Mark Templeton – “CX Washing,” Culture, and the Holy Grail of Customer Experience

The CX Iconoclast

Why do only software companies and drug dealers call their customers “users”? Has “CX washing” diluted to overall impact of CX in the business world? Why do so many acquisitions fail to consider the customer experience? And could OCX Cognition really be in pursuit of the “holy grail” of CX? Just a few of the questions our guest, former Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, discusses in this episode.

Everybody’s career begins somewhere, but even so, you might be a little surprised to learn that Mark Templeton got his start in sheet metal. Listen to the conversation to learn the story of his career pivot, but suffice to say it turned out to be a pretty epic shift. Mark joined Citrix first as marketing VP, then as president, and then, for more than 14 years, president and CEO, departing after 20 years at the company. He led Citrix as it transformed from a $15 million business with a single product to a multinational software leader in multiple categories, worth more than $3 billion and with more than 100 million users around the world. Today, Mark serves on several boards and offers his very thoughtful mentorship and consulting to up and coming business leaders.

On some level, you have Mark to thank for your ability to work from home. Mark was a visionary when it came to virtualization, including mobility management, networking, collaboration, and security, and Citrix did a great deal to popularize and refine many of the technologies we take for granted today as we work from wherever we like these days. He’s also proud, as you’ll hear him discuss, of the design-thinking culture he engineered at Citrix, and of the company’s value-driven culture.

We kept the conversation focused on a few areas that have particular resonance in thinking about the customer experience – metrics, acquisitions, and company culture. Some points to listen for:

• How what Mark amusingly calls “CX washing” has diluted the overall impact of CX in the business world.
• The benefits and limitations culture change, based on Mark’s efforts to embed design thinking and customer-centricity in the Citrix culture. We include a discussion of complementing good intent with measurement.
• The human and business challenges of serving customers effectively through acquisitions. Mark oversaw about 50 acquisitions at Citrix, so he has quite a perspective.
• How it might not be a co-incidence that only the software industry and the drug industry call their customers “users.”

Find Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbtempleton/

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Connect with Richard Owen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richard-owen-98ba3