Paul Hagen of Forrester recently posted a blog regarding the new role of chief customer officer. According to Hagen:
Over the past five years Forrester has observed an increase in the number of companies that have a single executive leading customer experience efforts across a business unit or an entire company. Whether firms call them a chief customer officer (CCO) or give them some other label, these leaders sit at high levels of power at companies as diverse as Allstate, Dunkin’ Brands, Oracle, and USAA. We define the CCO as: “A top executive with the mandate and power to design, orchestrate and improve customer experiences across every customer interaction.
This is a fundamental shift across the industry in terms of the importance of the customer experience. Granted, the customer experience has always been important. But the customers of today have a different expectation of customer service than they did 2, 5, 10, and 15 years ago. Every interaction with an enterprise is critical in order for consumers to maintain their loyalty to your enterprise.
Customers expect to receive top-notch customer service across every channel, be it mobile, phone, Web, email, and video, at any time of the day. They want to receive top-notch customer service from you even if they are not communicating with you through the standard channels but rather through social media sites or community sites.
The minute the customer experience deviates from their expectations, their loyalty is impacted. And it takes just one bad experience to destroy consumer loyalty: consumers today often will not give your enterprise a second chance.
The role of the chief customer officer is critical to creating a culture within the enterprise of “the customer experience.” However, it’s more than just a role within an organization. Enterprises must give this new officer the ability to influence decisions throughout the organization—not just decisions in the contact center, but also decisions in key departments such as marketing, engineering, and IT.
To enable an enterprise to focus on customer service, the mentality of “it’s all about the customer” must start to be ingrained into the organization’s culture. If a short-term decision perhaps costs an enterprise a bit of revenue but significantly improves the customer experience, the chief customer officer must be empowered to be part of the decision-making process.
The enterprises that will win the loyalty of the consumers are those that provide a top-notch customer service experience… day in and day out.
Are you ready for Consumer 2.0?