Why Do You Even Have a CX Team?
Hi!
This week kicked off with some chaos. My wife had her first 24-hour shift, and I was solo with both kids all weekend. We had a blast. I only lost my mind once or twice.
At one point, Noah asked where Mom was. I told him she’s a doctor. Then I asked if he knew what I do for work. He said, “Daddy is Spiderman.”
The funny part is, at least he has a picture in his head of what I do. Even if it involves webs and tights. Most CX teams don’t get that luxury.
A lot of companies build a CX team, and then never decide what it’s for. Some think it's support. Others treat it like ops, retention, or a dumping ground for whatever’s broken.
So teams take on too much. They try to do everything. They stay busy. But they rarely get credit for moving the needle.
That’s not their fault. That’s on leadership.
This week, we’re talking about why CX exists at all. What it looks like when it works. And what happens when nobody gives it a purpose.
Let’s dive in.
This week’s newsie is brought to you by Gorgias.
It’s here: Gorgias AI Agent 2.0
Support used to be about solving problems. Now, it’s about driving revenue.
Gorgias reimagined what AI can do for your teams, and it’s more than just deflecting tickets. Meet the new Gorgias AI Agent 2.0.
Join them live on Wednesday, July 16, at 1 PM ET for a live look at how it can transform your CX strategies.
They will walk you through how AI Agent gets to know your brand tone of voice and workflows to turn support requests into high-converting shopping moments, from spotting buying signals to recommending products and offering smart discounts when it matters most.
You’ll see how top DTC brands and agencies are already using it to boost sales, reduce resolution times, and scale faster without adding headcount – right in time for the biggest shopping season of the year.
Here’s what you’ll get out of it:
How to turn existing traffic into more revenue
Real results from brands using AI Agent right now
Tactics to speed up support and grow AOV
If you’re in CX, ecommerce, or retention, this is a can’t-miss event.
Save your spot now 👉
Most Teams Get Built Backwards
The job description always shows up after the first fire.
An influx of support tickets. A viral post that tanks the site. A warehouse issue that hits the inbox before it hits the ops team.
Leadership scrambles. They post a role. “CX Associate. $18 an hr OBO”
But no one pauses to define what CX actually means. Or what it’s supposed to do or own.
So the team inherits chaos and starts plugging holes. Fast replies. Calmer customers. Internal trust. Lots of weekly decks.
“DAMN, we are under 30 min first-response-time! Let me post a screenshot on LinkedIn.”
And just like that, CX becomes the department that catches everything. Broken checkout flows. Shipping delays. Confusing PDPs. Anything the customer touches becomes “support’s problem.”
They build macros. Shorten response times. Get CSAT into the green. On paper, it all looks good.
But in the long run, this kind of setup leaves the team directionless. There’s no ownership of outcomes. No seat at the table. Just a running list of problems to mop up.
The issue isn’t the team. It’s the fact that no one ever gave them a reason to exist.
The Four Archetypes
I've worked with dozens of CX teams over the past few years, and they all seem to fall into one of four buckets.
Here's what I see:
Fast and Scalable – These teams handle tickets quickly and cheaply. Brand voice gets lost in the efficiency, but they can handle serious volume. Works best for low-margin businesses where speed matters more than personality.
Brand-Focused - Every interaction feels human and memorable. Expensive and hard to measure, but customers remember these experiences. Perfect for premium brands where each customer is worth protecting.
Retention-Driven - These teams boost LTV and surface insights that actually matter. Requires deep integration with data and lifecycle marketing. These teams can upsell and cross-sell in their sleep and turn CX into revenue drivers. Built for subscriptions and repeat-purchase brands.
Operations Support - Internal heroes with clear escalation paths. Invisible to customers, limited upside. Fits complex supply chains and B2B scenarios.
Most CX folks fall squarely into one of these. A few manage two (usually speed and brand). Almost nobody pulls off all four.
But a lot of teams still try. They want to be fast and thoughtful and revenue-generating and operationally sharp.
You can’t optimize for everything. Pick one. Build for it. Commit to the trade-offs.
The teams that do end up driving real outcomes. The ones that don’t become expensive generalists with nothing to point to.
The best ones don’t waste time chasing nice-to-have metrics. They build around a core mandate and organize everything around it. They pick a lane and go deep.
What It Looks Like When It Works
The teams destined to succeed, or at the very least, know what their job is, operate with intention from day one.
That starts with choosing a direction. The right archetype depends on three things:
Your margins
Your business model
Your team structure
If you’re running on tight margins and high volume, you need to prioritize speed and cost efficiency. That’s your lane. Don’t build a luxury concierge team if the product is under $15.
If your product is premium and considered, lean into brand. Build a team that slows down, listens hard, and turns one conversation into five future purchases. It’s the best shot you have at keeping your customers around if there are a bunch of cheap knockoffs.
It’s also how a brand like Zappos or Chewy thrives in an ultra-competitive environment when they are just a marketplace.
If you rely on repeat orders, your CX team should be embedded into lifecycle. That means surfacing insights, catching friction early, and guiding customers through reorders.
If your backend is complex, B2B, multiple fulfillment centers, a cuckoo complex supply chain, you need someone owning the internal handoffs and keeping things from falling apart behind the scenes.
Most teams skip this part. They just start hiring and say a prayer.
They bring on someone scrappy. Then another person. Then a manager. But nobody stops to decide what the team is actually supposed to drive.
So they do a little bit of everything. They chase metrics that don’t matter. They build dashboards with no clear tie to revenue, retention, or customer love.
The best teams pick a direction and commit. Every hire, workflow, and KPI flows from that single choice. No one is confused about what the team exists to do. No one is surprised when they drive real outcomes.
That’s what building with intention looks like.
I’m Begging You
You don’t hire a CMO and just say, “go do marketing.” You give them a budget. You set targets. You define success.
CX deserves the same treatment. But most founders skip that part. They hire someone because the Gorgias inbox is a mess. They hand over logins, forward a few angry emails, and call it a day.
The team does what they can. They answer tickets. They put out fires. They try to improve what’s in front of them. But they’re stuck operating without direction.
When the business still struggles with churn, loyalty, or repeat rate, the blame floats toward CX. The team didn’t fix it. But they were never set up to.
If you want CX to make an impact, define what it’s meant to do. Pick a lane. Build a strategy. Give the team a seat at the table and hold them accountable for outcomes that matter.
Move fast. Create lofty brand moments. Sell harder than Mary Kay. Be the ops wizard who keeps it all standing.
But pick one. Build around it.
Otherwise, you’re not building a CX team. You’re staffing the world’s nicest cleaning crew. And not paying them nearly enough to clean your bullsh!t.
That’s it for this week!
Any topics you'd like to see me cover in the future?
Just shoot me a DM or an email!
Cheers,
Eli 💛
P.S. If you want to figure out how to get your brand to rank high in LLMs and show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, and more… check this out.
