Curtis on...Key Challenges for CCOs: Establishing Credibility
Curtis N. Bingham, Founder and Executive Director of the Chief Customer Officer Council, explains why and how CCOs need to establish credibility in order to secure their positions and benefit their organizations.
Transcript for Curtis on...Key Challenges for CCOs: Establishing Credibility
Of the many different challenges that chief customer officers face, one of the big ones is that of establishing organizational clout and credibility. Every executive knows that authority is the currency of the C-suite. Without this authority, there are many different symptoms that arise that may not seem like much but taken in aggregate, they point to the fact that the authority is missing.
There may be significant cultural resistance to change, conflicting priorities, and turf wars; and nobody is volunteering to step up and take care of responsibility for some things that champion certain causes.
Successful chief customer officers recognize and leverage the three sources of CCO authority: the positional authority, borrowed authority, and earned authority.
If you're the CEO, you need to be sure to provide your chief customer officer with significant borrowed authority. Every time that you are out banging the drum for the chief customer officer, you pave the way for the CCO’s success. You pave the way for the organization to adhere to the principles of customer centricity and become advocates for the customer throughout the company.
If you're the CCO, you need to focus on borrowing this authority. Don't try to do everything on your own in the very beginning. Leverage the CEO. Leverage other executives. Leverage allies throughout the organization so that you can develop quickly the organizational clout and credibility while you're focusing on earning your own organizational clout and credibility that will help ensure that your position is successful and that you are around to help meet the customers’ needs and help the organization receive the benefits.