Charlie Colquhoun

About

An experienced Customer Experience Strategy leader with a proven track record of designing and leading transformative CX programs for global SaaS, fintech, cybersecurity, and enterprise organizations. Skilled at aligning CX strategy with business goals to increase customer loyalty, reduce friction, and drive revenue growth. Adept at using customer journey mapping, service design, and voice-of-customer (VoC) insights to deliver measurable improvements in satisfaction, retention, and operational efficiency. Key skills include: • Leading enterprise-wide CX transformations grounded in customer insights and business strategy • Translating research into actionable journey maps and service blueprints across the customer lifecycle • Driving cross-functional alignment and governance through customer-centric program leadership • Facilitating CX strategy and customer journey mapping workshops. • Delivering quantifiable gains in loyalty, retention, and margin by reducing CX friction points • Managing global CX initiatives across SaaS, cybersecurity, fintech, and retail verticals • Fostering a culture of design-led innovation and continuous customer value creation • Recognized by Forrester Research for CX governance excellence and awarded for top-tier support design Recently relocated from the US back to the UK

Experience

• Customer Experience Strategy and Design Partner · SimplyCX Inc.2021-06-01 –

  Leading end-to-end customer experience transformation initiatives for SaaS platforms, using customer journey mapping and service design to optimise CRM capabilities and reduce friction across the customer lifecycle. Improved operational efficiency by streamlining workflows and business processes—boosting net operating margins by 20% and reducing task completion time by up to 30% through data-informed optimisation. Delivered cross-functional alignment by translating qualitative research and voice-of-customer (VoC) insights into actionable strategies, resulting in measurable improvements in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

• Director Customer Experience · CrowdStrike2021-01-01 – 2021-06-01

  Led a cross-functional customer experience transformation with C-suite participation, implementing a multi-phased program to scale the business in a high-growth environment. Established and led a cross-functional customer experience council (marketing, sales, product, engineering, and customer service) to optimize survey reporting governance with a close-loop prioritization and follow-up process. Enhanced the Voice of Customer program by procuring Qualtrics, improving NPS, customer satisfaction metrics, and delivering actionable roadmaps that boosted NPS, raised Gartner Peer Insights to 4.8/5, and contributed to a 67% YoY increase in ARR.

• Customer Experience Strategy and Design Partner · SimplyCX Inc.2016-08-01 – 2021-01-01

  Developed and implemented CX programs across a number of industries for clients such as CrowdStrike, Epicor, LegalZoom, AARP, and Cognixion, focusing on qualitative research, customer journey mapping, data insights, service design, and AI-driven personalization. Fostered cross-departmental collaboration, transforming individual insights into actionable outcomes. Led research, data analysis, persona creation, customer journey mapping and experience design workshops to identify and prioritize pain points, implementing a closed-loop prioritization methodology that resulted in improved customer success KPIs and operational efficiencies.

• Sr Director Client Experience · ADP2016-02-01 – 2016-08-01

  Assisted in defining a three-year customer experience strategic vision and roadmap, leading cross-functional teams in large-scale customer journey mapping workshops with employees and customers. Spearheaded the implementation of a closed-loop improvement prioritization and continuous improvement methodology, driving $7M in annualized benefits and an additional $3M in cost avoidance.

• Director, Customer Experience Management · Sage2012-11-01 – 2016-01-01

  Built and scaled a global Customer Experience Center of Excellence, leading 70+ customer journey mapping and future state design workshops across a portfolio of software/SaaS acquisitions. This uncovered previously unseen customer insights, driving actionable improvements in customer interactions and streamlined business processes. Implemented a customer experience governance and prioritization scoring model that tracked over 300 experience improvement initiatives, leading to significant gains in customer satisfaction. This work contributed to a 46% increase in software subscription contracts and the fastest rate of recurring revenue growth for a decade of 10.4%.

• Senior Manager Customer Experience · Yahoo!2012-01-01 – 2012-09-01

  Developed a cross-organizational customer experience program with the goal of understanding our customers’ end-to-end lifecycle in order to identify, monitor and continuously improve critical customer pain-points and moments of truth in the Yahoo! experience. This included customer co-design workshops with executive level participation and interaction with customers who mapped out their experiences.

• Senior Manager User Experience Design · Yahoo!2010-01-01 – 2012-01-01

  Redesigned Yahoo’s global help and support platform for over 700M subscribers, using human-centered design, qualitative usability testing research and incorporating dynamic, personalized content. Enhanced agent experiences, including implementation of Knowledge Centered Support best practices, domestic and off-shore, for better service issue resolution and integrated Yahoo! Help into mobile platforms. Achieved significant cost savings by increasing self-help resolution rates and reducing average support case costs by nearly 70%. - Awarded the Association for Support Professionals (ASP) Top Ten Best Support Sites.

Education

• Heriot-Watt UniversitySystems Analysis, Data Processing & Computer Science SHND (Partial)

Similar talent on Pangea

Flora O.Business Operations Manager & CXM Strategist (Qualtrics Certified) | Lifecycle Marketing Automation ExpertCalifornia City, CAKKate M.Senior Strategist with Expertise in Innovation and Experience DesignSStephanie L.VP Customer Experience (CX) | SaaS & Customer Success Leadership | $10M+ Revenue GrowthUnited Arab EmiratesMark S.Customer Experience & Support Operations Leader specializing in SaaS, Live Chat, AI Support, and EscalationsVictoria, BC