Experience Officer 

The Experience Officer is your champion that drives IT Experience Management initiatives forward.
itxm-best-practice-experience-officer

Objective of an Experience Officer

IT should appoint one or more Experience Officers to manage the Experience Data, run the Experience Management Office, and participate in organization-wide discussions about IT Experience Management.

Impact of an Experience Officer

Establishing a clear point of contact for IT Experience Management creates a sense of ownership and emphasizes its significance.

About this ITXM Best Practice

Contributors:
Tuna Ozcer / Ahlstrom-Munksjö
Pasi Nikkanen / HappySignals

Reading time:
5 minutes

Level:
Strategic

Updated:
2nd February 2023

What is an Experience Officer?

Depending on the company's size and maturity, there may be one or several Experience Officers. However, starting with one who can lead the Experience Management Office team is generally recommended.

Experience Officers work across the entire IT department and are passionate about improving the end-user experience.

They can also come from outside IT, such as a Head of User Experience or Chief Experience Officer. The organizational position is not crucial as long as they collaborate with different teams to achieve a common goal and outcome. Assigning a person responsible for a particular IT service area may introduce bias, so it is not always the best fit. Ultimately, the best approach depends on the specific circumstances.

Why would you use an Experience Officer?

Having an Experience Officer creates clarity. Naming a specific person responsible for this role is beneficial since it is often a part-time position initially filled by someone from the IT department.

The Experience Officer will lead the Experience Management initiative and promote the benefits and impact of experience management to IT end-users and company employees. They will serve as the champion for the topic of Experience Management.

Progression of Experience Officer role?

As an Experience Officer, first understand IT Experience Management basics and pass the ITXM Foundation Certification Course.

Then start understanding the metrics, the baseline of your company, and where the most significant issues for end-users lie. When comfortable with the data, start setting up the weekly and monthly sessions mentioned below.

One or Multiple Experience Officers?

Depending on the company size, you might need more than one Experience Officer; still, we would recommend:

  • Start from one team and establish a working model
  • Expand to new teams as you roll out the usage of ITXM inside your organization

When ready to expand the team, set up an Experience Management Office (XMO), as this helps to have a group of people passionate about understanding and making a difference for end-users.

How to assign and train Experience Officers?

Finding the right people

  • Experience Officers should be someone the team trusts and respects
  • Experience Officers should have a natural interest in how people feel about the service they are providing
  • They should not be a junior person but needs to understand the big picture of how different IT areas link to each other
  • Head of Experience - people without operational responsibilities and already thinking about experience-related topics
  • A few years of experience within the organization to understand the environment
  • This is an additional role on top of another role
 

Training the Experience Officers

  • Start with the ITXM Foundation Course and Certification
  • Experience Officer should be expected to pass the ITXM Foundation Certification
  • Give product briefing sessions to Experience Officers so they know the possibilities of your selected ITXM platform and Experience Data products.
 

Weekly tasks

  • Follow experience data progressions
    • Look for why scores have dropped. → bring the insights to the monthly report
  • Prepare Monthly Experience Report materials
  • Interaction with IT teams, join their operational meetings
  • Tag and Manage end-user feedback
 

Monthly tasks

 

Quarterly tasks

  • Action plans
    • Propose changes in XLAs and Experience Target Levels
  • Align focus areas to company strategy and goals by Settings Objectives
 

IT Leadership engagement upwards

  • Tactical and Strategic meetings
    • For example: identify resourcing issues and suggest fixes
    • Supporting IT Leaders with their presentations
    • Experience Reporting for IT Management Team