What is a Chief Experience Officer (CXO)? What do they do in the modern business landscape, and how can they benefit customer-focused companies?
A growing focus on customer experience (CX) as the most important differentiating factor for any business has led to significant changes in the modern world. Not only are new tools and solutions emerging to help companies enhance and digitize customer experiences, but new experts are entering the workforce. Roles like “CXO” are quickly becoming essential among the C-Suite.
In fact, according to Gartner, by 2020, 90% of organizations were set to have their own CXO.
Today, we’re going to take a closer look at what the role of “CXO” actually entails and how it’s changing the modern management team for the better.
What Is a Chief Experience Officer? Defining the CXO
A Chief Experience Officer, or “CXO,” is a corporate or C-Suite executive responsible for enhancing the overall customer experience. Reporting to the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), or COO (Chief Operating Officer), CXOs oversee the CX strategy.
The role is similar to that of the Chief Customer Officer, with a slightly broader scope. Primarily, the goal of the Chief Experience Officer is to foster brand and customer loyalty and drive a customer-centric approach to business operations.
In recent years, the question “What is a Chief Experience Officer?” has appeared more frequently online as companies search for ways to optimize their CX initiatives. CXOs collaborate with leaders across departments to create initiatives that increase customer retention and lifetime value.
CXOs are catalysts of customer-obsessed business strategies. They fight for the needs and wants of a company’s customers and guide employees with the tools and knowledge they need to excel. What’s more, CXOs also help design customer experience initiatives, create journey maps, and orchestrate business operations, create journey maps, and orchestrate business operations focusing on CX.
What Does a CXO Do? Activities and Responsibilities
So, what is a Chief Experience Officer responsible for in the business world? What does the average day of one of these professionals look like? The answer can vary based on a company’s customer experience strategy.
However, Chief Experience Officers primarily help companies create a more positive customer experience on every communication channel at every stage in the customer journey.
These professionals usually plan policies and strategies to boost customer satisfaction scores, NPS ratings, and other CX metrics. They might research the average buyer's journey to guide support, sales, and services teams.
They can also supervise teams of developers and designers working on efforts to improve the customer experience. CXOs also guide companies through using intuitive tools for CX, whether it’s self-service AI bots, automation tools, or CCaaS platforms.
Some of the most common responsibilities of a CXO include:
1. Researching Customers and Mapping Journeys
CXOs spend a significant amount of time on market and customer research. They conduct surveys and polls, competitor analyses, and read market reports to understand what drives consumers. This helps with the creation of customer profiles outlining consumer needs, wants, and goals.
It also ensures that CXOs can create comprehensive customer journey maps, covering all the critical touchpoints consumers have with a brand and how they can be optimized to improve loyalty.
2. Creating Policies and Initiatives
Based on their deep understanding of customers, CXOs create policies and processes designed to ensure customers are satisfied. They identify potential issues and frictions that may emerge during the buyer journey and craft intuitive responses for service teams.
They also work with designers, developers, and other staff members to implement new forms of customer experience solutions into business operations. This could mean designing generative AI chatbots or exploring which channels to add to an omnichannel contact center.
3. Collecting Data and Feedback
To further their understanding of customers and power future CX initiatives, Chief Experience Officers often need to listen to the voice of the customer. This means using feedback tools and solutions to collect insights directly from a company’s target audience.