Review the Ten Customer Leadership Aptitudes

A successful Chief Customer Officer can:

• Bring folks together who don’t normally work together.
• Establish clarity out of the complexity that surrounds who does what on projects for “customers.”
• Break the work into manageable chunks so that it doesn’t get abandoned.
• Develop “ownership” of the work by the operating areas.
• Consider their success as enabling the operating areas to focus and change.

Ten Customer Leadership Aptitudes

Here are the ten customer leadership aptitudes of people who are the most successful with this mission – those with the ability to work across a business operation; engaging leaders and operational leaders in uniting their efforts in behalf of customer profitability.

1. Revenue = Attention
A Customer Leader has got to be able to make and prove this case to gain executive and board support. Customer Leaders must attach this work to the profitability of the business.

2. Make Them Listen
A Customer Leader translates the customer information into compelling, disruptive and engaging nuggets of information.  They make people WANT to have more…to crave knowing more.

3. Guerrilla Metrics
A Customer Leader gets the customer on the agenda of every key meeting.  Customers are discussed as humans, as people we either kept or drove away. Customer Leaders make it painful to ignore the fact that our actions every day either grow or shrink the customer base.

4. Persist!
How do we do with resistance? Do we thrive on it or just survive?  We need to be comfortable persisting, even when we’re turned down

5. Action, Not Banners and Coffee Mugs
The company will need to see substantive change to believe that the commitment is true and real and understand what it means in terms of things they should do. The Customer Leader’s job is to keep it real. There have likely been efforts that have come before this most recent proclamation to the customer. The corporate memory keepers have little patience for empty commitment to the customer.

6. Survival of the Chameleon

Customer Leaders should understand the functions of the organization. Most importantly, Customer Leaders need to know the players and what their hot buttons are.  Use this knowledge to thrive as a chameleon, modifying approaches as necessary to connect with each part of the organization.

7. Keep the Troops Positive
Customer Leaders should understand the functions of the organization. Most importantly, Customer Leaders need to know the players and what their hot buttons are.  Use this knowledge to thrive as a chameleon, modifying approaches as necessary to connect with each part of the organization.

8. Market Back – Marketing HOPE
In a Customer Leadership job, you must understand what customers and the company needs, deliver it to them, and remind them that you gave it to them. Marketing back helps customers believe that the company is listening and acting on their words. It jolts the naysayer out of thinking things can’t or won’t get done.  It’s absolutely essential to getting the future momentum you need by feeding the organization hope one morsel at a time

9. Create Urgency
Customer Leaders clarify for the organization exactly which issues and experiences are keeping or repelling customers. They simplify the work, and with that simplicity, make it easier and more compelling for people to want to take action!

10. Give the Power Away
Astute Customer Leaders understand that this unique power they possess cannot be abused; in fact, it must be given away.

With strong advocate partnerships, one of the greatest tools a Customer Leader has to continue motivating participation is having people present their own actions, and putting them front and center to take the credit.