Customer Experience Association Formed

In the US, former Forrester Research exec Bruce Temkin and loyalty specialist Jeanne Bliss have formed the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA); a non-profit body promoting understanding of the discipline.

CXPA's 20 founding members and sponsors include text analytics company Clarabridge, research software specialist Confirmit, customer experience management solutions firm ResponseTek, and online survey management software firm Vovici. Other members include customer experience practitioners within companies, vendors who support customer experience efforts, and other stakeholders in the industry.

CXPA will be governed by a Board of Directors to be drawn from its membership, and will start out with Temkin as Chair and Bliss as Vice Chair.

Temkin, who is Managing Partner of customer-centric consultancy the Temkin Group, previously spent 12 years with Forrester Research, during which time he led the firm's B2B, financial services and customer experiences practices. Bliss is the President of consultancy CustomerBliss, and previously spent 25 years as the Chief Customer Officer of five large US corporates, including Microsoft and Mazda Motor of America.

In addition to promoting the specialism, the Association will support the professional development of its members, provide research and education, establish standards, offer networking and career opportunities. It will also establish a number of sub-committees - education, marketing, membership, networking and professional development - through which members can participate and help shape its direction.

'Our mission is to help CXPA members - across all fields and vertical markets - make customer experience management an integral part of how their companies operate, and to enable them to embed its skill set across their organizations,' says Temkin. 'Our goal is to break down the work, create standards and best practice approaches and transfer those skills across the CXPA network.'

The new body has a web site at www.cxpa.org .