Marketing leaders increasingly emphasize the importance of providing a good CX throughout the customer journey. Achieving a holistic and innovative CX involves a close partnership between the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Chief Experience Officer (CXO).
CMO-CXO partnership can improve the overall customer experience and boost customer loyalty. For example, together, they can use customer feedback to make informed business decisions, learn from sales teams, understand customers’ viewpoints and pain points, and communicate this information to other departments. This approach ensures that the customer remains at the forefront of every business decision, from strategy through execution.
While collaboration between these roles is vital, ensuring it is continuous and frequent is essential. There is a potential for friction, especially when the strategies and priorities are not aligned well or when they are not appropriately communicated to everyone in the company. Many brands still have marketing and CX silos that prevent them from creating powerful customer and brand experiences.
As a result, they cannot seize the opportunity to deliver on their brand promise. No matter how good the product/service or brand is, the target will fail if the reality and perception are not aligned, leaving the customer disconnected.
How the CMO-CXO Partnership Can Transform CX?
CXOs can Assist CMOs in Visualizing the Overall Customer Journey with its True Promise
Marketing often focuses solely on the path-to-purchase and other promotional opportunities. As a result, brands view digital and analog touchpoints as just a list of customer contact points.
This may have been true years ago when customers chose either digital or analog channels.
Now, customers are channel-agnostic and choose the channel that fits their requirements, whether a call, a website, or an app.
As today’s customer journey is more fluid and less linear, CXOs can help CMOs visualize exactly where customers may encounter problems, frustrations, or gaps in the service.
This makes it easy to identify the problematic areas and put efforts into addressing those. CXO-CMO partnership can help align teams and resources around the customer’s goals and expectations by-
- Providing tailored and relevant offers, messages, or rewards.
- Eliminating unnecessary steps or barriers.
- Automating or integrating systems and channels demonstrates that the brand values the customers’ opinions and suggestions.
Partnership Helps Ensure Consistent Brand Experience
It is essential to ensure consistent and positive experience across all touchpoints- whether in-store, online, or through customer service interactions. Together, CXO-CMO can define the brand’s values, mission, and vision and align them with the customer-facing processes. CXOs can help the CMOs understand and develop strategies at every touchpoint.
This makes it easy for the CMO to establish brand guidelines that outline the brand’s visual and verbal identity. It includes guidelines for all the ads, social media posts, and website content.
Lastly, CMOs can review and analyze customer feedback to ensure the brand experience meets customer expectations. While it helps identify areas for improvement, it also helps make adjustments to ensure that the brand consistently delivers a positive customer experience.
Partnership Helps Accelerate Go-To-Market (GTM) Innovation
As per a recent report by Gartner, “2023: State of Go-to-Market Strategies”,
A successful GTM strategy is crucial for a product or new business line. It helps boost innovation, launch new offerings and products, or enter adjacent markets more quickly. The role of a CMO is critical in ensuring GTM innovation for a company. CMOs can guide CXOs to understand the market, customers, and competitive landscape.
With such profound insights, CXO can foster a culture of innovation, generate new ideas, and identify opportunities for improvement. Additionally, they can provide training and resources to help employees develop their skills and stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies.
Overall, a CMO-CXO partnership can promote a culture of innovation and collaboration, ensuring that they are always ahead of the curve and able to adapt to changing market conditions.
Partnership Helps Drive Cultural Transformation Through EX
Employee Experience (EX) drives cultural transformation within organizations. EX is a critical function that sits at the intersection of HR, IT, marketing, and many global leaders. Hence, recognizing its significance as a competitive advantage is essential.
This presents a unique opportunity for CMOs and CX leaders to collaborate and work together to help other C-suite leaders develop the organization’s culture in line with its brand promise.
CMOs can play a significant role in getting employees to engage with CX by creating new employee journeys that align with the organization’s overall customer experience strategy. By doing so, they can help foster a culture of customer-centricity and ensure that employees are aligned with the organization’s values and goals.
Conclusion
When the CMO and CXO work together, they can create a customer-centric culture that prioritizes the needs and wants of the customer.
By collaborating closely, they can ensure that the brand’s messaging is consistent across all touchpoints and that the CX is aligned with its values and promises. This can lead to a better overall experience, increased customer loyalty, and a more effective marketing strategy considering the entire customer journey.
Ultimately, the CMO and CXO partnership can result in a more seamless and effective CX that benefits both the customer and the brand. Overall, the partnership can promote a culture of innovation and collaboration to adapt to changing market conditions.
