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EYPrograms & Workshops

A CX Program for global innovation teams

EY's global innovation teams knew CX theory and had nowhere to practice it under pressure. We built the practice, then moved it onto Rondo.

A team activity on Rondo: the day of a product launch as cards pinned to a wall, with handwritten notes on the two blocks the team pushed furthest

+65NPS

Forty seconds to respond. The client on the voice note is unhappy, won't quite say why, and senior enough that the wrong reply costs the account. The host plays it once more. Around the room, senior EY professionals, people who advise on exactly this for a living, go quiet.

The challenge

EY wavespace teams were already strong on CX. The aim wasn't to fill a gap. It was to turn solid skills into a strategic edge: surer-footed in the big set-piece moments and the small ones alike, and able to connect a creative choice to a business outcome under real client pressure. The hard part is getting senior, capable people to keep practicing skills they've already got, and find the next level.

CX is not a skill, and that makes it hard to practice

  1. It's a web of skillsMany abilities, used in moving situations. You can't take one out and drill it alone.
  2. There are few chances to practiceThe more senior people get, the bigger the moments and the less room there is to get one wrong.
  3. Mastery comes from repetitionYou can't rehearse a whole client experience. You can repeat its fundamentals.

What we built

A four-module Program where 75% of every session was hands-on: scenarios built like escape rooms for the mind, timed drills with live feedback, frameworks handed over as tools to use, not theory to absorb.

Two that stuck: Dial It to 11 (push a safe idea until it's genuinely memorable, then find where bold tips into too much) and Pitch Lab, the final scenario, built to call back every framework from earlier modules under one live brief.

The opening screen of Invisible Hospitality: a concrete hotel in a misty valley, a long pool, and the words Welcome to The Orrin.
Welcome to The Orrin. A scenario opens full screen: the hotel the team will design for over two days.
The brief for Invisible Hospitality: a card titled Two days at The Orrin, with a photo of the hotel.
The brief. Two cards, one person drives, everyone reads.
Six cards over the hotel, each a moment such as The Rooftop Garden and The No-Menu Kitchen, with three answers to choose from.
Six moments. Each one built into the place, carried by a person, or both. The team calls it.
The opening screen of First Light: Meet Your New Client, over a curtained window.
Meet your new client. First Light starts with a client the team has never met.
A company profile card for Laurent Global with four figures and a list of achievements.
Read the room before you walk in. The client's company, its numbers and what it says it stands for.
A hotel lobby at night above the words: 21:34. The lobby is quiet.
The Front Desk. 21:34. The lobby is quiet, and the duty manager has gone home.
The front desk system log listing a reassigned room, and a yellow Post-it from the duty manager.
The system log. A room given away, and a Post-it that hands the problem to you.
The CX Snapshots board: two example snapshots and a form to add your own.
CX Snapshots. Before the session: one time a brand went above and beyond for you.

The Four Modules

  1. Module 1Understanding HumansSocial Styles to adapt to a stakeholder, the 5 Whys to hear what a client isn't saying.
  2. Module 2CX FundamentalsThe six phases of an experience, drawn as much from hospitality as from theory.
  3. Module 3CX in ActionSubtlety and spectacle, MAYA (most advanced yet acceptable) and format innovation.
  4. Module 4Above & BeyondStory and immersion: the seven story types, and levels of immersion from sensory to ontological.

Inside a module

Each module is a live session of two and a half hours on Zoom, two a week, with two Wavetable hosts and Rondo open alongside. Take the second module.

Module 2 · two and a half hours on Zoom

  1. BeforeEveryone adds a CX Snapshot
  2. The galleryEvery snapshot on screen, two minutes each in breakout rooms
  3. DrillsEach team on its own board in Rondo, through the six phases
  4. DebriefEvery team's board side by side in the main room
  5. The scenarioA client, documents and a deadline, the best part of an hour
  6. In pairsWhat each person takes into their own work

It starts before anyone joins. Everyone adds a CX Snapshot: one time a brand went above and beyond for them, a name, a line on why it stuck, a picture if they have one. In the session, the hosts put the whole cohort's gallery on screen, and teams take two minutes each to share theirs in breakout rooms.

Then the drills. Each team works on its own board in Rondo, working through the six phases of an experience. When the time is up, the hosts bring every team's work back to the main room side by side, so the debrief starts from what the teams actually made, not from whoever speaks first.

The module closes on a scenario: a full situation with a client, its documents and a deadline, played as a team for the best part of an hour. Then a few minutes in pairs on what each person will take into their own work. Teams change between modules, so by the end most people have worked with most of the cohort.

From shared boards to our own platform

Cohorts 1 to 4 ran on shared whiteboards. For cohorts 5 and 6, every drill and scenario moved into Rondo, where every drill is built for the job instead of adapted from a template.

Rondo keeps what each team wrote, chose and ranked, and how far each person got. Nothing is recorded on audio or video. Participants see their own answers and their team's; hosts see the sessions they run. After each module, its drills go into the participants' library, so they can play them again when a real client moment comes up.

What shifted

Cohorts 3 and 4 rated it 8.86 out of 10, with an NPS of +65. But the fastest signal was how quickly it reached real work. One participant, mid-Program:

"I have already used The 6 elements of CX to justify the thinking behind a massive client deliverable."

And the value people named most often was each other. From the cohorts' own quote board:

  • “One highlight was connecting with global peers, learning from each other and collaborating, we should do this more often.”

  • “The first training in my 9 years here that's truly relevant to my role. I've enjoyed it so much!”

  • “So valuable thinking more about those memorability, reflection, and meaning-making phases of an experience.”

  • “New Wine, Old Oak is very applicable to wavespace.”

What's next

It didn't end with the last session. The Alumni Community meets for an hour every month, open to all six cohorts, with alumni joining from London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Mumbai and beyond. More cohorts are planned.

Rolling out a Program across a global network and need it to outlast the launch? Book a 20-minute call →

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