What is a Chief Experience Officer (CXO)? What do they do in the modern business landscape, and how can they benefit customer-focused companies?
A growing focus on customer experience (CX) as the most important differentiating factor for any business has led to significant changes in the modern world. Not only are new tools and solutions emerging to help companies enhance and digitize customer experiences, but new experts are entering the workforce. Roles like “CXO” are quickly becoming essential among the C-Suite.
In fact, according to Gartner, by 2020, 90% of organizations were set to have their own CXO.
Today, we’re going to take a closer look at what the role of “CXO” actually entails and how it’s changing the modern management team for the better.
In our modern business landscape, the customer experience has become the top priority for companies across all industries. With rising consumer expectations and endless options just a click away, brands must deliver seamless, personalized, and meaningful experiences at every touchpoint to earn loyalty and trust This requires a holistic, customer-centric strategy that aligns the entire organization.
Enter the chief experience officer (CXO). As companies race to become experience-led the CXO has emerged as a critical C-suite role focused solely on curating phenomenal customer experiences. Let’s explore the multifaceted value a CXO brings and why this role is essential for long-term success.
Defining the Role of a Chief Experience Officer
The chief experience officer is an executive-level position responsible for crafting and overseeing the end-to-end customer experience. They identify pain points across all channels and touchpoints and implement solutions to eliminate friction The CXO acts as the customer advocate and experience champion within the company.
The role is strategic, but also highly collaborative. CXOs work across all departments to ensure the brand promise is delivered consistently. They motivate employees to adopt a customer-first mindset and provide training to improve empathy and communication skills. Data, research, and feedback are leveraged to gain insights and continuously refine experiences.
In today’s experience economy, CXOs play a vital part in brand differentiation and loyalty. Appointing a dedicated leader to own experience allows companies to truly transform around the customer.
Key Benefits of Having a Chief Experience Officer
Installing a chief experience officer offers numerous advantages that directly impact growth and profitability. Here are some of the top benefits:
Ensures Consistency in the Customer Journey
One of the CXO’s most important responsibilities is connecting disparate touchpoints into a cohesive narrative. They map the current journey and identity gaps where experiences fall short of expectations. This could be unclear messaging, lack of personalization, or clunky technology. The CXO facilitates collaboration between departments to improve weak links and align every interaction under one vision. This consistency strengthens the brand, increases satisfaction and cultivates loyalty.
Motivates and Supervises Team Members
At the core, customer experience is driven by human engagement. Employees must consistently deliver caring, individualized service across channels to nurture relationships. The CXO coaches staff at all levels to approach interactions with empathy and brand values top of mind. They also oversee training programs focused on soft skills like active listening, problem-solving, and communicating with compassion. By instilling customer-centricity throughout the organization, the CXO uplifts performance company-wide.
Amplifies the Value of Soft Skills
With technology automating more transactional tasks, human-centered soft skills have become differentiating capabilities. The CXO recognizes the irreplaceable value of emotional intelligence, creativity, and discernment. They advocate for hiring and developing workers with high EQs and social skills in customer-facing roles. The CXO also spotlights individuals who wow customers so others can learn from their approaches. This builds a culture where soft skills are celebrated and continually strengthened.
Builds and Maintains Strong Customer Relationships
At the heart of phenomenal experiences are meaningful relationships. The CXO possesses innate talent for making human connections and reading unspoken needs. They model effective rapport-building across the organization so employees can better relate to and bond with customers too. The CXO also ensures loyalty programs, personalized communication, and premium support nurture relationships over time. Their leadership expands the company’s relationship universe to drive referrals, retention and growth.
Aims for Seamless, Frictionless Environments
Removing friction across channels is a key pursuit of the CXO. They constantly gather customer feedback through surveys, interviews, and monitoring interactions to detect pain points. Leveraging human-centered design thinking, they reimagine flawed experiences that are confusing, time-consuming, or simply not enjoyable. The CXO oversees enhancements big and small, from app redesigns to checkout process optimization. Their commitment to smoothing every step pays dividends in satisfaction.
Excellent Communicators that Spread the Customer Voice
Communication skills are paramount for CXOs. They must distill complex data into insights others can act on. The CXO shares compelling reports at leadership meetings to spotlight opportunities and rally support for customer-focused initiatives. Their presentations educate executives on the tangible benefits of experience investments. Furthermore, they relay feedback from the front lines on a regular basis so decision-makers stay connected to real customer needs. As the customer liaison, the CXO gives people a voice.
Data-Driven Guidance Bolstered by Human Insight
CXOs lean heavily on data to guide decisions, but also recognize its limitations. Quantitative metrics like NPS and CSAT only reveal part of the story. The CXO layers in qualitative insights from empathetic listening and observation to fully understand customer thinking and emotions. They also consider how experiences align with brand values and persona expectations. This blend of data and humanity allows the CXO to make sound choices that resonate. Intuition and creativity further bolster their vision for the future.
Active Participant Within Collaborative Teams
Experience efforts require enterprise-wide coordination. The CXO serves as an embedded team member within relevant groups across technology, operations, product development and more. They provide guidance to ensure decisions factor in customer needs and perspective. The CXO also spearheads special cross-functional task forces to tackle experience transformation initiatives. Their hands-on leadership and boundary-spanning role foster alignment and accountability.
Final Thoughts on the Rising Importance of CXOs
Consumer power and impatience continue to surge. To thrive in this climate, brands must deliver exceptional experiences that spark joy and loyalty – the kind that inspire people to become advocates. This requires an executive-level champion. The chief experience officer is perfectly positioned to embed customer-centricity into culture and design future experiences people love.
Forward-looking companies are realizing the CXO role is mandatory, not optional. Their talents for forging connections, decoding data, communicating insights, leading change and rallying teams make them invaluable. With a CXO helping shape strategy and steer operations, brands can outpace competitors and foster meaningful relationships with customers. The role cements experience as a core competency woven into every fiber of the business.
In today’s wisdom of crowds economy, the crowd determines winners and losers. Having a dedicated chief experience officer to orchestrate and elevate every interaction is now a key success factor. Companies without a CXO risk losing touch with the evolving needs and emotions driving their audience. Don’t leave experience to chance. Appoint an empathetic, strategic leader to handle your brand’s most important asset – your customers.
Aligning employee and customer experience
Many CXOs know the strong connection between employee experience and customer experience. These professionals often implement strategies designed to improve employee engagement. This could mean setting up gamified competitions or giving employees specific goals to work towards with measurable KPIs and metrics.
They work with team members to learn how the company can implement strategies that make agents and sales professionals more effective in their roles. This often involves listening to the “voice of the employee” with surveys and feedback forms.
What Does a CXO Do? Activities and Responsibilities
So, what is a Chief Experience Officer responsible for in the business world? What does the average day of one of these professionals look like? The answer can vary based on a company’s customer experience strategy.
However, Chief Experience Officers primarily help companies create a more positive customer experience on every communication channel at every stage in the customer journey.
These professionals usually plan policies and strategies to boost customer satisfaction scores, NPS ratings, and other CX metrics. They might research the average buyer’s journey to guide support, sales, and services teams.
They can also supervise teams of developers and designers working on efforts to improve the customer experience. CXOs also guide companies through using intuitive tools for CX, whether it’s self-service AI bots, automation tools, or CCaaS platforms.
Some of the most common responsibilities of a CXO include:
How Chief Experience Officer Creates a Holistic Design
What is a Chief Experience Officer (CXO)?
A chief experience officer (CXO) is an executive leader responsible for ensuring positive customer experiences and interactions to help the company grow and succeed. In this article, we discuss the role, responsibilities and skills of a chief experience officer and offer a list of benefits they provide for organizations.
What does a Chief Experience Officer DO?
Some of the typical responsibilities associated with the role of a chief experience officer include: Overseeing and managing customer service professionals and activities Collaborating with technical and product development teams Identifying and developing solutions to problems relevant to customer experience, including the buying process
Why is the Chief Customer Experience Officer important?
Another reason the Chief Customer Experience Officer plays an important role in the product strategy is, in order to get it right, the product roadmap must include input from all internal stakeholders and the customers themselves.
Do you need a Chief Experience Officer?
Harvard Business Review has made the case that every company needs a chief experience officer, and, according to 2020 Gartner data, nearly all organizations (90%) now have a CXO, CCO, or an equivalent role. As your organization expands, the need for a chief experience officer at the helm increases significantly.
