Christie Witt Berardi loved her job as Chief Marketing & Experience Officer at Buffalo Medical Group, but she saw an opportunity. She was successfully juggling her duties there while parenting her newborn and six year-old in the midst of the pandemic last year. “A lot of things fell into perspective and I realized the timing was perfect to turn my dream of being an entrepreneur into a reality,” she said. “I figured this was my chance. It was now or never.”
Enter Witt CX, a boutique marketing strategy agency that combines the psychology, technology and experiential aspects of customer experiences (the CX) for businesses looking to proactively turn their target audience’s touchpoints into actionable objectives. Berardi says Witt CX is different because she focuses on what she calls the “real C-suite: customers.”
“So much of what I’ve done, both as an award winning journalist and in-house CMO, was focused on end result: the ads, the social media, the special events,” she said, “but I wanted to get in front of those and dive deeper, to understand the people behind those demographics and what they wanted, how they thought. To me, solving that puzzle first provides answers to the rest.”
Berardi said this approach works best because the marketing speaks directly to what’s important to customers by discovering what drives their decision-making and purchasing habits.
Witt CX’s capabilities under the insight umbrella include customer experience analysis and evaluation, secret shopping, internal engagement and marketing budget allocation. On the engagement side, she offers customer acquisition and brand strategies, public speaking and media training and online reputation management, among others.
Berardi’s work at BMG afforded her more of that “customer first” mindset and piqued her interest in experiencing the process from a patient’s point of view. “Seeing healthcare from a patient’s perspective was eye-opening to the point where I don’t think I can ever change my way of thinking,” she said. “It’s crucial to know what patients want and need – what they really want and need –to formulate specific strategies that will communicate with them effectively.”
For example, reaching the elderly, who are not used to navigating the healthcare system, is completely different from communicating with, say a 25-year-old still on their parents’ insurance policy. Berardi wants to tap into the ‘why’ and not just the ‘how’ and ‘what’ behind messaging and tactics.
Berardi said she was “reluctant” to tell her colleagues and professional acquaintances about her plans to branch out, worried not only about her short-term job security, but how they’d perceive the wisdom of her decision.
“Frankly, I was afraid they’d think I was crazy to want to leave,” she said. “Who decides to leave the safety of a C-level job during a global pandemic to start a business?”
BMG, who was supportive and impressed by her transparency and transition plan right out of the gate, asked to be Witt CX’s first client.
“Christie’s time with us, both as our partner when she was agency-side, and as the leader who formed our in-house marketing team, proved she was committed to serving our patients and staff,” said Dan Scully, CEO at Buffalo Medical Group. “We’ve embraced her innovation and invaluable insight she brought her role, and look forward to continuing that relationship, and supporting a woman-owned business, through Witt CX. She absolutely taught our doctors to think differently about branding and consumer perceptions.”
The pandemic provided firsthand knowledge of how many companies could successfully transition from in-house marketing departments to virtual teams, something Berardi thinks is the future of company structures.
“I see Witt CX fitting into this hybrid office model and beyond,” she said. “We can either serve as an outsourced CMO, or collaborate on a project basis, for a fixed term, really anything the client deems necessary,” said Berardi. “I want Witt CX to be seen as a valued resource for stretched marketing departments in both startups and established companies. It’s important to me that we’re seen as a partner and not a vendor.”
Berardi’s office is located at 599 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, in an incubation space shared with other small businesses and startups.
In addition to helming Witt CX, Berardi is also an adjunct professor at Medaille College and serves on the Boards for both the Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York and The Park School of Buffalo. Berardi holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Medaille College and a Master’s from Syracuse University, and was named to Buffalo Business First’s “Who’s Who in Healthcare” in 2020.
To learn more about Witt CX, visit the company’s website at www.wittcx.com.
