EX is the missing CX link

CMOs don’t need convincing that an engaged workforce fuels happier customers and stronger growth.

When employees are empowered, equipped, and clear on what the brand stands for, they can deliver faster, build stronger relationships, and create experiences that feel consistent with the promises made externally.

The problem? Too often, employees are held back by outdated systems, conflicting messages, or KPIs that reward the wrong thing. The result is frustration inside and inconsistency outside. By aligning employee experience (EX) with customer experience (CX), businesses remove those barriers, enabling people to serve customers the way the brand intends.

For CMOs, this is the sweet spot. But with their roles expanding and budgets under pressure, bandwidth is stretched thinner than ever. Against that backdrop, asking marketing to also take on EX isn’t always realistic.

Yet frustration with EX runs deep. Marketing leaders question how HR and internal comms can deliver more impact – HR often seen as process-heavy, IC as focused on volume over value. They respect the intent, but feel the commercial edge is missing. Marketing, by contrast, is built for momentum. But with their own fires to fight, CMOs can’t step fully into the void.

So, where’s the opportunity?

Rethinking EX

What does this mean in practice?

It’s not about marketers rewriting performance reviews or designing training programs. That’s clearly not their remit. It is about tackling the specific barriers that stop customer-facing employees from delivering brilliant service:

• Outdated systems that make it impossible to resolve customer queries quickly.
• Policies that require layers of approval, leaving frontline staff powerless.
• Conflicting messages from leadership that create uncertainty in the field.

Every one of these is both an EX issue and a CX failure. And they are solvable if marketing, HR, IC, and operations come together with clarity and urgency.

Take the case of a digital contact center with low morale, high turnover, poor customer scores, and frustrated managers. HR and IC rolled out an engagement program of team meetings, success stories, and suggestion boxes. The result? No change.

Reframed as an EX-to-CX challenge, the approach shifted. First, the ten elements of an on-brand customer experience were mapped. Then, the internal barriers were identified – process, skills, roles, systems, technology. The findings were stark: the company had invested in sleek customer-facing platforms, but left employees with clunky systems. Customers actually had better visibility of their data than the staff trying to help them.

Employees had never been briefed on the customer promise and were measured only on call volume and speed, not satisfaction or resolution. What moved the needle was different: giving employees the same quality of tools as customers, changing KPIs to include CSAT, adding empathy training, and tying the whole program back to brand, not just the bottom line.

That’s the EX–CX difference. Not your typical HR or IC approach, but an integrated one.

Marketing’s hidden advantage

Marketing’s edge lies in perspective. CMOs are used to balancing brand promise with customer reality. They know that inconsistency erodes trust faster than anything else. And they understand how to design experiences that build belief, as uncovered in Brandpie’s recent CMO Report.

Translating this inside the business means shaping the employee journey with the same care given to the customer journey. It means ensuring employees understand not just what the company does, but why it matters. And it means equipping them with the tools, freedom, and confidence to deliver on that promise day in, day out.

This isn’t about adding another responsibility to marketing’s already full plate but focusing efforts where EX and CX overlap.

Trust as the ultimate differentiator

In many markets, customers may not always have a choice of provider. But they still have a voice. Dissatisfied customers escalate complaints, share negative experiences, and erode brand reputation. When trust is the differentiator, even perceived indifference costs dearly.

Flip that, and the opposite is true. Inspired and empowered employees build customer belief. Customers who feel listened to and supported are more loyal, and more likely to advocate. Advocacy matters – it drives credibility, retention, and growth.

As one CMO put it bluntly: “If you can’t sell your value proposition to your own employees, you’ll never sell it to customers.”

A call for selective boldness

The way forward is not a wholesale takeover of EX by marketing. That’s not realistic. Nor is it a culture program run by HR. Instead, it’s about focused interventions where your business needs it most – where your EX directly powers CX.

• Listen first. Your people know where the friction is. Don’t rely on generic surveys – use tools and forums that let employees flag what’s broken and suggest how to fix it (such as VYTALS). That’s where the most actionable insights come from, and how you build credibility from day one.
• Remove friction. Strip away processes that make customer service harder.
• Empower the frontline. Give customer-facing staff the tools and trust to act with confidence.
• Align the story. Ensure the narrative you tell the outside world is the same story employees hear and live inside.
• Measure both. Track the correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction, and make that link visible in board-level reporting.

This is where marketers can make a meaningful difference. By applying their skills with precision, they can turn EX from a siloed HR concern into a driver of trust, growth, and competitive edge.Healthcare won’t be saved by policy or technology alone. Its resilience lies in aligning business strategy with brand and culture. That’s what unleashes energy, renews commitment, and strengthens organizations for the long run.