Setting a Seat at the Table: How CX Earns Real Authority with Katie Stabler
***It’s Episode 50 of Your Customer, Your Success!!!*** Thank you all for listening/watching!
A fitting milestone for a conversation on how customer experience earns real authority inside the organizations that need it most.
In this return visit, Katie Stabler joins Gary Marra to examine why customer experience continues to sit downstream of major business decisions in most organizations, even as the data consistently shows CX leaders outperform the market.
Katie is the founder and director of Cultivate Customer Experience by Design, globally ranked the number three CX leader, author of CX-ism, host of Everyday CXism, and the returning host of the International Customer Experience Awards.
The conversation is built around three questions Katie posed to her LinkedIn Inner Circle community:
- Why does CX still struggle to influence strategic decisions?
- Why do CX teams feel responsible for outcomes they don’t fully control?
- Why do businesses claim to care about customers while designing systems that make good experiences difficult to deliver?
Katie and Gary work through the structural contradictions inside most CX functions, the difference between ownership and authority, and how influence without authority can still drive meaningful organizational change. Katie also revisits her Three S’s framework, Success, Satisfaction, and Sentiment, and explains why emotion is the mechanism that turns interactions into memory, perception, and loyalty.
CHAPTERS
01:05 Introduction
02:43 Katie’s “The Inner Circle” on LinkedIn
04:34 Why does CX still struggle to influence strategic decisions?
09:34 Why do CX teams feel responsible for outcomes they don’t fully control?
15:43 Why do businesses say they care about customers but design systems that make CX hard to deliver?
20:37 A reminder of the Three S’s framework
26:04 What Katie is building with the Everyday CXism podcast
28:02 Wow or No Wow
31:31 Does It Hold Water?
38:37 Chip Shots
Book Recommendations
CX-ism by Katie Stabler
Being You by Anil Seth
Connect with Katie
Website: Cultivate Customer Experience by Design
LinkedIn: Katie Stabler
Podcast: Everyday CX-ism
🔗 Connect with Gary Marra
· LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-marra/
· Marra CX Hub: https://marracxhub.com/
· YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@yourcustomeryoursuccesspodcast
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ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMER, YOUR SUCCESS
Your Customer, Your Success is a leadership and business growth podcast focused on the idea that client focus is not just a service philosophy — it is a growth strategy. Hosted by Gary Marra, the show sits at the intersection of customer experience, employee experience, leadership, and operational discipline. Each episode features practical conversations with executives, advisors, and business leaders on how better experiences drive loyalty, trust, retention, and sustainable business growth.
ABOUT GARY MARRA
Gary Marra is a business advisor, customer experience leader, and host of Your Customer, Your Success. Drawing on deep experience in financial services, client management, operations, and cross-functional leadership, Gary helps organizations think more clearly about how service, trust, and execution shape growth. His perspective combines customer-centric strategy with practical business discipline, making the show especially relevant for founders, operators, and leaders responsible for long-term client relationships.
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