March 11, 2025, marked the first-ever Wisconsin Customer Experience Symposium hosted by UWEBC! The symposium featured a range of experts, thought leaders, and Customer Experience (CX) professionals who shared their knowledge on building a strong culture, strengthening the competencies that matter, and mastering technological solutions. This virtual half-day event covered all facets of CX management.
The morning started with a presentation from Tom DeWitt, Ph.D. Tom is the Founder of CXM@MSU, North America’s first Master’s degree in Customer Experience Management at Michigan State University, and founder of the Experience Management Global Collaborative (XMGC). His presentation focused on the challenges of CX and experience management (XM), emphasizing the high failure rates of CX initiatives despite organizations prioritizing them. He gathered audience insights on why CX initiatives fail, with common reasons being competing priorities, lack of leadership support, and employee engagement issues. Other critical factors mentioned include employee engagement, consistency, knowing what to measure, and change management challenges. The discussion also highlighted the importance of reshaping organizational culture, aligning CX initiatives with financial goals, and adopting a long-term perspective.
Michelle DiTondo, the second presenter of the day, is a seasoned expert in organizational culture and customer experience with over 30 years of experience aligning workforce strategies with business outcomes. During her presentation, Michelle explained that many leaders initially struggle to define “culture” because it isn’t something tangible like revenue or occupancy. She described culture as the collective experiences, values, behaviors, and practices within an organization—shaped largely by leadership and employee interactions. A positive culture, where employees feel valued and important, directly influences performance, creativity, and service quality, improving business outcomes. She highlighted that discretionary effort—going beyond the basic requirements to create memorable experiences for customers—only happens when employees feel appreciated. This cultural alignment is essential for long-term success, particularly in hospitality, where employees’ emotional investment leads to better service and customer satisfaction.
Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, our final keynote speaker of the day, is a business consultant who helps brands improve customer and employee experiences to reduce costs and drive revenue. She advocates for “Empathy in Action,” showing that empathy can foster growth without costly initiatives. During her session, she discussed empathy-based leadership in improving customer and employee experiences. She differentiated between sympathy and empathy, emphasizing the importance of using empathy as a business strategy to reduce employee disengagement and improve customer service. Dr. Petouhoff also explained how empathy transforms customer service, advocating for authentic problem-solving over sympathy scripts. This foundation of empathy, she stressed, creates a firm base for AI to enhance human work, not replace it, and allows the combination of AI and humans to create better business outcomes.
The Wisconsin Customer Experience Symposium concluded with a thoughtful panel discussion between Michelle Dauchy, VP of Customer Experience at Mercury Marine; Alex Paez-Gerstenhaber, Global VP of Client Experience at Hy Cite; and Carrie Toth, VP of Customer Experience at Generac. Each shared their personal journeys in CX, the importance of customer centricity, customer and organization empowerment, use of technology frameworks, metrics, external-driven mindsets, and more!
Save space in your calendar for March 10, 2026, where we’ll continue this focused discussion with the next Wisconsin CX Symposium!