Karen Downes

GM Client Development

Karen has worked customer experience from three different continents and four completely different industries – retail, hospitality, pet care, human services – before she ever set foot in a CX-specific role. What she noticed moving between them wasn’t the differences. It was the same problem showing up everywhere: someone collects feedback, nobody quite knows what to do with it, and the person closest to the customer is usually the last one asked.

That’s mostly what the job has been since. At Feedback ASAP, Karen’s title says Head of Customer Success, but the actual remit runs wider: she designs new client programs, assists clients to get the most out of their programs, leads the product roadmap and development, constantly looking for ways to simplify yet provide more depth.

“A dashboard doesn’t fix anything on its own. Somebody still has to look at it properly, ask what it actually means, what did we do to get ourselves here, and what do we need to do to change the results into the future.”

WHAT KAREN ACTUALLY BELIEVES

Karen’s view is that customer experience work fails the moment it becomes purely observational – a score, a report, a quarterly deck. She believes the useful version of the job sits closer to operations than to number crunching and spreadsheets: automate the repetitive parts so people can spend their attention on the parts that need judgement, catch the risk nobody flagged before it becomes a client’s problem, and build a way to focus teams – one improvement opportunity, tips on how to improve, sharing best practices when you’re performing at a top level.

BACKGROUND

Karen’s experience runs broad as well as deep – leading retail, hospitality and pet care businesses in the field, in Learning and Development, and operationally. Her belief in people first, supported by systems, led her to drive business, people, customer and client outcomes. Combine this with her ability to ask the right questions, and it’s what allows her to understand exactly what clients need.

OUTSIDE WORK

Sydney-based, Karen enjoys spending time walking the amazing bush and coastal parklands nearby, capturing the plants, views and people that she meets. Karen also paints in oils and is always busy plotting her next holiday.

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