Why It’s Time For Boards To Get Customer-Obsessed

Sara Richter is the CMO at omnichannel customer engagement leader Emarsys — part of SAP.

The customer experience (CX) isn’t just a marketing add-on. In fact, many would say CX is the fundamental marketing objective. In a time when retention is the new acquisition, frankly, great customer experience has never been more important.

That said, CX is far more than just a marketing tool. Business leaders who incorporate customer experience into every part of their organization will reap the benefits of more loyal customers and increased profits. In fact, it’s been shown that businesses adopting a “CX mindset” drive revenue 4% to 8% higher than their competitors. In related studies, 64% of “experience-led” businesses were found to trump their competitors on profits.

This tangible business impact has not gone unnoticed by board members, who are now looking for new ways to seed CX from the very top of their organizations down.

This is a shift that I personally know a lot about. The organization I work for appointed Joanna Milliken, head of CX marketing solutions, as our CEO—putting a CX mindset at the heart of the business.

This move got me thinking about the power of customer experience as a leadership skill—and the vital need for brands to focus on customer-centricity at all levels of their business rather than leaving it to specific CX and marketing teams. It’s also vital to give CX an upgrade by dumping mass messaging and thinking about customers as individuals with unique preferences. Being customer-focused isn’t good enough anymore—businesses need to be customer-obsessed. That means having leaders who know the value of customer data to drive business success.

With this in mind, I want to explore the benefits of a CX-centric leader and promote the need for more brands to put CX professionals at the very heart of their leadership teams.

Fighting “Experience Siloes”

As a marketer, I’ve worked hard to develop a customer-centric strategy at every company I’ve been part of. But, in reality, marketing can only be one piece of the puzzle.

CX doesn’t start when a customer makes a purchase. Nor does it start when they visit your website, browse a store or receive a piece of marketing collateral.

Great experiences are built through every element of your business, from the employee experience to brand reputation, product quality, marketing materials, online experiences, after-sale support, customer service representative (CSR) initiatives and much, much more.

It’s vital that we embrace CX at the board level and as part of our core leadership roles. In doing so, experience-minded CEOs can adopt a horizontal approach where departments align around customer needs and data. That means a bird’s-eye view of customers, with clear key performance indicators (KPIs) based on centralized data. This can help unify the C-suite and prevent “experience siloes,” where each department risks derailing the customer experience with projects, initiatives and KPIs that only focus on their bit of the funnel.

Experience-minded leaders can also help reintroduce customer obsession to their boards, using cross-department insights to build a competitive edge.

How Marketing Can Support Customer-Obsessed Leadership

To achieve any of this, business leaders will require a deep understanding of their customers—something that won’t be possible without the right data. This is where we, as marketers, come back into play.

Few other departments have the level of customer access and insights that marketers achieve. This makes us ideally placed to support CEOs and business leaders in their efforts to build a more customer-centric organization.

Of course, understanding and using this data takes time. According to my company’s research, marketers are spending an extraordinary amount of time reviewing and managing customer data, with 42% devoting more time to preparing and segmenting data than any other task. This process is further being slowed by outdated technology, data silos and a whole host of related issues.

If marketers are ever going to support customer-centric leaders, these are all issues that need to be overcome. Our data also shows that marketers want to spend more time getting to know customers, driving repeat purchases, integrating new channels and more. In short, they want to be marketers again and produce standout campaigns.

Navigating The Future With CX Leaders

As boards increasingly recognize the role of CX in driving revenue, loyalty and other business outcomes, we should expect to see more and more companies appointing business leaders with CX experience.

With this future in mind, it’s important to acknowledge that CX is part of everyone’s job now, regardless of where in an organization you sit. Throughout the business, boards need CX champions and those with the best insights into customer wants, needs and decision-making. That’ll ensure retailers move past a mere “customer focus” toward customer obsession. For those of us in marketing, we are ideally placed to support this goal.

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