Curtis on...Critical Success Factors for CCOs: 1. Title and Reporting Structure
In this first of seven videos on critical success factors for chief customer officers and senior loyalty executives, Curtis Bingham, Founder and Executive Director of the Chief Customer Officer Council explains why and how title and reporting structure matter.
Transcript for Curtis on...Critical Success Factors for CCOs: 1. Title and Reporting Structure
There are a number of critical success factors for a CCO. The first and the most important one is that the title and reporting structure truly matter. I've never been one who has been hung up on titles; but yet, for customers, the title and the reporting structure really do matter.
From the customer’s perspective, appointing a chief customer officer or other very senior loyalty executives is a demonstration of the company’s commitment to customer centricity in meeting the needs of customers.
From an internal perspective, culture is huge and very hard to change. It's one of the most important functions of a chief customer officer; it's that of changing culture to become more customer-centric.
In order to do this, the CCO needs significant positional authority as well as borrowed authority in order to change and shape company culture to focus more on customers.
The CCO, in order to be truly successful, needs to be able to report either directly to the CEO or to someone no more than one level down from the CEO. Those companies who have had this reporting structure are successful. For those companies who have left their CCOs buried deep in the organization, the CCO has not been successful; and, therefore, the customers have not been as well served as necessary.
If you're a CEO, give your initiative the greatest chance of success. Don't appoint a simple figurehead. Make sure that somebody in your C-suite is operating as the customer champion.
If you're the chief customer officer, you need to make sure that you are as close to the CEO as is humanly possible and as closely aligned to the CEO’s priorities as possible.