According to a recent report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, reported by Marketing Profs, only six in ten senior business leaders view their companies as customer-centric, and only 56% report a
clear understanding of customers' tastes and needs. The report, based on a survey of global marketing and non-marketing executives, highlights a disconnect among leaders regarding whose responsibility
it is to make understanding and interacting with the customer their top priority.
The C-suite’s high expectations of the CMO to meet the significant challenges of the new era
of marketing and increase revenue, leave the CMO little time to focus on the customer. In fact, only 19% of CMOs play a leading role in connecting customer-facing functions, a key
step in the journey to customer-centricity. 21% of the respondents believe it is a shared responsibility across multiple roles. A plurality, however, believe the CMO should
represent the “voice of the customer.”
Nearly one-quarter of chief marketing officers surveyed want a chief customer officer to take responsibility for being the voice of the
customer, whereas another quarter see the task as their own. Currently, the CMO is considered the voice of the customer at 18% of organizations, trailing the head of sales.
Executives agree
that the CMO is uniquely positioned to drive a customer-led strategy. Steve Cannon, CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA, says... “If the CMO is not at the forefront of the
customer experience, where else will you find it inside your organization?... the CMO role brings together the customer, the brand and the product... there is no more essential
intersection in any business...”
Current VOC and Who They Think VOC Should Be
|
| % of Respondents |
Current Position | Is VOC | Should Be VOC |
Head of Sales | 31% | 17% |
Shared across multiple disciplines | 21 | 23 |
CMO | 18 | 28 |
Chief Customer Officer | 12 | 13 |
Board member | 8 | 7 |
CEO | 8 | 5 |
Chief Strategy Officer | 3 | 6 |
Source:
SAS/Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2013 |
According to the report, CMOs may be struggling to champion the customer because they already have a large set
of responsibilities, including overseeing traditional marketing functions such as advertising, brand marketing, product marketing, and communications. CMOs are also broadly expected by C-suite leaders
to increase revenue, add new customers, and improve their organizations' reputations.
Marketing Top Function Should Be... |
Function priority | % of Respondents Say “Should
Be...” |
Driving revenue growth | 30% |
Finding
new customers | 17 |
Improving organization reputation | 16 |
Creating new products and services | 13 |
Entering new markets | 13 |
Retaining customers | 10 |
Source: SAS/Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2013 |
The rise of the Web, big data, social media, and mobile have added
complexity to the already challenging CMO role, but those changes may also be providing senior marketers with the responsibilities and skills needed to deliver on customer-centric mandates, according
to the report.
Asked "What areas should marketing focus investments in order to contribute most to your business in three years?" survey respondents listed customer analytics as the most
important, followed by customer relationship management, and social media.
Perceived Need
for Marketing Focus Investments For Best 3-Year Contributions |
Marketing Area | % of
Respondents |
Customer analytics | 41% |
Customer
relationship management | 38 |
Social Media | 29 |
Mobile app development | 22 |
Brand advertising | 22 |
Reputation management | 21 |
Training employees | 21 |
Direct marketing | 20 |
Marketing automation tools | 19 |
Collaboration tools | 18 |
New hires | 16 |
Web
optimization tools | 9 |
Source: SAS/Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2013 |
An increasing emphasis on digital marketing requires a broader combination of quantitative and qualitative skills across the entire marketing organization,
says the report, from the CMO on down. Customer insight, data-driven analytical capabilities and social media expertise are among the CMO skills that respondents say are
becoming increasingly important. These and other technical skills are critical because they help CMOs justify marketing investment based on facts, not assumption, enabling them to
build credibility throughout the organization.
When asked to rank the growing/declining importance of various CMO skills, survey respondents listed customer insight, data-driven
analytical capabilities, and social media expertise among those gaining most in value.
Importance of Skills Needed By CMO |
Skill | Significantly Increasing | Increasing | Decreasing/ Significantly Decreasing |
Advertising/Agency Experience | 6% | 33% | 28% |
Technical expertise | 11 | 29 | 20 |
Team building | 22 | 41 | 8 |
Communications expertise | 24 | 45 | 4 |
Creativity | 17 | 40 | 12 |
Data-driven analytics capability | 25 | 36 | 10 |
Customer
insight | 28 | 36 | 6 |
Industry expertise | 14 | 38 | 11 |
Line of business knowledge | 12 | 36 | 10 |
General business acumen | 18 | 36 | 9 |
Pattern recognition | 10 | 31 | 10 |
Social media experience | 16 | 44 | 10 |
Visual/design aesthetics | 7 | 28 | 19 |
Source: SAS/Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2013 |
The report puts forth several observations suggesting steps that might
be taken in developing a true customer-centric business organization:
- Change the process to integrate information gathered from all digital and physical channels.
- Take
steps to track customer engagement across different marketing channels to better understand “the full 360 degrees” of the customer experience
- Leveraging this guidance
requires processes and workflows that provide the workforce needed information to make smarter decisions about all aspects of the business
- Make a real commitment to
infusing a customer-focused mindset across the entire organization, beginning with training and skills for the marketing team, with an emphasis on data-driven
analytical capabilities
- CMOs demonstrating an aptitude for these types of emerging skills will build credibility and will trickle down through the rest of
the organization
- A true customer focus requires everyone in the organization to play the role of customer advocate. CMOs who can translate customer insights into
real value for each part of the business gets everyone working towards the same goal
Please visit here for more information from the
Economist Intelligence Unit.