It’s not hard today to find a CEO or company who proclaims to be customer focussed.
In the past, customer experience and associated metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) were often seen as “fluffy” initiatives. These programs were typically left to a mid level team within the marketing or analytics department to run, quarterly or annually, with no real engagement or action from the rest of the company. Certainly it wasn’t the type of thing talked about at the Board/C-Level.
Fast forward to 2021 and we see CEO’s yelling from the rooftops about how customer centric they are, NPS tracked in company reports and even called out specifically in earnings calls by many of the world’s leading companies.
This is great. But it is not enough to simply pay lip service externally; executives must back up their talk with clear support and actions internally in order to make customer experience programs a success. A good executive sponsor can often be the difference between a successful program and one which fails to deliver any real change.
So, what actually is the role of an executive sponsor? We believe this falls into 4 main categories:
1. Tie the Customer Experience Program to the Company Vision
We have talked in an earlier blog post about the importance of communicating the purpose (the “Why”) behind your customer experience program. To truly engage employees they need to understand that this is not just about sending surveys, but rather will help move the business forward and deliver on their vision.
There is no one better placed to highlight this link than your executive sponsor.
A good approach is to have them speak at the program launch event about the company’s vision and how listening to customer feedback can help achieve this (you may need to help them a bit with the talk track..!)
2. Share Results and Recognize Employees and Teams
Celebrating success is important in that it firstly gives the employee or team recognized a nice boost at work, but secondly highlights to the whole company the type of behaviour which will be celebrated within the company’s culture.
Ask your sponsor to call out one or two successful teams each month, in a way that is visible to the rest of the organization. Remember to focus on actions rather than scores such as closing the loop, eliminating a pain point, or being called out by name in customer feedback for delivering an especially great experience.
Some software vendors even offer a mobile app where an exec can quickly review customer comments and forward a congratulatory email to the employee involved (copying in their manager for visibility).
3. “Walk the Talk” – Be Visibly Involved in the Program
It’s all good launching a program and asking employees to “close the loop” by calling back unhappy customers, but these calls can be uncomfortable experiences.
Executives can “walk the talk” by signing up to conduct 1-2 closed loop calls themselves each month. This demonstrates the importance of such an initiative and that they are not asking something of their employees which they wouldn’t themselves do.
Make sure these callbacks are visible and discussed in company forums. We have even seen some programs convince executives to let them video the calls and playback highlights at company meetings!
4. Approve, Fund and Support Initiatives to Remove Customer Pain Points
Finally, one of the most crucial roles is to ensure initiatives and projects are launched to address pain points called out in customer feedback.
A common approach is setting up a cross functional team to review feedback and propose improvements. A good executive sponsor will personally attend some of these meetings, whilst also encouraging his direct reports to send appropriate representation.
From there they can ensure a budget is put aside each quarter to fund some of the cross functional initiatives proposed, rather than the committee having to dig and fight for funding from other existing programs.
Sponsor Checklist
- Speak at the program launch event, highlighting the value of the program
- Call out program launch and progress in regular communication channels
- Recognize 2-3 employees / teams per month. For example at a Town hall meeting or a “shout out”, email congratulating employee on customer feedback (copying that team’s management)
- Conduct closed loop calls with unhappy customers – and then talk publicly about experience!
- Participate in (and ensure management attendance at) the first cross functional feedback review and sponsor quick win to address customer pain points
When identifying and approaching a potential executive sponsor it is important to be clear about these responsibilities upfront to ensure that whoever takes the role can truly commit to what is required. To help with this we recommend a sharing a short checklist of what will be requested from a sponsor for the first 100 days of a program, as below:
Having a CEO who mentions NPS in the occasional earnings call is not enough to run a truly successful customer experience program. It is important to identify a sponsor who is in it for the long run and clearly understands what is expected from them to aid the program (even if this means choosing a slightly more “junior” exec sponsor).
At Higher Oak we have helped many companies identify and coach their executive sponsor, to help build a valuable CX program.