About the CCO Council
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About the CCO Council
Frustrations Unresolved
During the late fall of 2008 a Chief Customer Officer told me something really surprising: “What I want more than anything else is to have someone who can review my strategic plan and tell me that I’m on the right track.” With that statement, everything that I had been hearing suddenly slammed into place: unlike every other member of the C-suite, Chief Customer Officers don’t have anywhere to turn for help.
The CCO role is still quite new. There is no HBR treatise or field guide to being a CCO and the role is still, unfortunately, very poorly understood even amongst the C suite and especially amongst customers. The CCO role is also quite fragile-- my research indicates the average tenure is only about 26 months.
Key Issues CCOs Face
Over the last seven years and 50 Chief Customer Officers I’ve worked with I’ve found that, in addition to the job requirements, CCOs are personally concerned about the following questions:
- "How do I learn what I need without experimenting at customers’ expense?"
They know that they can develop their own best practices but are concerned because experimenting blindly can be harmful to customer relationships.
- "Can I deliver results fast enough?"
There simply isn’t time to reinvent the wheel, and surely, somewhere, somebody has been through this before.
The Chief Customer Officer Council
The Chief Customer Officer Council is the first of its kind -- a member-led peer-advisory network offering unparalleled insight into the critical issues facing CCOs. It was created to provide a safe environment where CCOs can share ideas, concerns, and build best practices that well help them, their companies, and especially their customers succeed. The Council includes CCOs from diverse industries, purposefully cross-pollinated with the most forward-thinking companies, large and small. Thus, the Council can be one of your greatest sources of innovation.
Issues the CCO Council is Addressing
The only sustainable competitive advantage is a unified customer strategy—which you as the CCO are uniquely qualified to establish and execute.
The CCO Council is committed to elevating this important role in business strategy, helping its members grow professionally, and most importantly, helping drive solid, customer-focused business results in member organizations.
In addition to addressing the personal questions listed above, the Council is addressing the following critical topics:
- Driving (more) profitable customer behavior such as improved loyalty, greater share of wallet, decreased costs to serve, etc.
- Creating a customer-centric culture by aligning employees and resources to rapidly and profitably meet customer needs
- Delivering and demonstrating value to the CEO, the Board, peers, and employees
The Program
The CCO Council program is made up of four core elements: peer interaction, resources, research, and a sense of community.
- Peer Interaction
To generate insight and build professional relationships, nothing else compares to the value of stimulating discussions on topics of personal and immediate relevance. The cornerstones of the CCO program are therefore the live meetings.
Annual CCO Summit
The Annual CCO Summit convenes CCOs from around the world. Held in the Fall of each year, the CCO Summit is the premier event for Chief Customer Officers to benchmark their organization, learn leading-edge practices, and build valuable peer relationships. The meeting agendas are co-created with the membership and co-chaired by Council members.
A highlight of the CCO Summit is the awarding of the Council’s CCO of the Year award. This award is given to the Chief Customer Officer who has made the greatest strides in improving customer relationships, driving profitable customer behavior, and in creating customer-centric cultures. The CCO of the Year will have raised the overall awareness and value of the role of the CCO, and has contributed the most to the CCO Community.
Roundtables
In the Spring and Fall of each year, roundtables are held to promote the development of local CCO communities and enable deeper dives into issues identified at the annual Summit. You’ll learn of and share best practices; compare tried and tested tools, and gain specific, targeted advice from your peers to resolve your most critical issues.
Executive Briefings
Held between the Summit and Roundtables, executive teleconferences review Council-sponsored research results and showcase interesting work being done by Council members and the lessons they have learned.
- Resource Library
Time is perhaps our most precious commodity and the key to success is ready access to the right resources exactly when you need them. The CCO Council offers an unparalleled and growing private and public resource library to help you as a customer loyalty executive be successful.
Articles and Resources
Whether it is best practices, how-to guides, critical analyses, or other articles, the Council resource library informs you quickly and simply—so you can make the right decisions for your organization and your customers. Learn how other Council members have solved similar problems. Contribute best practices to help educate other Council members.
Research
Members have exclusive access to the regular research reports, best practices, guides, meeting syntheses, and member-generated content produced by the Council.
The Council will be conducting 1-2 major research projects each year on topics of particular interest to the Council membership, Members will have exclusive access to the complete research results. Findings will be shared at council meetings and briefings.
- Community
The CCO Council community has both a public and private and secure online forum. Many CCOs can view and share insights, best practices, and suggestions on the public forum. The private forum is designed to help facilitate relationships among Council members, provide convenient access to Council content, and provide a vehicle for ongoing discussions between meetings.
Whether you are an experienced or new CCO, the Council can help you drive more profitable customer behavior, create customer-centric cultures, and increase the value you deliver to your customers. Being surrounded by the smartest CCOs helps you prevent experimentation at customer's expense. With access to time-saving best practices, it is perhaps the best time management opportunity you have available.
To discuss whether or not the Chief Customer Officer Council is right for you, please contact Curtis Bingham at 978-226-8675 or curtis@ccocouncil.org.