The Big Corporates’
New Secret Weapon – The CCO
As the Fortune 100 companies scramble to deliver their quarterly results and post net profits they leave no stone unturned in their insatiable hunger for competitive advantage. While it may seem obvious but few companies do it well; creating a customer-centric culture is a new trend that is sweeping big business around the globe. The spearhead of this movement is the Chief Customer Officer. To find out what kind of results we can expect from companies who employee such talent, we asked the Customer Service Gurus and this is what they had to say.
About The Gurus
SHEP HYKEN is a customer experience expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession. Shep works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic®, The Loyal Customer, The Cult of the Customer, The Amazement Revolution and Amaze Every Customer Every Time. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus™ program, which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset.
JEANNE BLISS, Founder of CustomerBliss and the Co-Founder of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. She is a Consultant and Thought Leader as she is one of the pioneers of the Chief Customer Officer role. She is also the author of the new book called Chief Customer Officer 2.0. Jeanne is a global leader in her field.
Jeanne Bliss pioneered the role of the Chief Customer Officer, holding the first ever CCO role at Lands’ End, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker and Allstate Corporations. Reporting to each company’s CEO, she moved the customer to the strategic agenda, redirecting priorities to create transformational changes to each brands’ customer experience. She has driven achievement of 95 percent loyalty rates, improving customer experiences across 50,000-person organizations.
JOHN PATTERSON is a sought after speaker and consultant on the topics of creating consistently great customer experiences that drive customer loyalty and growing business by creating, leading and sustaining extraordinary service.
He is the co-author of three books with Chip Bell including the award winning international best seller “Wired and Dangerous; How Your Customers Have Changed and What To Do About It”. John has appeared live on ABC and Fox Business. He speaks regularly on the “The Small Business Advocate Show” with Jim Blasingame. His articles have appeared in numerous publications including Leadership Excellence and Customer Relationship Management magazine. John holds a graduate degree in business from the Darden School at the University of Virginia as well as a B.S. in Business Administration from The Citadel.
His consulting practice specializes in helping organizations effectively implement and manage the complex culture change required for service innovation and effectively delivering great customer experiences that drive loyalty, advocacy and growth.
I asked the Gurus “What kind of results can a company expect by hiring a CCO and creating a customer focused culture?” and this is what they had to say:
SHEP HYKEN
The Fortune 100 companies are some of the largest businesses in the world and they are fortifying their executive bench strength with the addition of a Chief Customer Officer or what others are calling the Chief Experience Officer.
These C-Suite executives are focused on what is the experience the customer is going to have from the first contact point with your brand. This may be the packaging the product is coming in or the way your store front looks, either way this is the responsibility of the Chief Customer Officer. Like Steve Jobs said “I want the experience to start as soon as they see the box.” The CCO has expansive reach across the business from first to last touchpoints.
JEANNE BLISS
A Customer Leadership Executive simplifies how the organization works together to achieve customer-driven growth, engages the leadership team and connects the work to a return on investment.
The CCO unites the leadership team to make decisions and take actions that start at the place of ‘earning the right to customer growth.’ They embed competencies to enable sustainable transformation to move “customer experience” work beyond project plans and status updates, to a way of doing business that is grounded in caring about customers’ lives. The CCO works with the C-Suite to guide the company to a deliberate path of how they will and will not run the business to earn customer-driven growth.
JOHN R PATTERSON
There is a clear connection between great customer experiences and revenue and growth. Once the initiative gains critical momentum you will see an increase in customer retention and customer advocacy. This will be evident in an increase in referrals as well as a decrease in customer turnover. All of which lead to a more robust top and bottom line.
Interestingly if you look at the top 100 companies to work for you will see they deliver a great customer experience and they also have the highest employee engagement. So your employee engagement goes hand in hand with your customer engagement. Thus the CCO will not only increase your revenue and profits but will also reduce your turnover and staffing costs. Their impact is ubiquitous.
SHEP HYKEN
Chief Customer Officers can push your company into the number one spot in your market by ensuring that you are taking the customer into consideration in everything you do. We are now seeing a culture shift to a customer focused culture and this shift cascades into internal customers as well. The CCO is helping companies define who their customers are but not only external customers. The best customer experience rests on an outstanding employee experience. The notion is happy employees equal happy customers. Thus the CCO will also impact your employee value proposition and in turn this will reduce staff turnover and can even reduce onboarding costs.
The CCO is delivering bottom line results for the world’s biggest brands as boardroom denizens have unearthed the value of loyal customers. For me personally, a loyal customer is 300% more valuable than other customers.
If you take for example that 40% of satisfied customers don’t come back even if the service they received was more than acceptable. That number goes as high as 80% in some industries such as hospitality. In contrast a loyal customer will return time and time again drastically reducing your customer acquisition cost and in addition will bring new customers along with them.
The loyalty effect states that in a typical business a 2% or 3% increase of loyal customers will dramatically increase gross revenue and profits. These customers become ambassadors of the brand and drive sales with friends, family and clients. So the CCO is a formidable weapon in the war chest of big corporations and when used correctly they are delivering significant results.
300%
Revenue gained by reducing negative word-of-mouth versus improving positive ‘buzz’
Sources: London School of Economics Advocacy Drives Growth Study Association © 2015 CustomerBliss. All Rights Reserved.
Summary
From increasing top line revenue and profits to reducing staffing the costs the CCO’s impact is far reaching. Focusing on your most loyal and engaged customers is providing a boost to the world’s most sophisticated companies, imagine what it would do for your business? If you are looking to improve your customer experience contact us at ceo@tpgleadership.com, alternatively you can contact the Gurus directly using their details provided below.
“Your Customer Service can only be as good as the people you hire. Set up a meeting with us today to ensure you have the best people in the right seats.” — SHANE PHILLIPS, CEO, The Phillips Group
Are You Hiring a CCO or CXO?
Are you interested in drastically increasing your customer service experience? THE PHILLIPS GROUP are your talent specialists and would be delighted to help you. Please contact us at <ceo@tpgleadership.com<mailto: ceo@tpgleadership.com> or call us directly at +971 50 940 7537 if you are thinking of making any changes to your leadership team.
If you would like to hire one of the gurus you can reach them at the contact details below:
JEANNE BLISS is the Founder and President of CustomerBliss, and the Co-Founder of The Customer Experience Professionals Association. More information about Jeanne can be found at www.customerbliss.com<http://www.customerbliss.com> and she can be contacted by email: jeanne@customerbliss.com
SHEP HYKEN is a celebrated author and customer service expert. More information about Shep can be found at www.hyken.com<http://www.hyken.com> and he can be contacted by phone at 001 314 692 2200 or by email:…..
JOHN R. PATTERSON is the founder and President of Progressive Insights, Inc. More information about John can be found at www.johnrpatterson.com<http://www.johnrpatterson.com> and he can be contacted by email: john@johnrpatterson.com or by phone at 001 770 329 1459.
1- The CCO Council can be found here – http://www.ccocouncil.org/site/default.aspx
It was founded by Curtis Bingham and you can contact the CCO Council at Curtis@ccocouncil.org.