Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine

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But is it really necessary to make another addition to the already crowded C-suite of top executives? Companies that invest in employee experience are 4x more profitable than those that don’t. (Source: Harvard Business Review) Generally, an individual needs to have several years of experience in different leadership roles before being promoted to a CCO position.

You need to earn and re-earn the trust and support of your customers so that they will stay with you,” Rod says. “So, this role of chief customer officer became the focal point for your organization’s ability to retain your customers and then grow their business.” Defining the chief customer officer role and key responsibilities Companies need a CCO to deliver results this quarter—and set them up for success in the future. They need to understand the company’s goals and how to best structure the post-sale team to deliver on next year’s growth strategy. To work as part of the Senior Leadership Team driving the business strategy through a joined up annual business plan of all consumers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising. (Source: PwC) Once you begin working at one company, you'll develop a deep comprehension of your target customers. Use those existing relationships in your pitch for why you deserve to be the CCO.Intuitive and accessible survey tools to assess customer needs, expectations, preferences, and perceptions of their experiences I am a firm believer that customer experience needs a leader and is most successful when owned by the CEO, someone who actually has power and resources to drive change. Research shows that 64% of companies with a customer-focused CEO are more profitable than their competitors and 59% of companies with a CEO who is involved in customer experience report higher revenue growth, compared to 40% of companies reporting growth without a customer-focused CEO. The same can’t be said for a CCO.

The CX function must use data to tell a compelling story about the customer from one end of the relationship to the other. You will need to establish a mix of metrics that include both transactional information as well as relationship-based insight, such as effort, sentiment and loyalty. Additionally, it is important to know which metrics resonate with your organization. For example, if Net Promoter Score is commonly used and discussed, then keep it. As noted earlier, there is confusion around the CCO position. In the past, it was unclear whether the duties of this role could be covered by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or Chief Sales Officer (CSO). Dharmesh Shah, Chief Technology Officer at HubSpot, is a great example of this best practice in action. He doesn't leave the customer experience up to Chief Customer Officer Rob Giglio to figure out alone.In 2003 there were fewer than 20 people in the world with the obscure title of Chief Customer Officer. These included a small handful of trailblazers including Marissa Peterson of Sun Microsystems, Doug Allred of Cisco, and Jeff Lewis of Monster.com. Most people at this time had never heard of the title and many of these couldn’t fathom the need for another member of the C-Suite. While not a requirement that the CCO be a board-level position, to be effective, the Chief Customer Officer Council advises that the CCO must be one of the senior-most executives of the company. Chief Customer Officers typically report directly to the CEO, although there are some exceptions. If you're invested in a customer-focused role, show your dedication by starting in an entry-level customer service job. By working exceptionally hard, you can rise up, just as in any other department.

If your organization happens to be one of the few with customer satisfaction and experience woven deeply into its culture, the answer is no. For most companies, though, this is not the case. While nearly every organization claims to be customer-centric, few really are. Just 39 percent of companies either have one or more senior-level executives leading the charge on customer experience or have a similar “customer-first” mandate. As more companies shift their focus towards CX, where CCOs fall within the org chart appears to be evolving. According to Totango’s 2021 State of Customer Success Industry and Salary Report , there was an increase in the number of CS teams reporting to Chief Customer Officers, Chief Operating Officers and Chief Revenue Officers, as well as a significant decrease in teams reporting to Sales and Service or Support leaders over the past year.As more companies compete on experience and a greater emphasis is placed on providing convenient, personalized solutions for customers, many companies feel the pressure to show they are dedicated to customer experience. They respond by naming a CCO for the appearance of having a customer-centric culture. In reality, a strong experience and a strong culture speaks for itself without fancy titles or corner offices. The problem with many companies reactively naming CCOs is that the officers don’t have real responsibilities and their positions are often more of a PR stunt than actual dedication to customers. The title may give lip service to customer experience without really intending to make a difference. There’s a reason why the average tenure of a Chief Customer Officer is just 29 months—they often aren’t given real work to do. To agree and manage against key Sales and Customer Service budgets and metrics for the annual budget

This ensures that the customer experience is integral to the business' strategy rather than a short-term tactic. Evangelizes the Customer Experience The Chief Customer Officer is typically the highest position in a customer success department and reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), though this may vary between companies. The CCO is the voice for the CS department and is responsible for uniting C-level executives and the rest of the company on customer-centric values. Some of the main responsibilities of the CCO include: Act as the learning engine of the business to infuse the voice of the customer into all aspects of the business The responsibility for a customer-centric culture and revenue growth opportunities with existing customers was once spread across multiple executives. But now, the CCO—or someone in an equivalent role, like the chief experience officer (CXO), or chief client officer—takes full ownership of these realms through leveraged physical and digital communication channels. Below are the responsibilities every CEO should look for in their Customer Success leader. Thank you to my colleagues who offered their insight: Matthew Dempsey, Martha Lanaghen, Diane Gordon, Sreekiran K., Keri Keeling, Alexis Hennessy, Mark Bissell, Ben Watkins, Natalie Griego-Pavon ⭐️, Karpagam Narayanan, Leah Clark, Craig Kurtz - MBA-B, MBA-M, MBA-F, DAWIA III, Marta M., Bob Stoneking, and Vineet Puri. Though this certainly doesn’t end the conversation, it’s my hope that it provides a foundation as we define our CCO leaders of the future. ResponsibilitiesThe distinction between a CCO and VP of Service is evident in the second aspect of the definition. The hallmark of the CCO is the ability to create and drive customer strategy across the company, unencumbered by boundaries imposed by traditional silos or business units. Without this ability, the individual’s purview is limited and does not warrant the CCO title. The Chief Customer Officer (CCO) role is crucial for virtually every SaaS company. Hiring one moves Customer Success from a function to a company wide-strategy, offering a customer voice in the boardroom and a peer to your sales and product leaders. Yet if you asked 100 SaaS CEOs to define a CCO’s roles and responsibilities, chances are you’d get 200 answers. Since CS has become a lifeline in tech’s current economic state, I wanted to help standardize the CCO position by creating a helpful starting point: a canonical CCO job description. The importance of exceptional customer experience cannot be understated. Technology and easier access to information has shifted the power to customers, increasing their expectations for great experiences. Develop a customer strategy that delivers revenue growth. 70% of firms aren’t connecting their CX efforts to their bottom line, according to CustomerGauge research. But a successful CCO will need a compelling customer experience management (CXM) strategy to drive growth—by boosting customer retention, cutting churn, and encouraging referrals from profitable customers.