Customer-Centric Culture
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 by 
Commenting on my post, The Chief Customer Officer: Put Customers in the Boardroom, David Mitzenmacher, the Chief Customer Officer at Volusion, writes, “VoC programs are only one facet of the CCO’s responsibilities. Equally important is the task of creating and fostering a company culture that puts the customer at the center. I would argue that you can’t effectively do one without the other.”
Collecting feedback is not enough – organizations with more loyal customers foster a culture where that feedback is wanted, is widely disseminated and is personalized to employees, who then act on that feedback to better serve their customers. Is the chief customer officer the right person to guide the development of this culture?
While I take David’s point, I think the CCO’s role in culture, as with many other things, varies company by company. Jeanne Bliss writes in The Chief Customer Officer, “The CCO reporting relationship and function should be established after careful consideration of the organization, its culture and leaders, and how work gets done across the company.” Many organizations already have a proven customer-centric culture, driven by the founder or CEO, who acts as the steward of company culture.
Tim Falvey of Oracle, in his keynote at Vovici Vision two weeks ago, discussed the charter for the role of CCO at Oracle. “The chief customer officer is an advocate for customers who responds to customer issues and needs: using the Oracle culture, not changing it. We already had a strong culture that was driving customer centricity going forward.” Others I spoke to at the conference discussed how a strong customer—oriented culture was already in place in their organizations, resulting in enthusiasm and support for new CE< (Customer Experience Management) initiatives.
Of course, many organizations are not yet customer driven. Should CCOs emphasize their role as cultural change agents in those organizations that need it? Should they be someone who “translates that culture to operational accountability” (in the words of Jeanne Bliss)?
Reflecting on this, one chief customer officer whom I spoke to privately said (paraphrasing), “I really think this is a two-year gig. Once customer centricity is suffused throughout the organization, what do they need me for? Once everyone realizes that the customer is their responsibility, and it is ingrained in the culture, why do you need a chief customer officer?”
My counter in that case is that you need a chief customer officer primarily to coordinate the design of the customer experience: the CCO as customer experience manager and, yes, “chief feedback officer”. Without such leadership, coordinating across the different silos of the organization, the parts of the organization can fail to serve the customer as a whole.
Establishing a customer-driven culture where none exists requires senior management to act in tangent to set the tone, show the way and applaud the successes. The CCO can be a cheerleader, but it takes a team.
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