This presentation will cover the delights and challenges related to being ina customer experience leadership role. It includes research that was done in South Africa.
5. A chief customer
officer (CCO) is the executive
responsible in customer-centric
companies for the total
relationship with an
organization’s customers. The
CCO typically reports to
the chief executive officer, and
is potentially a member of the
board of directors.
WIKIPEDIA
6. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
• Job function classified as one of
these three – Service driver,
sales driver or generalist
focused on acquisition &
retention
• 2003 – 30 people in the role
• 2014 – 408 active people in the
role globally
• Shortest c-suite tenure - moved
from 24 months to 34.5 months
• In most companies still
experimental role in the c-suite
• 2009 most lost jobs as a result
of not proving ROI
• Certification now available
SOURCE: CCO Council in UK
The history of
the CCO
7. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
Reporting line of CX role?
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
• Commercial
Business Growth
• Product and
commercial
• CCO
• Strategic
Management
• Quality
• Client solutions
8. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
Report to CEO
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
9. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
Influence decisions at executive level?
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
10. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
Where should CX fit into the organization?
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
11. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
What % of your time do you spend on…
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
12. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
What is standing in your way of cx transformation?
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
13. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
Where does your biggest support come from?
SOURCE: BRANDLOVE SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH 2015-2017
22. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
Unify customer initiatives
Inject a new way of thinking and
acting into the organization
Accelerate the transformation to
customer centricity
24. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
o Imposters
o Become irrelevant
o Not experienced enough
o Not tech savvy enough
o Not supported
o No authority
49. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
4. DO
o From diagram….
50. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
5. DIRECT
o From diagram….
51. Chantel Botha | hello@brandlove.co.za
o Access to people
o Know where to get
moral support
o Ask for help
o Coaching and
mentoring
o Local and
international
community of cx
professionals
o Write your stories in
a cx journal
So what my aim is for the session today is that some of you will look at the things I am sharing and say – me too – I am not alone.
I am hoping that some of you will find a sense of community and use some of the insights that I will give you to support you in your mission and quest …
And then there are some of you that my wish is that you will have a laugh with me and find this presentation just a little bit entertaining....
So fold away your tray tables, fasten your seat belts and lets take off on this 40 minute journey....
In my years of coaching people in CX leadership roles, this is what they think they get will be when they are newly appointed in the role.
The reality if often more like this where they are a penguin dressed up like a chicken and they feel that they really do not fit anywhere.
This also just happens to be a name that they get called behind their backs.
They bring this wealth of experience and intelligence but often feel like they want to hide in the toilet and play candy crush.
So lets look a little more seriously at the actual definition of the Chief Customer officer.
No if we look at the reason why we need a chief customer officer… In small enterprises, people were deeply connected with their customer needs ... When someone had a problem, they would speak to the ower , but with scale, people got more disconnected with their customers. The processes were so optimised that they became robotic and cold and people’s incentives were linked to silo merics that are often very focussed on profit, rather than on creating an exceptional experience for customers. As organisations get increasingly large and fragmented, really srtaying connected with the customer has become a challenge. When you have 2 Million policy holders or 8 million banking customers, connection does not just happen by default, it needs to be designed into everything a brand does.
I want to spend a few moments just looking a bit at the history of the cx leadership role…
Read a few of the stats...
So in summary, this is not a complicated role, but it’s damn hard.... The shelf-life of this role is the shortest in the C-suite....
So let me show you some stats of cx leaders in South Africa... Closer to home....
Define what other is….
So lets look at the typical challenges that leaders have shared with me over the last 10 years….
Oh boy…. This is not an eco- system that you operate in, it’s an ego system.
You may at this point see people’s faces in front of you that you know .... They are so desperately trying to protect their turf and their image, that they will never listen to you.
I once had a CX leader say to me, when he met with his exco... The ego arrived at the meeting but the person only pitched up 10 minutes later…
We see a lot of ego originate as a defense for
Defending ones existence in the organisation
Covering up a perception of skills inferiority
Just not admitting that the customer has not been the priority
An I broadly group this as politics, but what we see in organizations, unless everyone is measured on customer centricity, people will merely do what makes them look good and ensure that they achieve their targets and meet their financial goals.
People do not feel safe to openly discuss this, they do not feel like they can bring their challenges out in the open, so we just fake it….
I have reported to actuaries and accountants my whole life…. Any of those in the audience.
And by the way, if I have not insulted you by the end of the session, please come and see me so I can do that...
So the critics looking for proof that Customer Experience philosophies and methods work... They can get you down.... And as a management consultant for most of my career, I can tell you, I have fabricated some really impressive business cases, but at the heart of this, you need to believe that you are solving a workthwhile problem for customers and that you will keep their business if you create extraordinary experiences for them.
You need to understand again what they are measured by – they need to mitigate risk... They are measure on that and if the shit hits the fan, some of these guys can go to jail or lose their jobs... Not sure which one there might be their preference...
You as a CX leader need to reconnect these guys to the customer again and make sure we do not punish 100% of the customers for the 1% of the terrorists and frausters out there.
Bring them in and encourage them to push the boundaries with you.
Most of our customers in financial services are so shit scared that the over comply... Lets comply 110% .... Lets just go that extra mile and be a pain in the ass for your customers.
Yup, and then there is IT…. Who come up with the 110 reasons they cannot do stuff for you.
The geeks, the guys with versions and releases and specs and mainframes systems that date back to the cobol era....
Now, you need to love and push these guys at the same time.... And have compassion for the legacy systems, but your asses will be kicked by Google and Apple and some kid with achnee in his garage writing a app that farts for 2 minutes unless you start getting agile and less afraid to fail and experiment.
When we have discussions in some of the customer champion forums we run for our clients, the discussion goes like this…
Marketing talks about the brand promise that are so clear and the campaigns that are magnificent
Customer service talks about the asses in marketing that makes promises that they cannot keep
Operations talk about the gross violations to process governance and lean six sigma optimisation that will save the company millions
And Finance, oh finance cuts everyones bugets and expects everyone to DO MORE WITH LESS
And none of the silo’s have a shared vision of the customer, what they want and what problems we are solving for them.
So lest lift ourselves out of this depression and look at the Vision that a cx leader needs to shape…
What we see as the most important aspects of this is ….
We have had over 500 people in CX workshops this year… and we asked them about their fears about their role and the future and this is what they told us...
The most important aspect of a CX leader is that they show up as being deeply human, flawed and vulnerable. And through that vulnerability, that they set an example for what emotions look like and give people permission to feel… both employees and customers.
They are a facilitator of strategy, design, innovation and courageous hard and honest conversations.
They are the catalyst that ignite collaboration in the organization. They deeply believe that the answers are in the system and they trust people to come up with those answers. They create a safe space for people to share and co-create.
They are fearless about innovation. They try everything and fail fast in order to succeed fast. The are responsible with shareholders money but irresponsible about crazy ideas that could revolutionize the customer experience.
They tell customer stories, employee stories. They ensure that the memories live on in the organization. They motivate and inspire people through creating a platform for sharing.
No news spread like bad news, but the CX leaders of the future make sure that all stories have their place and that people get to hear the good, the bad and the ugly.
Through stories, people are recognized, celebrated and encouraged to be brand warriors.
As we saw in the earlier research, most CX leaders spend a fair amount of time and budget on voice of the customer – but the cx leaders I engage with and coach find it hard to unlock the value of that data. Often, they have big data that does not necessarily get translated into big ideas …
Understanding what breaks, what needs to be fixed and how to fix things remain a challenge for most leaders... That can be overcome by the right guidance and methods.
A associate and fellow CX specialist Ian Golding talks about the anatomy of a CCO and lists these three attributes to be essential to the role…
I say you need to have the balls to speak up, the customer is often not there to speak for themselves, so you become the channel to get the voice of the customer to be heard inside the organisation.
You are there to challenge every stupid rule, every field on a form and every widget on a website that bothers you
You are the one that will have a mantra – you will need to be able to develop the EXPERIENCE ESSENCE of your brand that you can recite after 5 bottles of wine or in the middle of the night.
This is not essential, but it will really help you not go crazy…. Have a sense of humor!
You need to sometimes be able to laugh at yourself... Laugh at customer sentiments and not take everything so serously!
As a CX Leader, I was told, I am high maintenance, I don’t have volume control… I am too much... What I said then and what I say now... If you dont like it, bugger off.
I am customer obsessed... The brands that I work for, know I care a lot more about their customers than what I care about their ego around their brand... And I wish the same for them.
Oh hell, you gotta be patient. Sometimes things will take long, but you need to keep going…
When we play lego with executives to design their ideal future, we have a small dinosaur in the tub and a big dinosaur... And its always interesting in what contex they will use the dinosaur and which one they will choose.
I learn new things about customer experience every day. I learn from David Kelly at Ideo, I learn from Stanford d-school, I learn from Singularity University, LinkedIn Education, Audible.
If you don’t have a budget for training, that is no excuse… you welcome to talk to me about the amazing free sessions we run but aside from that, I encourage you to find a way where you fuel and feed your curiosity.
If you get tired, wash your face and look in the mirror and ask, when will you be proud – and just keep going….
Often people ask me why I do what I do…. And my answer is because I want to make people feel great about themselves. Customer experience is not about your brand, its about creating memories and making people feel great about themselves when they interact with your brand