Summary
In this session, you will learn about Verizon’s model for transforming and scaling our CX operations and design practices, and how establishing a set of Experience Principles has played a critical role in elevating and democratizing CX across the organization.
Key Insights
-
•
Verizon’s design group is positioned under marketing, which influences design advocacy and resource allocation.
-
•
A company’s design maturity level dictates whether the focus is on evangelism or operationalization of design.
-
•
Distinguishing CX (customer experience) from UX (user experience) allows for a broader omni-channel approach.
-
•
Verizon created three core experience principles—meaningful, human, and responsible—with three attributes each to guide CX efforts.
-
•
Experience principles must align with company values, customer needs, and industry best practices to be effective.
-
•
Using familiar language tailored to a broad audience maximizes adoption beyond just design teams.
-
•
Leadership buy-in, especially from executives like the CMO, is crucial for promoting and embedding experience principles.
-
•
Collecting customer feedback via surveys based on experience principles enables quantitative measurement of design impact.
-
•
Experience principles act as high-level guiding stars, with product teams potentially needing more prescriptive, project-specific design principles beneath them.
-
•
Cross-functional collaboration and cultural readiness around customer-centricity are essential for successful CX transformation projects.
Notable Quotes
"Customer experience refers to the collection of interactions someone has with the brand, agnostic of channel or touchpoint."
"Our design group is positioned under marketing, which tells us a lot about who our design influencers are."
"Design maturity means the level of impact that design has across the organization, not just within design teams."
"We needed a set of experience principles as our North Star to define what customer experiences we are aspiring to deliver."
"The goal for experience principles was to align business goals with customer needs, not just create how-to design principles."
"Using familiar language from our company values like reliability made the principles feel more natural and adoptable."
"Getting leadership buy-in from our CMO was a lucky break that helped promote and amplify our experience principles at the brand level."
"We’re piloting customer surveys asking if experiences were honest, simple, and reliable to translate principles into metrics."
"Experience principles sit at the top and product teams create prescriptive design principles that ladder up to them."
"Culture that values customer focus is key before expecting widespread adoption of experience principles outside the design team."
Dig deeper—ask the Rosenbot:
















More Videos

"People will work harder for people than for a number, so thick data is critical to inspire advocacy and action."
Monty HammontreeThe Future of UX Research (Videoconference)
December 3, 2020

"Will you become an advocate for the world’s most vulnerable voices muffled in complex systems?"
Liz EbengoThe Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward
December 4, 2024

"Content first design should happen after sketching but pretty early to help shape the wireframes and concepts."
Billy CarlsonTips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story
June 6, 2023

"Making bite-sized secondary research accessible allows busy designers to start right away without additional workload."
Saara Kamppari-MillerInclusive Design is DesignOps
September 29, 2021

"Innovation is about being fearless. There’s a rule or a process, but that doesn’t mean it’s right—keep pushing and breaking things."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016

"People assumed Facebook was always listening to their conversations because we didn’t clearly explain how and why the feature worked."
Jonathon ColmanHow to Maximize the Impact of Content Design
January 8, 2024

"Opening the feedback board to the whole team made developers feel responsible and inspired to solve user needs."
Maria SkaadenContinuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
November 8, 2018

"We wanna make sure that we don't just hand it over as a black box, but also provide contextual information."
Bryce Benton[Demo] AI-powered UX enhancement: Aligning GitHub documentation with USWDS at Austin Public Library
June 4, 2024

"Men in this report consistently report higher income than women, but don’t draw early conclusions — seniority levels and positions matter."
Marc FonteijnFirst Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report
December 4, 2024