Chief Marketing Officers should play a lead role in analyzing and disseminating deep customer insights that drive business performance, according to a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

According to the report titled, “Voice of the customer: Whose job is it, anyway?” CMOs can enhance a brand’s customer insights by following these steps:

Change the process. Organizations have become much more effective at gleaning insights by monitoring and analyzing activities within individual channels. The next—and far more valuable – step is integrating information gathered from all digital and physical channels. According to the report, 21% of respondents said their ability to track customer engagement across different marketing channels is “lagging”.

Taking steps to better understand the full 360-degree view of the customer experience can help CMOs offer predictive guidance about customers’ interests and activities. Leveraging this guidance will require new processes and workflows that provide the workforce with the information they need to make smarter decisions about all aspects of the business.

Change the mindset. CMOs need to make a real commitment to infusing a customer-focused mindset across the entire organization. This commitment begins with proper training and skills development for the marketing team, with an emphasis on data-driven analytical capabilities. CMOS cannot simply delegate this expertise. Although it’s unreasonable to expect CMOs to master all of marketing’s diverse domains, they do need to possess hands-on knowledge of emerging trends, tools, and platforms for engaging and understanding customers.

CMOs must have an aptitude for these types of emerging skills to build credibility, which will instill confidence in the team and trickle down through the rest of the organization. The report says 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 can get everyone working toward the same goal – and secure their own standing as a strategic player in the C-suite.

At British Airways, marketing played a key role in the launch of Know Me, a cross-functional, companywide effort to improve the customer experience through deep insights about existing customer preferences and behaviors.

While the CMO can play a leading role in driving customer insights throughout an organization, it’s clear that the “voice of the customer” extends well beyond a single person or business function, according to the report.

The “Voice of the customer: Whose job is it, anyway?” Report was compiled by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by SAS. The global survey was conducted in July 2012 and included 389 executives based in Western Europe (40%), North America (27%), Asia-Pacific (24%), Latin America (6%), Middle East/Africa (2%), and Eastern Europe (1%). A total of 42 countries participated in the survey.

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