I was following an interesting and equally disappointing conversation on LinkedIn about what Customer Experience Leaders need to have. It was all most all about "Listening". Man this is as old as talking. "Listening to customers" doesn't say anything. Most would say "Of course we listen" - so nothing is achieved. And even if companies decide to "listen" -then what? WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY DO?
In my experience a CEM leader needs five skills:
1) High level team leader skills
The CEM leader needs to be able to get every single department leader behind the CE engagement - similar to a CEO
2) Strategy Skills
The CEM leader needs to be able to develop a Customer Experience Strategy that can be interwoven with every departmental strategy AND their execution plan.
3) Motivation Skills
The CEM leader has a motivation model in his/her toolbox that incents the team to create advocacy in the customer eco system. Be able to measure advocacy and incent all teams to measure customer advocacy as part of their performance model.
4) Social Skills
Similar to sales people the CEM leader needs to "live" in the places where customers interact with the company and be able to transform customer behavior into what I call "actionable alignment".
5) Classic Management Skills
Don't make the change but ensure the necessary change is happening.
You find those people inside Dell, Zappos, Apple, WholeFoods, UPS, Salesforce.com, Virgin... B2B, B2C, any industry, any price tag.
Coincidental, they are all successful. Do the test: Do you know ANY company in any industry around the whole planet that created a great customer experience but is not profitable? We all can find companies with great products that are not profitable, we find companies with
lots of cash in the bank that are not profitable, we find innovative companies that are not profitable, we find companies of any size that are not profitable, we find companies with the most skilled engineers that are not profitable, but I couldn't find a single company with a great customer experience that is not profitable. Interesting huu ....
Axel
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