We’re turning 10!

Catching up with TAP CXM’s founders (can you spot them in the image above?) to reflect on the journey so far 

We’ve officially made it to double digits. From three-hour commutes and three grown men sharing a tiny attic room, TAP CXM has become an international CXM consultancy with over 50 employees in four countries.  

Although we still feel like a young company, 10 years is a decent innings in this business. You can bet we’re celebrating, none more so than our founders, Andrew and Thomas.  

Our Head of Marketing, Vicky, caught up with them to talk about how TAP CXM started, what’s changed in the last decade, and where we’re headed next.  

Andrew: Can you paint a picture of what life was like 10 years ago for you?

Andrew: We were working together, for another company, in 2013 and just realised that we’d got as far as we could go being employed. We knew we were the ones making an impact with clients as they were telling us, so we began talking about doing it for ourselves. 

Starting up a business is by no means an easy decision. It’s a considerable risk, especially when you have a mortgage and family to think about. The fact that Thomas and I are very different people but wanted the same thing made it easier to take that leap of faith. 

Thomas: It seems crazy, but in those initial months Andrew and I were working from Starbucks at Junction 6 and the M25. We had to leave before 1pm because the parking would run out. Just trying to think of stuff to do for eight hours seems like an extremely unusual situation compared to now. But looking back, that’s when the clarity of our mission really crystalised. That period of apparent quietude was about laying the groundwork for a client-focused approach that would define our USP.

Vicky: Is there anything you look back and laugh at from those early days?

Thomas: It’s funny, when we started out, we were genuinely concerned about whether we should get a two- or three-desk office. The commitment to the extra chair seemed like a big decision at the time, but I guess it was evidence of our cautious approach to growth at that stage. We wanted to make sure we could deliver on everything we were saying.

(Editor’s note: Anyone who’s been to our London digs will know how different things are now. We’ve got 30 desks, a pool table, and breakout rooms, but there’s still not enough space!) 

Andrew: We were juggling lots of projects and working across several locations. There was an opportunity for myself, Thomas and Samson (the first employee) to meet up, so we booked some rooms in a pub in The Cotswolds. Unfortunately, they didn’t have our booking when we arrived and could only offer us the attic to sleep in! No hot water. One bed with springs popping through the mattress. Three grown men full of regret. We’d been so fixated on the client’s work that our own needs had taken a backseat. We didn’t ever book that pub again!

Vicky: What has been the most significant milestone for TAP CXM over the last decade? 

Andrew: A chance conversation in a pub led to us landing our first Adobe Campaign implementation with Samsung in Australia, and within two weeks, I was in Sydney. Within five months, we were trading as ‘TAP London’ and had regular income from clients in Australia and the UK. By six months, we’d taken on our first employee and signed a tenancy agreement on office space. I’m not sure we fully recognised the significance of those milestones at the time, but looking back they were big moments for our company. 

Thomas: It’s hard to pick. We’ve had some big client wins, and bringing across some existing relationships was a pretty big milestone in the early days. Moving into an office was a big milestone, but maybe opening the US office in 2022 was even bigger in terms of signs that things are going well. 

Vicky: What’s changed the most since founding the business? 

Thomas: The scope of customer experience management has evolved dramatically since we started. Initially, we focused on solving the technical complexities of building marketing databases and automating campaigns. Today, our value lies in understanding our clients ambitions more holistically and delivering mutually valuable experiences across a range of touchpoints.

From a delivery perspective, having offices in the UK, Barcelona and New York as well as an alliance with Craft CXM in Australia means we have an ability to support global clients around the clock now, without working across several time zones ourselves.

Andrew: We’re a very different business from when we started. Every new shape the company takes brings a different sort of challenge. Our current one is trying to build on the original company culture despite now spanning several continents and having hybrid working teams across all of them.

Initially, we focused on solving the technical complexities of building databases and automating campaigns. Today, our value lies in understanding our clients’ ambitions more holistically and delivering valuable customer experiences across a range of touchpoints.
~ Thomas

Vicky: Let’s talk about that culture. TAP CXM has offices in London, New York and Barcelona, and a partnership with Craft CXM in Melbourne. How do you, as founders, navigate that dynamic? 

Andrew: We’ve always tried to instil the right ethics in the workplace around transparency, sustainability, that sort of thing. We’ve typically hired people who are hungry for knowledge and keen to pass that enthusiasm on to each other and our network of clients.  

Thomas: It isn’t easy to create a great place to work. There are a lot of competing priorities; you want to come in every day and have fun but also get great results for customers. I think it took a while to get it right, and we had our fair share of challenges and growing pains. 

One of the things that we’ve always been really intentional about is investing in graduates. We learned very quickly that we could find people with the right attitude, train them, and inspire them in line with our ethos. That was more useful than finding people who already had the skills. 

Andrew: Yes. Our first employee was a graduate with no experience. Ten years later, we have a well-established graduate hiring programme. It’s a privilege to be able to employ people, to give them security, a salary, and an opportunity to carve a fulfilling career for themselves.  

Our first employee was a graduate with no experience. Ten years later, we have a well-established graduate hiring programme. It’s a privilege to be able to employ people, to give them security, a salary, and an opportunity to carve a fulfilling career for themselves.
~ Andrew

Vicky: CXM can be tricky to define and identify. What do you think represents the current ‘state of the nation’ in CXM consulting? 

Thomas: The shift from campaigns to genuine customer experiences is a reflection of a broader industry transformation. Our clients are looking to us not just for expertise but for partnership in navigating this shift.

Andrew: Agreed. Companies are now realising that the way they treat people has a far bigger impact on success than anything else. I had a sales director when I was starting out, who was the first person to say to me that people buy from people. Don’t try to fool them into thinking you’re doing a good job, just do a good job and they’ll come back time and again. It’s always been a code of ethics for TAP and we see this among many of our clients now too.
 

Vicky: Let’s turn the spotlight on you two for a minute. The company you built is turning 10. That’s something to celebrate, and no doubt cause for reflection. What are some of the challenges or lessons that you’re thinking about? 

Thomas: You don’t really understand what you’re getting into when you start a business with someone. Starting tap with complementary skills was lucky, but it was our shared ethos that made it work.

Overall, I think you have to trust your gut because no one has all the answers. You have to make your best guess and find out whether it works.

I also think there’s a lot of pain growing from a small to a medium company. There are missing processes, and you have to make investments that don’t necessarily give you a return at the time, but they create the platform for the next step. 

Andrew: I remember thinking that age and experience were barriers when I was starting out. I’d look up at the mezzanine floor in the office where all the important people sat and think I had to wait until I was older and more experienced to be successful. In truth, half of those “successful” people were in senior positions through luck, knowing the right people, or long tenure, and not because they were the right people for the job. What I’ve learnt is that you can get successful really quickly and all you need is the drive to do so. 

Vicky: What’s the most exciting thing on your radar at the moment? 

Thomas: I think we’ve managed to grow, acquire and retain some great people. We’ve got a platform that will allow us to scale and offer clients something genuinely quite different.  Our competitors tend to be large consultancies or large agencies. We’re able to offer something more personalised and niche. We’re spending our time deepening the partnerships we have with our existing community.

Andrew: As of this moment, we’re in the strongest position we’ve ever been, we’re commercially successful, and we have a clear line of sight.  

A lot of our work, probably 80% until the last few years, has been from people who knew we would do a good job because we’d built great relationships with them or with mutual contacts. Timing is serendipitous, but reputation precedes you. 

It’s exciting to me that our reputation is growing. Things are changing in CXM as well, and as long as we stay focused on running a good business, the next 10 years will be just as busy. 

Vicky: What’s next for TAP CXM? 

Thomas: We’re celebrating this milestone together with the team who helped us reach it.  

Then we turn our attention to the coming months. We’re looking forward to growing our headcount with new CXM consultants, welcoming new global opportunity, and strengthening relationships with our existing community of clients, partners and vendors.   

Andrew: What comes next is hard to predict. Life never really follows the path you expect. You have to adapt and change. What we know for sure is that we’re growing in numbers, geography and capability and it’s an exciting ride. With 50+ people eager to make their mark, we’re confident that the next decade will fly by. 

And now, the bit you’ve been waiting for. How many TAP employees did you correctly identify?