the E3 digital conference, hosted on Oct. 19-22, 2020 by the Customer Experience & Service Association Middle East (CXSA). You can also read "Service Blueprinting: Shifting from a Storyboard to a Scorecard", which he published in the Journal of Foodservice Business Research in collaboration with Dr. Peter Szende. 

Based on its worldwide acclaim, BookAuthority has named Customer Experience to its list of the "Best New Customer Experience Books" for 2020. This collaborative book, which became an instant international best-seller, shares world-class tips, tools, techniques, and trends from 22 CX thought leaders.

From the cultivation of customer-centric cultures to the curation of marketing metrics, this book covers the breadth of CX strategy. Business leaders seeking to dramatically enhance their products and services will find ample tips, techniques, and other takeaways. In Alec Dalton's section, readers will specifically learn a five-step framework for improving the quality of customer experiences.

To explore the incredible insights from these CX leaders, order a print or Kindle copy on Amazon.