“Welcome to Concur!” I’ve heard that a lot over the past couple weeks in my new internship at Concur Technologies, and I truly do feel welcomed. My first couple weeks on the job have been fantastic– I have a great team, and some fun projects for the summer. When I interviewed for the company, I was told it was a marketing and graphic design position. Naturally, I expected to be in the creative department with the rest of the designers. As it turns out, I am in the Customer Experience (CX) team as a graphic designer. My hiring manager used to run the creative department, so she is able to mentor me in the design field, despite not being in the design part of the business. Being a designer on an external team has been one of the greatest learning experiences I could’ve asked for– I get to see both sides of the corporate design process.

Customer Experience is a relatively new term in the corporate world– when I told my parents I was joining the CX team, they had no idea what that meant. While businesses have focused on the experiences of customers since the beginning of time, there hasn’t always been a designated team to focus on the job.

As far as I’ve been able to track, first whispers of Customer Experience date back to 2009 in an article, “The consumer decision journey” by David Court. It describes the interaction between company and consumer as the “customer experience”, and that’s what my team does at Concur.

Over the past 6 years, CX teams have been popping up all over the place– becoming a vital part of marketing. Mapping out exactly how consumers interact with the brand, and how that interaction can be improved. As far as I’ve picked up, Customer Experience is about seeking out problems. We focus on finding the paint points and highlights that customers go through when using our products, and then find a way to solve it.

When my project manager was describing the team to me, he asked me if I loved my iPhone. Naturally, I say yes. He said he’ll give his Windows Phone to me for free, but I refuse the offer. “Why?” “Because I already love my iPhone, and I’ve had a bad experience with Windows Phones in the past.” Exactly. Customer Experience is about finding that “why”. Where was it along the experience with my iPhone that I decided I “loved” it? Where was it in my experience with my Windows Phone that I decided I didn’t love it? Those are all the things that Customer Experience teams seek to find, and improve.

Customer Experience is a growing field, and I feel extremely lucky to be a part of that. I have a great team to teach me the CX ways all summer, and I’m excited to take what I learn and apply it to the marketing work I do in the future.