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

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Even though her role is somewhat different, the motivation behind it is similar. SaaS companies that want to grow “have to really pay attention” to their customer base. That requires having a single executive responsible for pulling together insights from the different teams to get a broad perspective of customers’ needs. It isn’t only kind to aim that all your employees, especially the front-line workers, are happy and in high spirits, it’s also a good business practice. The CCO can help accomplish this, by keeping their front-line team members up-to-date on new customer strategies and tell them how they and the organization can benefit from them. When the employees are assured that they are in the loop, they feel encouraged and can contribute better to the company’s growth. AI tools that assist agents during customer interactions, for example, are a great way to empower agents, and raise their work satisfaction levels. These solutions help support the agent in delivering great customer experiences and also reduce their stress of having to search for the right answers to customer questions. Understanding Compliance Goals Strativity Group (2009), 2009 Global Customer Experience Management Benchmark Study, Strativity Group, Inc., archived from the original on 2011-04-09 , retrieved 2009-07-03 If your organization doesn’t currently have a CCO or customer leader, should you? The answer will depend on structure and current circumstances. Certain events or indicators warrant establishing a customer leadership position — or reviewing an existing approach with an eye toward making the role and function more effective. Such events can include rapid growth, a decline in or below-industry performance on a key metric such as NPS, or a significant change in the business model, particularly to more digital or subscription-based customer relationships. Stakeholders want to justify their investments and may resist change if they don't understand the value that a CCO can bring.

The CCO must be the ultimate authority on customers, understanding customers better than any other individual in the company and perhaps better than some customers may even understand themselves. The chief customer officer is the person that takes full responsibility for all things related to the customer. CLTV calculates the net value a customer brings to the company throughout their entire relationship. Tools like Kissmetrics and Customer Value Optimization provide insights into CLTV, enabling Chief Customer Officers to make data-driven decisions to enhance customer profitability. Customer engagement metricsClose the customer experience gap between how well organizations think they are providing superior CX and what their customers actually think. Independent of the pandemic, business models have been moving toward subscription or “as-a-service” relationships for some time. This isn't limited to the high-tech and software sector, either. It’s permeating other industries such as manufacturing, where organizations such as Rolls-Royce, Michelin and Nissan have adopted product-as-a-service (PaaS) models. These models have more customer touchpoints across the journey — from sales and marketing to installation and service. That means more organizational functions have a hand in shaping a customer experience that ultimately leads to renewal. Companies not only need to coordinate customer experience across these functions but also must be purposeful and proactive about leveraging these touchpoints to shape and strengthen the relationship. That’s where the CCO comes in. As a Chief Customer Officer, evaluating your company's appetite for change is crucial. Then, you can adjust your strategy accordingly. The below list of responsibilities is curated from CS professionals and search firm executives. It’s quite expansive—the ideal job description will have responsibilities tailored to your unique asks for the position. Wanted: Seasoned executive to become a champion of the customer. Must be adept at breaking down organizational silos to create a persistent customer-first mentality across physical and digital channels. Requirements include diplomacy skills, an innovative spirit, customer-service excellence, and a data-driven mind-set.

We are searching for an experienced Chief Customer Office to join our leadership team to lead and manage the sales and marketing teams to success. 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.The CCO role is evolving into more of a “Chief Customer Strategy Officer,” focused primarily upon driving profitable customer strategy at all levels of the company with the express goal of acquiring, retaining, and serving the right customers for greater profits. It is no longer a “nice to have” designation; for many companies it is business critical and primary source of competitive advantage. In a telling about-face, many people have stopped complaining that a CCO is unnecessary because a company has a CMO. Instead, they are advocating an extreme position in which the CMO should be replaced with a CCO. CCO Goals & Challenges Rod’s view is similar. As soon as you start to have a specialized team for implementation, customer success, and support, it creates an opportunity to hire someone to lead those teams and start thinking about how those functional teams work together. Finding the narratives behind the metrics – being able to review reports and correlate data sets to determine the story behind the numbers to create an accurate picture of the customer behind the scenes. 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. Responsibilities As a Chief Customer Officer, measuring key success metrics is crucial to assessing the effectiveness of customer-focused strategies and initiatives. Here are some essential metrics and tools commonly used in the role: Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

This role typically reports to the CEO. CCOs sit alongside and work closely with the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Product Officer. Chief Customer Officer Council (2015), The 2014 CCO Council Chief Customer Officer Study, Predictive Consulting Group, Inc. Working with the executive board to create and implement CS strategies, such as customer loyalty programs or CS training programs for employees. Be the driving force behind building a customer-centric culture—at all levels of the organization. The CCO is a customer advocate. That means they’ll be the voice defending the perspective of the customer at all times.

When should SaaS companies hire a chief customer officer?

There’s also an implicit message to customers in her title. What the company’s leadership is trying to do with a chief experience officer is demonstrate “there’s a broader mandate across our customer-facing teams and frankly even more broadly to center on customers and their needs.” A Chief Customer Officer can go by several titles. According to Harvard Business Review, some of these titles include: Drive CX optimization efforts on all channels and ensure the voice of the customer is heard in the board room. When should a SaaS company hire a chief customer officer (or equivalent)? As with the title, there aren’t any clear-cut benchmarks, but it’s certainly only after a company is sure of its product-market fit.