Attributes of an Effective CX Leader

Last week I shared my thoughts on where I believe CX should report to have the best chance of success in an organization. But the success of your CX efforts is determined not only by where it sits organizationally, but also by who’s leading the program and driving its goals, actions, and direction within your company.

This job isn’t easy or for the fainthearted. Frankly, CX leaders often work against what is natural for an organization. Most businesses are organized into silos: marketing, sales, operations, customer care, HR, IT, finance, etc. These silos all have their own priorities, goals, and KPIs. But customer experience is the connective tissue between these silos, and an effective CX program ensures that hand-offs between silos are clean and that nothing falls into the cracks.

Marketing drives awareness of your products and solutions and sets the expectations for the ensuing experience. Sales sells the vision and aligns the products and services against customer needs. Product development and operations must deliver against those expectations. IT and the digital team must provide the tools to keep employees and customers informed and educated; while HR has to hire the right people and train them for their roles in delivering the customer experience.

A CX leader needs to drive cross-functional alignment around the customer journey(s) and existing pain points, build relationships that create cooperation, and break down organizational silos to create coordination across the entire customer journey. They must accomplish this task despite not owning most, if not all, of the departments that ultimately deliver that desired experience.

After leading CX at multiple Fortune 500 companies and consulting with many others across numerous industries—and bumping my head and scraping my knees along the way—here are my top requirements for successful CX leaders:

● Passion for customers – I have built my career on the belief that taking care of customers to drive organic growth is the best, most reliable way to help companies succeed. But taking care of customers doesn’t mean that they are always right or that we must always bend to their wishes. Good CX is the intersection of what’s right for the customer and what’s right for the business.

● Willingness to be a change agent – Customer expectations are always changing, and companies are always innovating. A good CX leader uses an understanding of customers’ ever-changing needs, wants, and expectations to drive change and push the company forward. The biggest irritation I have as a CX leader is when the answer to a question about why something is done a certain way is “we have always done it that way.” You must understand why something is being done and be willing to change it when it has outlived its purpose or usefulness.

● Executive presence and sensibility – This almost goes without saying, particularly, as I’ve previously argued, since the CX leader should ideally report to the president or CEO.

● Ability to build cross-functional relationships – The CX leader’s job is to paint a vision and then break down silos to deliver it. They are the conductor of the orchestra and must build effective relationships to get each of the instrument sections to play together in harmony. They cannot sit in their office all day building strategies and dictating; they must be out in the organization, building relationships across the company and at multiple levels of the organization.

● Lead by influence and persuasion

● Analytical and data-driven

● Financial acumen

I cluster these three together because the CX leader does not manage all the teams—marketing, sales, product development/management, production, operations, etc. Therefore, they must be effective in using data, business cases, and storytelling to get the other business leaders on board with the CX strategy and delivering their pieces of it. And they must ensure the company is tracking the proper customer-focused KPIs in order to measure progress.

● Strong communication skills – This is highly correlated with many of the characteristics already discussed above. To achieve a shared understanding of customers’ needs, wants, and expectations and to achieve buy-in for the CX strategy, they must be able to communicate both in written form and verbally in a way that is accessible by and influences all levels of the organization.

● Problem solver, coach, and mentor – This characteristic is about maximizing the company’s ability to achieve its goals, but also about helping individuals grow as well. It is about driving the “YES, AND” and “WHY CAN’T WE" or "HOW DO WE” philosophies throughout the organization. While this person has to be realistic about the challenges the company may face, they must also encourage the company to find the opportunities to overcome those obstacles.

Clearly, these skills are all heavily intertwined, as a CX leader must have strong communication skills to build relationships and influence executive leaders. They must be data-driven with strong financial instincts to build business cases to convince leadership to change behaviors or to take new actions (building a strong relationship with the CFO and their team is a smart early move). And since they don’t own all the moving parts of the customer experience, being able to lead through persuasion and influence is key to success.

In her renowned book, Chief Customer Officer, my friend and mentor Jeanne Bliss spoke about the “ability to give power away.” I agree that this is also a critical characteristic or personality trait of successful CX leaders. Your role is to make the business more successful, so you must be willing to subordinate your ego and allow business leaders to have the spotlight when changes are made and success is being celebrated.

The success or failure of a CX program depends on many factors: the strategy and goals defined at the onset, the internal commitment to improvements, the “lead from the front” support of executives, the buy-in of all employees, and the foundational and organizational elements that are in place. CX success also hinges upon appointing a leader who is an effective communicator and can sell a vision, create alignment based on shared business goals, and curate a shared understanding of customer needs, expectations, and journeys.

Leading CX is not easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

To discuss how I can help your company’s VOC or CX efforts or to arrange speaking engagements, please schedule time with me here.

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A previous version of my thoughts on the key attributes of a CX leader was published here.