Do you really need a CCO?
Shel Israel last week asked me if companies should have a Chief Community Officer, to which I replied that communities, with the customer insights that they can provide, would allow CMOs to transform their role in that of Chief Customer Officer – representing the voice of the customer at the executive table.
That reminded me how Forrester has been pushing for the role of Chief Customer Officer for awhile – as a separate entity from the CMO.
Somehow this seems odd to me. I understand that many CMOs have been relegated to running pre-sale programs, and that many developed real bad habits in the name of promoting the brand. But does that mean that we should have a parallel organization to ensure that someone looks at the consistency of experience across all the touch-points that a customer can have with the company? Or should that become part of the CMOs role?
Maybe you need an empowered temporary team to look at all the touch-points and develop cross-organizational processes to ensure consistency across all those points, but that team should report under the CMO as (s)he should be the person responsible for the voice of customers, prospects and detractors in the marketplace.
What do you think?
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September 8th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I’m nodding in strong agreement, Francois. It is like appointing a chief knowledge sharing officer – that doesn’t cut the mustard. Creating and supporting the culture of KS – strategically, not just as a throw away – is critical. Likewise if interacting with groups of people is critical to an organization’s strategy, it has to be woven into the organization, its culture and practices.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
It won’t be in my Report on you when I publish it tomorrow, but I think the time has come for the enterprise to rethink its titles and primary structure. Times are rapidly changing. CMO is among the posts that needs to be closely reexamined. So is the title of communications officer. Is communications a function of marketing, or is it a function of every member of an organization. Is support an annoying piece of overhead, or is it essential to communications with and about customers? Should it answer then, to marketing?
September 9th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Not only do firms NOT need a separate Chief Community Officer or Chief Customer Officer, they don’t need another Chief Anything Officer.
As for CCOs (either community or customer), the position is superfluous and — more importantly — creates more problems than it solves.
What should the CCO’s budget be? Who’s pocket is it coming out of? (Unless, of course, your firm has a ton of excess funds just waiting to be deployed). Who’s going to report to the CCO? Why? Why should the CCO have a “seat at the table” and not somebody else not currently at the table?
The CCO is just another bad idea from people who think the way to solve problems is to “put somebody in charge”.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Hi Francois
I agree with you. The explosion of CXO positions in companies is as much a sign of their inability to get the business basics right as it is of their focus on whatever X stands for. The CCO, where C stands for Community or Customer, is just the latest version.
There is a well established series of steps in the drive towards a customer-centric organisation. It starts with 1. leveraging the social network of colleagues with the same customer-centric approach to business, moves on to 2. establishing cross-functional teams to work formally on customer-centric activities, then on to 3. establishing someone in a ‘coordinator’ role to promote the collaboration required to become customer-centric, then on to 4. a matrix type structure of overlapping responsibilities before finally moves on to 5. a customer-centric organisation structure. And organisations need to build out their people, process, technology, data and other complementary cabilities in lock-step with each of the steps too.
A CCO obviously only makes sense at steps 4 and 5 when the organisation has already started to restructure itself and has built-out its business operations (form follows function remember) around customers. How many companies are structured in this way and have built-out their customer-centric capabilities too. Hhmm. What more do I need to say.
Far better for companies to focus on developing real customer-centricity, than on the temporary illusion of customer-centricity implied by having an underdeveloped CCO.
Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager
September 18th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Maybe I’ve been spoiled. I’ve built several large communities for different companies, but my largest success came from a surprising source.
Cracker Barrel is a very conservative company (restaurants not the cheese), but their Founder and CEO at the time really GOT IT. The year was 1999, almost pre-history in this industry, but he recognized the potential, and more importantly HE WANTED TO LISTEN.
This was a genuine desire to keep in touch with both the employees, and the customers…unfiltered by layers of management who all have an agenda. It was not a ‘checklist item’ to say that they had a community, nor was it a consultant driven initiative, it was an authentic interest in hearing from the source how the company was doing.
Let me compare this to a recent contract with a very ‘hip’ and high tech company that I just finished up with? They equipped me with a style guide, a “tone”(?) guide, and sent me away to build a community.
They had no real interest in hearing from customers, to them it was just an extension of their Corporate Communications department. The final blow (for me) was when they asked me to NOT publish any of those pesky negative posts in the forums???
Long post, but here’s the bottom line from my perspective. It doesn’t really matter who has the budget, or what you call the person in charge. If the initiative does not come from an authentic and informed desire to listen (and act), the community has a built in governor which will restrict it’s speed and scope.
In an ideal world, the initiative should be sourced as close to the top of the organization as possible. In practice, whomever sources the initiative should have unwavering and committed support, or it is a timed failure…just my 2 cents.
Mark Woodward