To provide great CX reliably and efficiently, companies must master the six competencies of customer experience management (CXM): research, prioritization, design, enablement, measurement, and culture. Unfortunately, common misconceptions can cause even the most experienced CX professionals to stumble along the path to CXM maturity. In our new report, Avoid These 14 CX Misconceptions, my colleagues and I detail the most common misunderstandings and explain how CX professionals can get back on track.

We found that common mistakes span all six CXM competencies and start with the belief that CX teams can assess CXM on their own. However, CX teams must cast a wide net to truly understand the state of their companies’ CXM. CX pros should survey a wide range of stakeholders, and then look for both trends and gaps across business units, roles, and levels of seniority.

Some common misunderstandings happen at the strategic level. Among these is the belief that firms should compensate employees on a high-level CX metric like Net Promoter Score. In reality, companies should recognize employees for specific customer-centric behaviors that drive better CX outcomes, rather than the outcomes themselves.

Other misconceptions are tactical. For instance, CX pros slip up when they think that user testing alone creates a real understanding of customers. CX pros should think of user testing as one piece of a larger research puzzle and perform an “assumption dump” exercise before every project to identify what they think they know about customers and whether they have evidence for these beliefs.

For much more detail on these and 11 other common CX pitfalls, check out our new report, Avoid These 14 CX Misconceptions. Then comment below on other CX misunderstandings you’ve encountered in the wild.