The emergence of the Chief Customer Experience Officer in APAC

The Chief Customer Experience Officer emerges in APAC

It is not that long ago that it was unusual to find a Chief Customer Officer (CCO) or even someone whose primary function was owning the company/group wide Customer Strategy, whilst being a member of the C-Suite.

Well, I am happy to report that this is becoming less the case by the day.

Which for someone running an event specifically for the CCO, is great news, but the real question is why?

Why are there more and more CCO’s almost daily?

From my many conversations which thanks to my fairly extreme curiosity, probably feel like interviews, I can say the answer seems to be primarily three reasons;

1. Liberal use of CXO job titles

With no offence meant, it is clear that there are many using the title CCO, who in fact have colleagues at the same level also responsible for CX.

In fact, I have seen a few companies with more than one CCO, which kind of goes against the term ‘Chief’.

This is not really a problem and in some cases due to business size and structure can actually make sense e.g. a CCO in both the retail and commercial divisions of a big bank. As group CCO’s are named, this will become less common.

2. Optics

It appears some companies when bringing on a new CX Director are renaming the role without elevating it, in order to keep up with the trend in a very “We need to have a CCO, so let’s rename the role” kind of way.

I would suggest that the actual elevating of the role will likely follow pretty quickly for many and this may be an intended first step in some cases.

3. An increased commitment to CX

Hooray, the answer we were all hoping for.

In fact, in more cases than the above two, we are seeing companies identify the importance of the Customer Strategy and the need to infuse the customer into major decisions and therefore the requirement to have an owner within the C-Suite.

Number of CCO’s and CCCXO’s by region

Here is a graphic to show the current Geographical breakdown of Chief Customer Officers (CCO’s) and Chief Customer Experience Officers (CCXO’s) by region.

When looking at the numbers at a country level it appears that a single country is propping up the number of CC(X)O’s in some regions e.g. Singapore and India having high numbers and other countries in their region have low numbers.

I think it is fair to say that some of the most exciting CX transformations globally are taking place or are about to within APAC and I am very excited to continue to help Existing, New and Future CC(X)O’s find the right opportunities, solutions and strategies to ensure the success of the role through our series of forums.

Recommended further reading: Thoughts from a selection of Australia’s top CX leaders

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