Business Challenges
More and more brands find themselves in an uncomfortable reality where their customers’ business and loyalty are harder to win and maintain. New competitors play by different rules and cherry pick the best customers. This situation reflects an underlying challenge—customers have shifted their focus away from products and services to their experiences when using products to attain outcomes. Chief Customer Officers are increasingly hired by CEOs and boards to improve customer experience holistically, across all enterprise touchpoints.
Providers have always competed for business, but the battleground has changed, from brand and product to empowering customer outcomes.
Customer Experience and Social Media
Digital has been reverberating throughout business and society since the mid nineties, when the Web achieved mass adoption. Twenty years on, smartphones, tablets, wearables, and all kinds of “smart” devices (IoT) add to the list of channels and interfaces used by customers when they’re interacting with organizations, and their holistic impression of their interactions is “customer experience” (CX). It’s important to realize that organizations don’t create CX—customers do—but organizations often have a major impact on it. Providing seamless experience for customers to use is very difficult for organizations to deliver, but it’s increasingly table stakes.
Moreover, CX is a new world for teams that have been focused on their firms and products for generations. Organizations usually have very superficial knowledge of their customers’ outcomes, which limits their ability to empathize and serve—and retain their customers (and other stakeholders like employees, partners, and communities). Customers increasingly realize that they are in the driver’s seat.
Practically speaking, though, where does this leave large organizations? As described in more detail in The Social Channel, the economics of the Industrial Economy organization have broken down—because efficient organization spontaneously coalesces everywhere now, so the organization’s efficiency competitive advantage is evaporating. The good news: organizations that pivot to Knowledge Economy thinking will enjoy even higher profits.
What About “Customer Success?”
Customer success is an exciting trend that’s being largely driven by forward-thinking hightech firms whose investors and executives have started practicing what CMOs and CSOs have said for decades—keeping a customer is more efficient that onboarding a new customer. Finally, customer success software platforms are sophisticated and easy-to-use enough to make it practical to refocus the firm on focusing on customers’ outcomes (“success”). In most firms, customer success is embedded at the middle management layer of the company.
Business Drivers for Customer Experience and CCOs
Here is our pick of posts, research, and strategic topics that are creating the arena in which CCOs operate.
- Championing the Customer Experience | BrandwatchArgues that customer experience is marketing, takes a brand/enterprise view of #customer #experience culture using @deloitte's maturity model @vizia
- Amazon-Whole Foods Is Not About to Wipe Out Supermarkets | INSEAD KnowledgeThe best short analysis I've seen of #Amazon #WholeFoods impact on #grocery
- TrendWatching | 5 Consumer Trends for 2017Worth a look: 5 disruptive "consumer" trends
- Finding the Right Role for Social Media in InnovationUSEFUL Global study on #socialmedia for #product #management in auto CPG hightech
- Marissa Mayer Decides Yahoo's Turnaround Needs a Turnaround | Digital - AdAgeGood analysis of #Yahoo the deflating dirigible - for anyone who's still aboard, pull the cord
- Customer Understanding Versus Customer Centricity: Which Is The More Effective Enterprise Strategy? | CustomerThinkNice distinction: #customer understanding v. centricity + #centricity adoption phases #CX
- The Customer Engagement Model | Nello FrancoExcellent #customer #experience|#success engagement model details phases + interactions
- Nello Franco | Customer Success Frameworks and Perspectives Based on Real-World ExperienceUseful insights + model of 7 layers of #customer #success. Software focus but can be adapted to others
- Inside the Mind of the Chief Marketing Officer | Thought Leadership | Russell Reynolds AssociatesSUPERB analysis of #CMO leadership traits compared to CDOs CEOs CCOs CIOs #kudos @rraonleadership
- The Customer Experience Excellence Centre - KPMG NunwoodReference site includes reports, webcasts & change model - features rankings & analysis [free registration]
- How to Build A Customer Driven Growth EngineDebriefing Jeanne Bliss on critical success factors for #CCO success #cx
- A Bigger CMO Role: The Chief Omnichannel OfficerAnother example of a retail brand coping w the need for #digital & #customer #transformation
- Helena Foulkes— The change agent inside CVSFuture CCO? Great cameo of key CVS exce changemaker + dynamics of pharmacy retail
- Travelodge vs Pfizer Podcast | Customer Experience (CX) in Health SummitUseful contrast: CX leader panelists well along v just starting #customer #experience transformation in pharma healthcare
- Telstra’s ambition to connect everything to everyone: Transforming business through customer-centricity | Deloitte Australia | Human Capital#Customer #experience transformation vision in #telecom: Interview w #CCO|Operations|Diversity
- Improve Customer Experience in HealthcareSuperb #customer #experience #healthcare case study: research, stats, results; example of cancer patients
- ANZ’s Customer Experience Strategy Reaps Lasting Rewards | Loyalty360.orgBank #customer #experience case study focuses on easier banking; summarizes transformation process+results #cx
- Economist Intelligence Unit Report on The Value of Customer ExperienceJust out: North America firms lag in #customer #experience transformation investment
- Why Should B2C Companies Have All the Fun?Creates a compelling argument for B2B firms to pursue #CX transformation, discusses valueprop, offers stats
- How to Be a Great Chief Customer OfficerGreat summary of CCO doyenne Bliss in which she outlines 5 ways to create value from CX transformation
- Digital Experience Strategy Case Study: Esri | Connective DXVendor CCO case study shows nice detail; CX evolution of global geodata provider
- Customer Experience Maturity Roadmap | CustomerThinkUseful POV on customer experience management with a roadmap
- Shaping the T-team: Leading customer-centric transformation - TM Forum InformPOV on CCO, CDO & other exec roles in #customer #experience #transformation
- Chief customer officer: Threat to the CMO, or the ultimate modern marketer? - CMO AustraliaDetailed riff on how CCOs & CMOs can meet organization needs; useful examples + links
- Have You Downloaded "The 2015 Customer Experience Outlook"? - Customer Bliss#Customer #experience within the context of the new "Experience Economy" (Knowledge Economy) #CCO #kudos
- Disruption by Trusted Advisors[commented] Riffing on disruptive business model, a holistic "trusted advisor" + disruption to retail, brand