Curtis on…CCO Essentials: What is a Chief Customer Officer?
Curtis N. Bingham, Founder and Executive Director of the Chief Customer Officer Council, shares which accountabilities the CCO Council uses to define a chief customer officer.
Transcript for Curtis on…CCO Essentials: What is a Chief Customer Officer?
VP of customer success, EVP of customer advocacy, VP of customer programs, chief client officer, and even chief marketing officer—what if I told you that each of these could be a chief customer officer? It's kind of confusing, right?
So, what actually is a chief customer officer?
The actual title that an executive has may be much less important in the organization than the actual role that he or she plays within the organization.
Jeb Dasteel, the chief customer officer of Oracle, said that the CCO provides the comprehensive and authoritative view of the customer.
Jeff Lewis, some number of years ago, when he was the CCO of Monster.com said, “To be successful in delivering real customer value, a company needs to hold accountable a senior executive who can affect operations and strategy across operational silos.”
What does this mean? To be considered the chief customer officer, an executive must satisfy two criteria: One, they must be the ultimate authority on customers. Whenever you ask, who is the expert on customers in the company, everybody needs to point to this person; him or her.
The second criterion is that they need to drive customer strategy at all levels of the company, particularly at the highest level. Thus, the CCO is recognized throughout the company as the expert on customer needs, behaviors, and issues; and is involved in key strategy discussions at the highest level.
The chief customer officer has a threefold mission: increase profitable behavior, increase customer centricity, and drive sustainable customer-centric growth.
So, there's the definition that the members of the Chief Customer Officer Council have created for what is a chief customer officer.