Tim Routledge – Co-founder CX Lab and neuroscience enthusiast
Tim Routledge, Co-Founder of CX Lab and previously Chief Experience Officer of Experience Insight, began his career in advertising – but has always had a fascination with neuroscience.
Starting with a role in Harrods’ advertising department he later moved to the agency side, working in production, creative and account management roles for a number of agencies before joining industry giant, Ogilvy & Mather. After successfully completing a 12-month global research project for O&M, visiting 18 offices in 14 countries, Tim returned to the UK to set up one of the first of a new breed of agencies designed to provide a more effective and streamlined interface between clients, creative and strategic talent. He later sold the company and launched another new agency utilising emerging communications technology to provide a ready-made network of expertise to best serve advertising clients. This business became one of the key components of an ambitious experiment – named Axe & Bottle after its location near London Bridge – to test a new collective approach to 21st century marketing.
Throughout his career Tim has always believed that science could benefit business and, in 2003, he took time out from the commercial world to embark on a two-year period of intense research into the science of human experience. In 2005, this led directly to him co-founding The Newcomen Group, a unique organization devoted to bringing science and business closer together. Cutting-edge research projects for numerous blue-chip clients including Honda, Samsung, Virgin Atlantic, DHL & Aviva followed, and Tim’s passion to understand and profile customer experiences, and then engineer optimal alternatives grew into a business philosophy. His experience with The Newcomen Group ultimately led him to form Experience Insight in 2012. The agency was based on new psychological and neuroscientific thinking, designed to use science to understand customer experience in forensic detail and then apply that knowledge to implement practical, commercial solutions for the real world. Clients included: Aldi, Carphone Warehouse, Honda UK, Honda Finance, Vertu Motors and Hendy Group.
A chance meeting with Tim Wade and Flora Marriott led to an immediate creative and entrepreneurial spark and the three joined forces to launch CX Lab. Their collaboration led to the development of CX Lab’s innovative methodology and complementary suite of tools, including the ‘Tripping Point Index’, a unique way of scientifically profiling customer journeys to identify the moments when things go wrong. From a standing start they are already working with clients as diverse as Heidelberg Cement, GLH Hotels, Vivid Housing and Dixons Carphone.
Tim is currently managing a partnership with the University of Reading School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences to research a new theory of the psychological, physiological and neuroscientific basis behind human experience. This collaboration’s first academic paper, ‘Beyond Self-Report: a review of Physiological and Neuroscientific Methods to Investigate Consumer Behavior’, was published in Frontiers in Psychology in September 2018 and has been recently chosen as one of the most influential papers of the year by the Neuromarketing Science & Business Association (NMSBA).
Tim lives in Ascot in Berkshire with his wife, a recruitment consultant, and two daughters, the older one currently at college in the US and the younger in the Sixth Form.
Key topics
From a keynote speech to a two day workshops, here are some of the key topics Tim speaks about:
Tim’s passion is the ‘science of customer experience’ and he has spent over ten years researching and developing new ways of finding out why customers and staff behave the way they do and what that can teach us about improving customer experience for all parties. His theory of ‘tripping points’ has led to a brand new toolkit that doesn’t ask people subjectively why they do things, but rather uses psychology, physiology and neuroscience to objectively define experiences and how they might be enhanced to generate real commercial return. Tim brings case studies from various clients as well as evidence from real-world experiments and learning from science and behavioural economics that question a lot of the ‘belief’ we have about customers and business. If you’ve never questioned the veracity of conventional research or never been surprised by human behaviour (customers, colleagues, family or friends), then this probably won’t interest you. For everyone else, be prepared for some surprising conclusions…
Testimonials
“Tim Routledge gave a fascinating and highly engaging presentation on The Science of Resilience at the IMI member’s meeting held at the Volvo Academy in October 2017, which was exceptionally well received by our audience. We had excellent delegate feedback with members commenting that they really liked Tim’s presentation style and took away a lot of valuable learning which they could apply in both their business and private lives…”
Steve Nash, CEO, Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI)
“I’ve been lucky enough to see Tim’s ‘organisational forensics’ in action and the results have been truly eye-opening. Some of the recommendations might appear obvious, but some have been so counter-intuitive that you would never get to them without this detailed level of scientific analysis. If you get a chance to hear Tim speak, grab it – he’ll get you thinking about your customers in a completely different way.”
Jeff Dodds, Managing Director, Virgin Mobile
“We invited Tim Routledge to our European Customer Experience conference in Budapest to speak about the ‘Science of Customer Experience’. We were delighted with Tim’s presentation and our delegates were excited and challenged by his research into ‘Tripping Points’ and how they unconsciously affect customer behaviour. Feedback was very positive and led to some interesting debate in the subsequent workshops about how science can be used to help solve customer experience problems. We’d be very happy to welcome Tim back again!”
Szabo Csaba, CEO, Develor Hungary
“Tim’s keynote presentation to our high-level audience from across the automotive retail and aftersales sector sparked a great deal of interest and debate both during the session and afterwards, and opened all our eyes to the real importance of using science to build a better understanding of customer experience and how that can be applied to commercial success. We have been asked if we can bring him back!”
Dr Andrew Tongue, Research Director, ICDP
Recent clients
Aldi, Carphone Warehouse, Honda UK, Honda Finance, Vertu Motors, Hendy Group, Samsung, Virgin Atlantic, DHL, Aviva, Virgin Mobile, GLH Hotels, Develor Hungary and the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI)