Since I wrote this week’s classic report in 2004, I have been thinking about a better term to use to describe the critical job position of a strong, senior customer experience leader. It occurs to me that Customer Segment Owner or Customer Brand Manager might be a good title (although "manager" may not be high enough in the corporate hierarchy to have the necessary clout).
Here's some interesting food for thought from Graham Hill, a CRM
consultant who frequently comments on my blog posts:
CRM consultant who frequently comments on my blog posts:
“Like you, I see quasi-segment managers in place in financial service companies, particularly credit card companies. But they are responsible for creating as many collaboration problems as the segment management problems they resolve. And the brand managers in automotive are a hybrid between product and segment managers, but let's not fool ourselves that the customer carries anything like as much weight as the model-lines. And the collaboration problems are just as endemic in automotive as in financial services.
Segment managers are an end-state of a logical organisational evolution from, for example, a product-centricity, towards a customer centricity. The evolution goes through a series of stages, each one of which is necessary if the next stage is to work.
The stages start with pure product-centricity. This typically evolves through the development of internal networks of colleagues who need to work together to deliver the value proposition; to cross-functional teams that formalise the collaboration of the internal networks; to a customer segment coordinator who takes on formal responsibility for collaboration across different teams; to a matrix organisation with nascent segment teams reporting to both product and customer management; and finally to bona fide segment managers responsible for all aspects of segment experience delivery. The vertical silos of product-centricity have given way to the more connected, more collaborative customer-centric organisation.
The problem with many of the so-called segment managers in financial services and the brand managers in automotive is that companies have usually just jumped from a product-centric siloed structure to a customer-centric siloed structure, without working through the necessary intermediary stages first. It is the intermediary stages that drive the transformation to customer centricity, not just organisational restructuring.
To be honest, I am not sure that a formal customer segment manager approach is relevant anymore. They too quickly ossify into rigid, inflexible roles that neither serve customers nor the business. In the information-rich business environment we find ourselves in today, dynamic sensing of changes in the market and responding to them rapidly is the key to success.
I still see a role for a customer segment manager, but mostly as the conductor of how the whole organisation orchestrates the end-to-end experience. Not as the designer of how specific touchpoints will be delivered. Supporting the segment manager are a number of customer analysts, delivery staff, delivery partners, even customers themselves, who are responsible for taking the experience framework and mass-customising/personalising it so that it delivers the right value, to the right customer, at the right touchpoint.Customer segment managers sound like a great idea, but the devil is in the organisational evolution details.”
~ Graham Hill, CRM Consultant
Customer (and Partner) Segment Advocates
Patty’s Dream Team: Roles and Responsibilities You’ll Need for Your Customer-Centric Organization
By Patricia B. Seybold, October 23, 2008
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