A CXO seeks to improve employee engagement to enhance the level of service delivered to customers.

A chief experience officer (CXO) may be a C-suite executive liable for a company’s overall experience. A CXO activates customer experience (CX) strategies to deliver differentiated brand experiences that build customer loyalty and advocacy. The role now includes employee experience (EX) to make sure employees embody the brand’s customer promise and deliver brand expectations.

A customer experience officer (CXO) will typically report to the chief executive officer (CEO), chief operating officer (COO), or chief marketing officer (CMO). A CXO also works very closely with change management, learning and development, and human resources teams. This necessary cross-functional collaboration deepens employee understanding of customer satisfaction and leadership’s sense of their people and employee satisfaction.

The customer experience starts when customers first encounter a brand. The customer’s relationship with the brand continues when a product or service is purchased, even after it’s not needed. The chief experience officer’s responsibility is to stop customer neglect and ensure each step of the buyer’s journey and therefore the customer lifecycle is positive and user friendly. The goal is for customer satisfaction to stay high throughout the connection .

According to Gartner, customer experience drives over two-thirds of customer loyalty, outperforming brand equity and price combined. In fact, an honest customer experience makes an individual five times more likely to recommend a corporation and more likely to get within the future. Additionally, the NOW Customer (consumers who are always on and always online) seek speed, results, and an emotional connection to brands during their buying experience. The NOW Customer expects rapid resolutions and engaged interactions from their brands in the least times and across every touchpoint.

As a result, a CXO must continually innovate the experience delivered to customers to satisfy their evolving needs and confirm no customer is neglected.

But the customer experience is merely one a part of the equation. Employees ultimately design and deliver the customer experience supported how well they understand and align with the brand’s mission, vision, and values. Employee engagement is additionally highly associated with many business performance outcomes.

In today’s experience economy, if a corporation isn’t providing a differentiated experience from the start of the customer journey, then price point are going to be the sole decision-maker for products and services. Forrester reports that 76% of executives say improving CX may be a high or critical priority, and lots of companies have established a C-level position to oversee it. Centralizing customer and employee experience under the chief experience officer allows a corporation to successfully engage the ecosystem of stakeholders – customers, employees, cross-functional leadership– needed to activate a consumer-centric vision and strategy.

What Does a CXO Do?

The Chief experience officer role is comparatively new the C-suite. The CXO role has evolved to incorporate experiences and has replaced the chief customer officer (CCO). That newness can mean dynamic responsibilities, making for an edge that’s both challenging and rewarding. A CXO’s responsibilities will vary by industry and by the corporate itself.

1. The CXO role’s primary goal is to watch the present experience delivered to customers and continually innovate the brand experience to exceed customer expectations to extend customer satisfaction.
2. The employee experience is similarly essential, as engaged employees engage customers. A CXO’s focus is on improving both customer and employee understanding of the brand’s value proposition, designing and activating CX strategies, prioritizing a customer’s viewpoint in any decision-making processes, and keeping track of key performance indicators (KPIs).
3. Another important goal for a chief experience officer is to integrate customer and employee experience across the organization and align all employees to the brand promise and a standard purpose. In leading the corporate to become more experience-centered, the CXO breaks down the silos between marketing, business development, people and culture (human resources), customer success teams, and senior leadership.

This cross-functional collaboration is critical as most change initiatives fail due to misalignment throughout the organization.

What are a Chief Experience Officer’s Duties?

Chief experience officers must continually evaluate business practices, methods, and methods to enhance customer interactions while keeping employees engaged. A CXO does this by ensuring employees are hooked in to the company’s products and services in order that this spirit comes across when working with customers.

Specific duties during a typical chief experience officer description include:
1. Overseeing customer service teams, customer experience practitioners, designers, developers, and researchers dedicated to improving user experience across various platforms and touchpoints.
2. Educating employees and internal teams on the importance of understanding consumers, their motivations, the buyer’s journey, and therefore the customer life cycle.
3. Advocating for consumer needs within the development and deployment of projects and methods throughout the organization.
4. Empowering employees to form customer-centric decisions and increasing leadership’s understanding of their employee experiences and wishes .
5. Championing customers’ and employees’ perspectives within the company’s strategic decision-making and co-creating innovative ways to elevate the customer experience.
6. Working closely with marketing to develop and launch campaigns designed to enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and brand image.
7. Measuring and tracking the impact of initiatives on the company’s key performance indicators (KPIs), including overall customer sentiment and customer satisfaction metrics.
While management of the buyer and employee experience could also be relatively new the chief team, the CXO position is quite employment title and certain to last. because the emphasis on customer experience as a strategic advantage and differentiator rises, companies will need talented professionals who understand consumer needs and motivations and may develop business strategies that retain customers, increase sales and grow rock bottom line.

In summary, a CXO elevates the customer experience, educates employees, empowers them to make customer-centric decisions, and facilitates cross-functional collaboration and the co-creation of a unique, sustainable competitive advantage.