I should not be left to my own devices…
Today is February 14, which means love is in the air — customer love! I’d like to take a break from talking about how poorly the economy is doing (even though that discourse is still really important right now). Instead, I want to highlight the love still coming our way in Customer Success. One encouraging trend has been the uptick in Chief Customer Officer (CCO) hires!
As such, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time “sharing the love” and congratulating new CCOs on LinkedIn. This uptick is one more piece of evidence that folks are recognizing Customer Success as existential in a downturn. That’s why I’m thrilled to launch a new web series called “Path to CCO.” More information to come on this!?
This year, my valentine’s goes to all our customers. Check out our tribute below. To all the CSMs, CS Ops, and CS enthusiasts —?can’t wait to see you grow into the CCOs of the future. I look forward to working alongside you and re-imagining “what’s next” in the industry.
THE ULTIMATE CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICER (CCO) DESCRIPTION
The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. With more Chief Customer Officer (CCO) hires happening, it shows how crucial this role is for virtually every SaaS company. Hiring a CCO moves Customer Success from a function to a company wide-strategy, offering a customer voice in the boardroom and a peer to your sales and product leaders.?
Yet if you asked 100 SaaS CEOs to define a CCO’s roles and responsibilities, chances are you’d get 200 answers. Since CS has become a lifeline in tech’s current economic state, I wanted to help standardize the CCO position by creating a helpful starting point: a canonical CCO job description.?
With the help of many others, we started by listing out the key areas:?
The list for each area is quite expansive and there are many divergent opinions—the ideal job description will have different items tailored to each unique asks for the position. For instance, many experts agree that Renewals can be considered an “optional” owned function for CCOs—though lately, Renewals have been popping up under “must-haves.” I’ve written about this debate in CS before, though for the specific job posting, it’s crucial to tailor owned functions to your outlook and philosophy.
Though there are many differing opinions as the others, there is one universal starting point: a metrics-driven approach is essential to prioritize in a CS leader—especially as ROI will be increasingly under scrutiny.?
领英推荐
THE ULTIMATE WEBINAR ON SUCCEEDING WITH CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Join me and the legendary Ross G. D. Fulton , Valuize Founder & CEO, for a webinar on how to operationalize a cutting-edge customer success strategy.
??? February 28, 2023, at 11:30 am PT.