CXBuzz Interview with Mary Drumond CMO at Worthix

Hi Mary, tell us about yourself and share some background about Worthix (and how you ended up joining Worthix) 

My background is in education and educational management, so CX was a huge pivot for me. I actually joined Worthix in a leadership role; Customer Experience is the essence of Worthix, so digging in and immersing myself in the field started off more as a way to get better at my job, and ultimately became the main focus of my role. And while CX is a huge part of Worthix, the part we focus on is how those experiences influence customers’ decisions to buy or not from companies. Worthix uses conversation-based technology to analyze customer decisions.   

How much have consumer sentiments changed in your space during 2020 and what is 2021 going to look like?

It has changed significantly. Worthix is running research with 7 enterprises to measure sentiment during and post COVID-19, and just the past 8 months have given us incredibly rich data on how a global event can shift consumer mindsets. 2021 is still a mystery, but a lot of habits formed during the pandemic will continue in a post-COVID world. It’s our job to stay ahead of the trends so we can shift according to the changes in customer expectations.

Mary’s top KPIs

As the CMO of Worthix, what are the most important KPIs you use to measure customer experience benchmarks? 

Great question! Worthix has developed a score that determines how ‘worth it’ a company or brand is to their customers. So, it’s the first Decision-based KPI. The decision is the sum, or the conclusion of all the experiences, positive and negative, that lead up to the point where customers choose to do business with you or not. We believe that when a customer decides that something is ‘worth it’, they’ve already concluded that the product/service in question is in fact worthy of the money/time/effort they’ll need to exchange in order to access that benefit. This “worth it conclusion’ guarantees repeat purchases again and again. But if your company, product or service is not worth it, it means your offer is not attractive enough for customers to exchange value for it, and you’ve lost their business to the competition.    

How much has the role of the CMO changed in the social distancing era – what role has digital transformation had in this crisis?  

In my case, working for a technology company, not much has changed. But I think for most companies and most leaders, lockdowns and social distancing have forced companies to reassess their WFH/Remote work policies. In some cases, it proved the importance of a common space for culture building. In others, it has shown that remote work is a true possibility, and is sustainable long-term for many positions, even entire teams.    

How is Worthix transforming the customer experience landscape?   

We focus on the experiences that affect customer decisions, but we do it with a focus on empathizing with the customer. That means we’re able to paint a very clear picture of what companies need to keep doing or do better in order to remain in customers’ graces. If there is an ongoing experience that’s likely to cause churn, Worthix detects it almost immediately and gives companies the data they need to determine the best strategy to tackle that issue. We are changing the way companies and customers communicate with each other. We provide customers with a platform to be heard by companies, and those companies, in turn, gain the ability to be empathetic to customers’ needs at scale.  

What was the biggest lesson you learned in 2020? 

So many. Resilience. Perseverance. Tolerance. Other than a handful, most companies had their forecasts and projections obliterated by the unexpected. We were all forced to accept that 2020 was not going to be ‘our year’; we weren’t going to smash records or move mountains. We were lucky if we survived. But understanding that everyone was hurting, everyone was adapting, and everyone was struggling helped me tolerate my shortcomings and push forward past failure. Last year was a never-ending cycle of falling and picking myself back up. It definitely toughened me up.   

2020 was the year of webinars and online events, what was your favorite one?   

One of my favorite webinars was the “Socratic Webinar” I did alongside Nate Brown, Dan Gingiss, Annette Franz, and Justin Robbins. We had full Roman philosopher costumes, hair, and make-up, the works! It was so refreshing to do something totally different than all the other thousands of webinars and Zoom calls that we were all on throughout 2020.

It looks like working from home is going to stay with us for the foreseeable future, how should CMOs gear up to the changing times? 

Lean into change. There are so many things that are out of our hands. The faster we accept circumstances that are not in our control, the faster we can react. In many cases, all we can do is be flexible and not let change break us. Other times, we can predict what is coming and gear up to create an opportunity for growth. Don’t wait around. Don’t be a late adopter. Embrace the speed of the times and run with them!

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