CUSTOMER

DIRECTOR
REPORT
2023
 PAGE 02 DOUGLAS JACKSON

CUSTOMER This customer report has been specifically

created as an overview to the Customer

DIRECTOR Landscape.
This report provides a wide array of industry

REPORT statistics and insight, with views from industry

experts, to educate and inform on many

PREFACE
aspects and benefits of the Customer-
focussed Organisation.

STAY FOCUSED ON THE CUSTOMER IN CHALLENGING ECONOMIC TIMES

In the connected digital age, the importance of driving a customer-centric business model
is clear. Failure to do so means customers will quickly go elsewhere. This is both the threat
and the opportunity of the modern business landscape.

The service agenda is therefore key – and even more so now when we are faced with so
much economic uncertainty and a cost of living crisis. Many customers are struggling to
navigate their way financially and are deeply worried about the future. They need
reassurance, value for money and organisations that they can rely on.

At the same time, however, we are an increasingly polarised society in which some groups
still have significant disposable income and a continuing intention to spend. Navigating
this environment is challenging, all the more so when so many businesses are worried
about their own financial outlook too. The signals are hard to read. We keep hearing that
a recession is looming, but we haven’t officially fallen into negative territory yet and the
view this week was that we aren’t going to.

It is easy to get lost in the weeds of all the different forecasts. But my message is simple:
keep focused on the customer, and stay true to who you are as an organisation. Our
research at the Institute has consistently shown that there is a clear ROI to investing in the
service agenda – through increased sales, higher levels of repeat business, greater
customer loyalty and advocacy, and enhanced productivity as staff spend less time
resolving problems and complaints. Serving your customers will help you through difficult
times, not make it harder.

Meanwhile, don’t let short-term uncertainty and firefighting deter you from your
organisational purpose. Be very clear about what your central mission is and the values
that you will operate by. Put those at the heart of how you do business – your customer
proposition, your commitment to service, how you treat staff, suppliers and other partners.
We have been tracking customer satisfaction since 2009 in our twice yearly UK Customer
Satisfaction Index, which takes in thousands of customer views. As we explore in our
article on page 14, the latest UKCSI shows that customer satisfaction has fallen for the
first time in over two years.

We must not allow this to become ingrained. Those businesses that stay focused on putting
the customer at the heart will be best-placed to ride out uncertainty and thrive over the
longer term.

JO CAUSON, CEO, INSTITUTE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

 PAGE 03 DOUGLAS JACKSON

CUSTOMER This report provides a wide array of industry

DIRECTOR statistics and insight, with views from industry

experts, to educate and inform on many

REPORT aspects and benefits of the Customer-

focussed Organisation.

PREFACE
Customer experience (CX) is still a maturing function and as such is constantly evolving; as technology
advances and customer expectations shift, businesses must adapt to keep up.

It it worrying that some CX leaders and their initiatives struggle to show the return on investment we
know great CX can deliver, this is why Forrester predicted that one in five CX programs will disappear
this year, with companies trimming back their CX teams, or removing them altogether if they cannot
see the fruits of their investments in this area. CX leaders must link their strategies to the wider
business objectives and be able to measure and report on the financial metrics to thrive and survive.

The role of a Customer Experience leader continues to differ from company to company, is it Customer
Service Operations, Strategy/Journey Design, Insight/Analytics or, Research? The answer is it can be
all of the above, or specifically a more technical functional role.

We ran a recent poll on this subject for our LinkedIn

community with the following results:

41% CX Strategy/Journey Design

40% Customer Operations
19% CX Insight/Analytics

Silo CX functions and standalone Customer Experience roles continue to be one of the reasons CX
fails to deliver the business-wide, transformational change many boards expect. That said, we are
continuing to see a shift away from CX reporting into Marketing, with CX leaders more often lining into
a COO, or encouragingly more so into the CEO, giving the function far more access too and hopefully
the support of the board and SLT colleagues.

Intelligent experience engines must be surgically focused on microgoals—

positive moments composing the entire customer experience.

Harvard Business Review

 PAGE 04 DOUGLAS JACKSON

As the Customer Experience function

CX
continues to mature, so must our CX Leaders.

DIRECTION
Our CX leaders must be able to clearly
articulate their thoughts and align the 'voice of

OF TRAVEL
the customer' to the business goals and
objectives and build teams of individuals who
are both customer and business advocates.

5%
A 5% increase in customer
retention can lead to a 25-
95% increase in profits."
Bain & Company

140%
"Customers who have the
best past experiences spend
140% more compared to
those who had poor
experiences."
Harvard Business Review

The best customer experience doesn't happen by accident. It happens by

design." - Clare Muscutt, Customer Experience Strategist and Founder
and CEO of WiCX (Women in Customer Experience)

Leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in
your charge." Simon Sinek, Leadership Expert
 DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 05

THE CHIEF The Chief Customer Officer is the linchpin

in creating sustainable, long-term customer

CUSTOMER relationships and driving customer loyalty."

OFFICER
Curtis Bingham, Founder of the Chief
Customer Officer Council
THE ROLE
The Chief Customer Officer continues to grow and develop in the UK, although looking at the location
insight, it seems perhaps more in the South East than elsewhere. In the three years we have been looking
at the Customer Director Report, the number of people we have tracked and explored with the title of
CCO has doubled each year, although we are still only hovering around the 700 mark, that we have
tracked in network. There are some variations to the role title; Chief Customer Experience Officer, Chief
Customer Service Officer, Chief Client Officer and Chief Experience Officer, the latter tends to feature
heavily across the advertising/media industry, although we are beginning to see the appointments of
both a CCO and CXO (see later in this report). The Technology sector still leads in the appointment of
the CCO, although it could be argued that isn't every business now a technology business?

Percentage of CCOs by location:

Northern Ireland
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Scotland
Looking at the data surrounding
Wales
the role of the CCO, they are
North East still most likely to be based in
the South East, to include
North West London and the Home Counties,
Yorkshire which represents 71% of those
with the CCO title in the UK.
Midlands This is a considerable increase
since last year (56%). 61% of
Anglia
Chief Experience Officers were
South West also located in the South East
(compared with 50% last year).
South East
0 25 50 75

Interestingly we have noted a few organsiations with both a Chief Customer

Officer and Chief Experience Officer; Virgin Atlantic and Shell to name two.
With the shift from a product-centric to an experience-centric economy,
businesses are recognising that the quality of customer experiences can be a
key differentiator. Service design helps organisations create holistic
experiences that encompass every touchpoint and interaction, including digital
interfaces, physical spaces, customer service, and more.
 PAGE 06 DOUGLAS JACKSON

THOUGHT Francesca Haynes

Francesca has served the retail

LEADERSHIP industry for almost 20 years

working with brands including: Aldi,
B&Q, Asda and is presently the

CCO Chief Customer Officer for Bensons

for Beds

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

I think the biggest challenge is managing the tension between providing a service versus an
experience. The two are often perceived to be the same. The former is often highly
transactional and productivity led and is increasingly faceless as AI becomes more common.
Whereas the latter takes time, requires empathy and empowered colleagues who can make
decisions, more often than not resulting in a better outcome for the customer, colleagues
and business overall but can take time to see improvements in results. I also think there is a
tension between technological solutions and human solutions. As more companies embrace
tech solutions there is a real risk of alienating customers who are more comfortable in the
analog or human space and companies need to really consider which route they take.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

Providing personal solutions to problems.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real
change across their customer experience?

1 ) Being crystal clear on who your customer is and bringing that customer to life as a real
individual.

2) Being clear on ‘why’ the experience needs to change. What’s the problem you’re trying to
solve?

3) Engaging colleagues to be part of the solution and sharing the plan with them.

From the pre-internet dawn of segment-of-one marketing to the customer journey

of the digital era, personalised customer experiences have unequivocally become
the basis for competitive advantage. Personalisation now goes far beyond getting
customers’ names right in advertising pitches, having complete data at the ready
when someone calls customer service, or tailoring a web landing page with
customer-relevant offers. It is the design target for every physical and virtual touch-
point, and it is increasingly powered by AI.

Harvard Business Review

 DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 07

40
Sample of 210 CCOs numbers in %

30

20

10

0
% Marketing Operations Customer Services Customer Success Sales
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Marketing backgrounds still hold the higher ground when it comes to Chief Customer Officer
appointments with Operational backgrounds pulling ahead of Customer Service this year.

For the six months between August '22 to January '23 we tracked 23 Chief Customer Officer
appointments.

Despite the highly-publicised tech layoffs, the Technology sector still saw the most customer
move appointments at 23.8%, followed by Financial Services at 18.2%.

300 CCO INSIGHTS

Further insight into the role of
the CCO regarding their industry
sectors shows that despite the
highly publicised tech layoffs,
the sector to include IT, SAAS,
200
Software and Internet Services
continues to lead the way in
CCO appointments.

Financial Services continues to

be a popular sector for this
100 appointment, as does Retail.
However with more
organisations, particular the
travel sector investing heavily in
CX, we expect more to come.

2022 DATA
0
Financial Services Retail Marketing Technology
2023 DATA
DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 08

THE CCO & WHO EMPLOYS THEM

Hospitality
Consulting 1.4% Financial Services
2.2% 15.7%

Services
15.1%

Retail
10.6%

Transport
2.2%
Travel
Manufacturing 1.2%
4.1%

Media Construction, Non-profit

3.7% Organisations, Civic Organisations,
Healthcare Leisure, Real Estate, Research,
3.5% Education and Government
Utilities Administration all come in at 1.2% or
2.5% less of overall results
Technology
31.7%

CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICER INSIGHTS

The Chief Customer Officer must embrace data:

“The task of the CCO is to ensure customer feedback is not only sought after and heard,
but also acted upon, to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty,” says Conny Kalcher, CCO
at Zurich Insurance.

“The ultimate ambition should be to create a seamless experience that allows the
customer to choose when, where and how to engage with us,” says Kalcher. (Raconteur)

"Customers don't expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things
when they go wrong." - Donald Porter, former VP at British Airways
 PAGE 09 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Anupam Aishwarya
THOUGHT Anupam, is the Chief Product &
Customer Officer at @GARVIS and

LEADERSHIP
is responsible for creating the
world's first Bionic Planning
environment, bringing together

CCO outside-in data and using AI to

generate interpretable and
actionable insights.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time

Navigating b2b buying and adoption behaviour.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023

Willingness to adopt new ways of working.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real
change across their customer experience?

Map and optimize the customer value journey.

Bill Kalyan
Bill is Vice President of Business
Management at Deutsche Bank, a
highly successful Senior
Operational/Strategic development
THOUGHT
leader driving business performance
and uplifting customer experiences
through business transformation
LEADERSHIP
programs and strategic projects

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

The biggest challenges I see and experience in Customer functions is the quality of resources
and execution of service levels.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

2023 Customer Functions should reconsider their priorities to their customers. Delivery of
exceptional service to their customer should be top priority. Since the pandemic it has been at
best mediocre.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real
change across their customer experience?

Making the Customers at forefront of any organisational strategy. Right people, with right
attitude that will drive change. Using Tech to enhance customer experiences and driving
business efficiencies. Lastly knowing the needs of your customers and ensuring processes with
the organisation are lean and efficient to deliver seamless customer experiences across all
channels.
 PAGE 10 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Remuneration of the CCO in GBP (Base salary)

400,000

300,000

200,000

of last year's earnings

100,000
came from all our loyal
and new clients.
2022 DATA

2023 DATA 0
Lowest Average Highest
of our investments
The average salary for a CCO was £169,400, representing a slight decrease on 2022
which was £170,250. In general salaries have increased and we see this decrease for
the CCO as smaller organisations start to create the role but do not have as high an
offer for package.

The average salary for the female CCO was £173,900 vs £155,190 for a male CCO, but
both commanding a maximum salary of up to £350k which was the highest base salary
registered.
INDUSTRY INSIGHT:

Why chief customer officers are next in line for the CEO job:

A cohort of tech-savvy executives trained to hit revenue targets and keep customers happy are
emerging as the top candidates to fill CEO vacancies.

The chief customer officer role is proving to be a critical training ground for executives who
have their eye on the top job, recruitment experts say.

'The CCO role has become one of the most significant leadership positions in many
companies because it typically includes responsibility for revenue, data and analytics
and an understanding of customer behaviour'

Financial Review
 PAGE 11 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Karen Hogg

THOUGHT Karen is a Business Advisor and

Executive Coach. Experienced
working at a C-suite executive level

LEADERSHIP with Axa, Sainsburys Bank and more

latterly Atlanta Group as COO,
Chief Operating Officer and Chief
Customer Officer.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

In my opinion there are a three key challenges facing customer functions at this time:

1. Recruitment challenges and how to attract and retain talent;

2. Modern/flexible working: many organisations have still to determine what this looks like and
in some cases going backwards while other organisations are making big steps forward; and
3. CX Transformation: it is essential that this is a priority for all customer functions - the rate of
progress in this area, particular digital, use of AI, is rapid.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

I think that CX innovation and transformation is the biggest opportunity for customer functions.
Staying really close to the customer on this and continually improving the experience will drive
loyalty and recommendation.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real
change across their customer experience?

The key ingredient is a customer led culture. Particularly in industries like Insurance where they
are lagging behind Retail. Having great customer insight and to give the customer a voice in the
business - be all over this and never stop acting on it.

With a passion for both your people and customers, why do you think so many businesses
lose their way in these areas?

I think sometimes it's commercial pressure. A lot of the time I see businesses working really hard
to attract people and really hard to retain them, and then they don't apply the same to the
customer. When I see businesses lose their way, it's generally because they've lost touch with who
their customer is and they're making decisions that they think are right for the customer, rather
than creating a customer voice. The people side is often led by financial pressure, when looking
for efficiencies it's quite often at the cost of people.

I think one of the things I learned at Sainsbury's, you stand on the shoulders of your junior team,
you really do. If you have got really good people on the ground, it permeates all the way up. I
think some businesses think the investments should be at the top table, so they bring in more
heavy hitters, more big salaries, which actually puts more pressure on the business.
 PAGE 12 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Karen Hogg
THOUGHT Karen has experience working at a
C-suite executive level with brands

LEADERSHIP such as Axa, Sainsburys Bank and

more latterly Atlanta Group as

CCO
COO, Chief Operating Officer,
before taking on the newly created
role of a Chief Customer Officer,
CCO.

The ABI (Association of British Insurers) have recently set out an ambitious blueprint to
help drive change and boost the attractiveness of the insurance industry to people from
all backgrounds, what are your thoughts on what can be done to help change the
narrative?

Yes, I think it has to change. You see a lot of CEOs and senior leaders going out to schools.
We stood on stages and we spoke to kids and we spoke to girls and we spoke to people from
different backgrounds. But you have to make it more relatable for the people that you're
speaking to.

I think they have to see people like them and those who are in roles who are working in those
organisations. Sometimes if you go to school assembly and you're the CEO, that could blow
their mind. It's too much to consume. That's not what they're thinking about.

They are thinking about maybe if I'm leaving, what skills do I have and where could I start? And
there are roles in insurance for people whether it be digital, data, customer service, whatever
they want to be: lawyers, accountants, all those roles exist in insurance. And actually there's
more opportunity, I would say, than in a lot of industries because they have such a big
opportunity to make change to catch up with other sectors.

I think it is great to see Chief Executives get behind the initiatives, but I am not sure they are
always the right people to go out and talk about it. We need to think more about our audience
and make it as relatable as we can if we are to see more diversity to the industry.

"The Chief Customer Officer is the ultimate defender of customer needs, expectations
and experiences within the organisation."

Adam Toporek, author and CX expert

DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 13

CUSTOMER DIRECTOR SURVEY - RESULTS

We asked our network the following question. From all of the responses these were
the top five results:

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this
time?

1. Increasing customer expectations, including demands for tailored experiences,

personalisation, and seamless omni-channel experiences.
2. Staff recruitment and retention, including the need for resilient staff with a
passion for service and customer mindset.
3. Cost pressures and lack of investment, including the need to justify non-
revenue-generating spend, challenging headcount budgets, and the pressure to
digitise transactions.
4. Delivering high-quality customer service amidst challenging economic
circumstances, such as the cost of living crisis, the impact of COVID-19, and
rising costs to serve.
5. Balancing the need for customer retention with the need for upselling and
revenue growth, while avoiding the risk of alienating customers with tech
solutions and managing the tension between providing a service and providing
an experience.

Increasing customer expectations. The

demand for a tailored customer service
experience, at an AI influenced cost.

Director of Customer Operations

 DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 14

KEEPING THE CUSTOMER AT THE HEART OF THE

SERVICE AGENDA
Jo Causon, CEO, Institute of Customer Service

With the cost of living crisis continuing and the very real threat of the economy falling into
recession, these are worrying times for many customers. This means that organisations need
more than ever to be there for their customers, providing them with value, quality and
trusted services they can rely on. Maintaining customer service excellence is crucial,
putting customer needs at the heart of the value proposition and delivering a responsive
and personalised experience that both supports customers and reassures them in
unpredictable times.

At the Institute of Customer Service, we have been tracking customer satisfaction and
sentiment twice yearly since 2009 through our UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI). One
of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, it covers the complete waterfront of the
economy across 13 sectors and gathers data from thousands of customers.

Fall in customer satisfaction

So, how is UK plc faring in terms of delivering service excellence at this critical time?
Somewhat concerningly, our data shows that, while organisations did a superb job in
supporting customers through the pandemic, customer satisfaction levels stagnated
through the whole of 2022 – and have now begun to decline. The January 2023 UKCSI
revealed the first fall in customer satisfaction for over two years, with one of the key
factors driving this being a continuing rise in customer complaints and problems – 16.5% of
customers said they experienced a problem in our January research, an increase of 2.9%
compared to pre-Covid times.

More organisations saw a drop in customer satisfaction than an improvement. Five of the 13
sectors tracked recorded a drop of over one point in their satisfaction score compared to
January 2022, while only three sectors managed a (very marginal) increase. Amidst an
increasingly volatile and fractious external environment, all the key dimensions measured in
the UKCSI declined. Satisfaction with organisations’ ethics and with their levels of
emotional connection, trust and reassurance all fell.

Obviously, it is a concern that the tide has turned and we are now on a downward trend in
terms of the overall index score. Nevertheless, we continue to see many individual examples
of service excellence and there are a number of organisations who consistently feature as
leading exemplars, delivering high quality service time and again.

Redoubling the customer focus

In order to prevent this drop becoming ingrained, I would urge businesses to redouble their
focus on the service agenda. Our research at the Institute has consistently shown that
there is a clear ROI to investing in service excellence – through increased sales, higher
levels of repeat business, greater customer loyalty and advocacy, and enhanced
productivity as staff spend less time resolving problems and complaints.

Cont'd
 DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 15

KEEPING THE CUSTOMER AT THE HEART OF THE

SERVICE AGENDA CONT'D
Achieving this excellence is a combination of many things. What we see through the UKCSI
is that the top performers are those businesses that are crystal clear about their purpose
and who they are trying to serve, understand the end-to-end customer journey, and invest
in making that journey as smooth as it can be. They also invest in their people, making sure
that their customer-facing staff are equipped with the training, tools and support needed
to deliver on the customer promise and resolve issues as empathetically as possible when
they arise.

Balancing technology and people

Another key area – that is increasingly relevant in our digital age – is to develop the right
balance of technology and people in delivering on service. Digital experiences and
artificial intelligence are playing an increasingly prominent role in customer service, with
the number of digital interactions much higher now than it was before the onset of Covid-
19. Technology can drive significant benefits for both customers and organisations. Many
customers welcome the ability to self-serve through digital channels and are comfortable
with automated processes that serve their more routine or transactional needs. For
businesses, meanwhile, technology can drive improvements in business performance and
efficiency, especially in back office processes and analytics.

However, there is a risk that organisations sometimes overestimate the capacity of digital
technologies to deal effectively with the variety of customer experiences and situations.
Customer feedback in the UKCSI invariably cites “making it easy to contact the right person
to help me” as the leading issue organisations should improve. For many customers, their
biggest fear when dealing with an organisation is the inability to speak to a person when
it’s needed.

In challenging economic times, there may be a temptation amongst some businesses to

seek to save costs by driving ever greater service automation. I encourage them to look for
the right balance. Automation plays an important part, but above all service excellence is
about providing multiple options and service routes that truly put customers – in all their
huge variety – at the heart of how the business operates.

Jo Causon is the CEO at

Institute of Customer Service
 PAGE 16 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Mark Walton
THOUGHT Co-founder of Cloudbase Partners,
Mark champions the growth within

LEADERSHIP the BPO Industry of disrupting,

Home Working technologies and

CEO
solutions. Mark is working with the
Best Companies and clients in this
space across the UK and Europe.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

Recruitment and retention of good staff.

We are speaking with so many business leaders who are struggling to find their way when it
comes to managing a totally flexible, or hybrid workforce. Why do you think this is?

The main reason is that most organisations are still trying to use their old ways of working, policies and
processes, etc., to meet to the new challenge, when in reality new ways of working across all functions
need to be adopted. This includes different flex-based models for recruitment, training, HR, Resource
and Planning, IT security, operations and engagement. For example, there is no point having a very
flexible or hybrid-based workforce and then insisting everyone has to attend the office for interviews
and 9-5 training. It just doesn't make sense.

Do you think there is a difference between opting for 100% home-based workforce and the
hybrid model?

Yes, there is clearly a major difference but neither is right or wrong, it just requires different
people/employees and personalities for each model. Some people suit home working, some flex/hybrid
working and some office or call centre-based working, and they are seldom the same people. It's about
enabling employees to work in a way which best suits them, to maximise productivity and employee
wellbeing.

Following on, what do you think are the key elements a board or business owner needs to
consider and implement to achieve a more successful hybrid or flexible workforce?

There is really no single guide or rule of thumb to this, as it is about choosing the correct model (or
models) to suit each organisation's specific needs and challenges; this is also true of the available
workforce. The One Golden Rule though is about matching the requirements of the business or
organisation to the chosen employees' requirements.

The other key rule of course is not to be afraid to seek advice and talk to people, like me, who have
rolled out Work from Home and Hybrid Models for a wide variety of different large scale organisations.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

To get it 'right' and provide better customer service than the competition.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real change
across their customer experience?

Get a decent / competent CS director / Head. Understand the use of technology.

DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 17

CUSTOMER DIRECTOR SURVEY - RESULTS

We asked our network the following question. From all of the responses these were
the top five results:

What do you see as the biggest opportunity facing customer functions at this
time?

1. Adoption of AI technology to improve customer experience and automate

processes.
2. Personalisation and proactive service to exceed customer expectations.
3. Investment in front-line customer service agents and improving their processes
and systems.
4. Use of technology to provide seamless service experience and remove friction
in the customer process.
5. Rebalancing the employee value proposition post-COVID and further
augmenting customer functions with rapidly advancing technologies.

Use of robotics. RPA solutions have been

dabbled with but still think they are critical
to embed and integrate properly into
strategy to enable the
proactive/predictive/outbound/personalised
and localised support that otherwise still
hasn’t been nailed by anyone.
COO
 PAGE 18 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Monika Schulze

THOUGHT Monika has 30 years' experience in

strategy and business development

LEADERSHIP
in different roles, functions and
market environments and is Head of
Customer and Innovation
Managment at Zurich Insurance
Company Ltd, as well as a member
of their Executive Team.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

Driving the big picture and looking at customers end to end.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

From silo thinking to end-to-end solutions, including multi-channel solutions.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive
real change across their customer experience?

Employee engagement and data and results = business success.

David Bird
Retail Director at Thames Water,
David is a customer-centric
CEO/MD with a demonstrable THOUGHT
history of transforming business
performance and changing culture LEADERSHIP
in a wide range of consumer
markets.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

Cost of living crisis.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

Use of technology to provide seamless service experience.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive
real change across their customer experience?

Real connection and insight from customers and just getting the basics right.
DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 19

Delivering a measurable ROI seems to be a

CUSTOMER key theme for Customer Experience as we
move into 2023
EXPERIENCE Whilst many businesses have embraced digitisation and
increased customer contact channels, the need to be

DIRECTOR able to differentiate and personalise, build trust and

offer real value will continue to challenge many
companies. CXD
THE ROLE
There is still much confusion surrounding the role of a CXD - is it a purist, strategic journey
mapping role? More marketing led, or even a contact centre role? The CXD can have a wide
variety of responsibilities, ranging from operations over service, operations over an analytical
population, to journey mapping across all touch points and having influence over all business
areas. The role can also be a matrix management, thought leadership role, bringing insight or
analytical expertise into a specific area, for example NPS, or VOC, to a mixture of some, or all of
these components. Continuous and process improvement is a large part of the Customer
Experience Director's role, as is transformation, including technology, process and culture.

Remuneration of the CXD in GBP

INDUSTRY INSIGHT
400,000
The top end of the market has
increased with the highest
recorded salary being £350k and
more individuals being paid more
300,000 than £150k than in previous
years. That said there are were
also more new entries at the
lower end of the scale between
200,000 £80-100k level base salaries
mainly from internal promotions
to the role.

The gender balance is equalising

100,000 with 53% Male and 47% Female
(compared with 58% Male vs
42% Female last year).

0 2023 DATA 2022 DATA

Minimum Average Maximum
Average salary for a Customer Experience Director £124,500

“Customers are saying we have more alternatives now, they are easier to find and switch to, so
you need to up your game,’” says Professor Andrew Stephen, an Associate Dean of Research at
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

“Firms that don’t respond will see customers leave them for other brands.”
 PAGE 20 DOUGLAS JACKSON

CUSTOMER
Hayley Molloy
With previous experience in the Banking
and Utilities sectors, Hayley has been

EXPERIENCE with Manchester-based, real estate

company Bruntwood since October 2016,
seeking to improve their performance

DIRECTOR through enhanced customer experience.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

Funding priorities. Costs to deliver some of the needed customer function changes can be contrasting to
the needs to reduce costs at this time. Many projects have been halted or indefinitely put on the back
burner. Being able to engage board members to invest in customer functions where ROI may take longer
than other business functions is a challenge.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

Renewed passion for CX through technology. As we move rapidly into a tech-enabled world, customer
expectations of having a service channel at their fingertips 24/7 gives great opportunities to develop
digital platforms. The rewards from self serve mean investment in deeper and richer account management
where resource can be reallocated.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real change
across their customer experience?

Clear strategy which spans the end-to-end customer experience. No sole focus on attraction or retention
but a full awareness of the whole experience. The ability to embed, measure and track CX via voice of
customer insights programmes allows decision makers and front end colleagues to see immediate and
tangible impacts of CX implementation.

Stu Kaley
THOUGHT Stu joined The Chartered Institute of
Marketing just over a year ago and is the
LEADERSHIP Director to Director of Customer
Experience & Digital.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

The biggest challenge for me is completing the digital journey that the company started on a few years
ago. Whilst the customer may see a digital front, the back end is still manual and not connected to the rest
of the business. This need for bringing a more cross-functional operation to the business is driving change
but is challenging. Where we are seeing a higher than usual turn around with staff, this has meant the
challenge is even greater with a global customer base expecting faster and faster turn around times.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

Getting across the business and ensuring that it is seen to be adding value and assisting in every decision
being made to ensure the customer is at the heart of what we do.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real change
across their customer experience?

Communication, clear single strategy, effecting change, being curious, and resilience to keep on trying
when new ideas fail.
DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 21

The Customer Service Director has

CUSTOMER responsibility and accountability for
customer service, contact centre and
SERVICE complaint operations.
The CSD role usually reports to the COO, or
DIRECTOR CEO and will typically also own all digital
contact, although social and digital comms is
normally within marketing. How can AI advance
the CSD role is the big question.

THE ROLE
The Customer Service Director will take responsibility for defining the strategy for a
customer service operation, or contact centre estate, and creating a shared vision to
enable the effective delivery of the strategy. This could be in a pure voice, multi
channel, or omni channel environment. The CSD will be responsible for various layers of
management and own/be accountable for achieving KPIs relative to customer service,
Customer Experience, sales, loyalty and customer retention.

INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Remuneration of the CSD in GBP
We have witnessed a slight
250,000 reduction in the average salary
of the Customer Service Director
since last year, but the top salary
200,000 recorded in our data has stayed
the same and we have more
Customer Service Directors
receiving in excess of £120K
150,000 (48%) than before. The
decrease as with other customer
roles seems to be freom internal
100,000 promotions and the creation of
additional CSDs in different
companies

50,000 The gender balance continues to

level out, shifting to 42% Female
vs 36% in the 2022 report.
0 2023 DATA 2022 DATA
Minimum Average Maximum
The average salary for a female CSD is £108,222 vs £131,500 for their male counterparts, a difference of
19.4%, so while the gender balance is levelling out, there is a discrepancy in remuneration.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive
real change across their customer experience?

Investment into CX team and strategy as a differentiator and even revenue generator, not
cost centre going from one cheap location down to the next. Find operational efficiency
through automation, not cheaper salaries or cost per head cuts.
Chief Operating Officer
 PAGE 22 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Stewart Bromley
THOUGHT Stewart has nearly 35 years'
international blue chip corporate

LEADERSHIP
experience, he worked with HSBC and
more latterly Atom Bank where he was
Director of People and Customer

COO
Experience, before taking on the COO
and then Chief Technology Officer
roles

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time?

The landscape is in huge flux currently, driven by the cost of living challenges on top of
businesses struggling to decipher how best to operate post Covid. Customer needs and
expectations are very different.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023?

Digital experience has to be part of the solution offering, but few companies are getting
this right.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive
real change across their customer experience?

This very much depends on the maturity of their current capabilities. You will not go far
wrong if you truly listen to your customers and then act accordingly. Ensure you
focus/care as much about your employee experience as your customers.

THOUGHT
Steve James
For 20 years, Steve has focused on
customer experience, creating and
delivering solutions for private and public
businesses of all sizes, including NHS
Direct, Amazon, Vax and is presently the
LEADERSHIP
Director of Customer Service for VoCoVo,
a retail communication platform. CSD
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing customer functions at this time

Operational silos recreated by the higher propensity to work from home.

What do you see as the biggest opportunity for customer functions in 2023

AI - bots using GPT will advance automated chat considerably.

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to drive real
change across their customer experience?

Customer first.
DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 23

CUSTOMER DIRECTOR SURVEY - RESULTS

We asked our network the following question. From all of the responses these were
the top five results:

What do you see as the key ingredients for any business or brand looking to
drive real change across their customer experience?

1. These include having the right people, stakeholder and customer engagement.
2. A focus on technology, investment.
3. A culture of putting the customer first.
4. Strong leadership, personalisation, empathy, and human connection.
5. It also includes doing the basics brilliantly, listening to and acting on customer
feedback, and being willing to do things differently.

Truly delivering with empathy and human

connection alongside excellent digital and
self-service options. Automation, AI and
digital services are fine if positioned as a
tool for customers, rather than a clear and
obvious cost cutting mechanism. Customers
are quickly shifting loyalty because of
service, not necessarily cost.

Director of Customer Experience and

Engagement
 DOUGLAS JACKSON PAGE 24

Much of the Customer Success community

CUSTOMER seem disappointed with the lack of

progress coming from the role.

SUCCESS Customer Success practitioners seem split as to what

the role does, should they or should they not carry a
revenue target, many believe that is bad and there

DIRECTOR customers won't trust them if they are hunting for

revenue, however customer success like the other
customer functions much deliver a good ROI to survive.
THE ROLE
The Customer Success Director role is one still found predominantly in either the technology,
SAAS and/or B2B services space. Like the adoption of the term 'customer experience', there
remain significant differences in the role and its responsibilities from business to business; for
many it is a rebrand of a previous account management or client services function, but the real
future-looking progressive organisations are using the role to drive more significant changes in
strategy and product thinking and development to enable their customers and their customers'
customers achieve better success.

Remuneration of the Customer Success

Director in GBP
250,000
INDUSTRY INSIGHT

200,000 The Customer Success Director

gender split is 67% Male, 33%
Female, compared with a 60|40
split in 2022. There is a similar
150,000 trend with the average Male
salary recorded at £127,273 and
the average Female salary at
100,000 £96,250, a difference of some
27.8%.

50,000

2023 DATA 2022 DATA

0
Minimum Average Maximum

One of the biggest challenges is the 'balance of Customer Service for retention
versus upsell. If the only way to justify your existence is through additional
revenue, are you putting the customer first?'

Chief Customer Officer (Customer Success) in the SAAS/Software industry.

 PAGE 25 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Ashleigh Ainsley
THOUGHT Ashleigh is a Co-Founder of
Colorintech, a not for profit which

LEADERSHIP works to develop partnerships

within the tech community to

DIVERSITY
improve diversity. He is a graduate
of Oxford University, a Forbes 30
Under 30, and a tech evangelist.

To be fair some of our partners actually were doing it before then but I think what we've seen
is that it is possible to do more. I still believe that there's more opportunity. I think
organisations don't necessarily look outside of their own walls, I think there has been this
complacency which is like we're big, people know who we are they'll come to us and be like
wow that's that and if they're not getting in that's their problem. I call it pipeline blame but
actually there's an amazing number of well-qualified highly skilled people who actually are
looking at organisations and saying 'yeah okay you've got a job description there but I’m not
going to play anyway' and it's not because they're not aware, it's not because things like
LinkedIn or Indeed don't show jobs like those businesses, it's because people look at it and
think we go to work for lots of reasons and you know what, we want to go somewhere where
we feel like we belong and that we're going to fit in and that feels like it's an organic place
for us to be and that's super important for everybody and whatever they do. For too long
organisations have not really taken into account how to develop an inclusive culture for
everybody because ultimately it isn't just the attraction, is it?

It's retention and how we keep them engaged as well and that as you say falls to inclusion;
gone are the days where someone would go and join an organisation and say I want to be
here for the next 20 years of my career, the market is more fluid. Frankly there are cool
opportunities, with high growth businesses and this is what I love about the technology
industry, for a long time there's been a race to the top, workers conditions have improved
actually, yet in some, lots of industries you see them regressing it's like how can we get rid of
people, how do we pay them less, tech's kind of been counter-cyclical to that and what that
meant is that if your organisation isn't at the cutting edge of making sure people feel like this
is the place that they want to be, someone else will do that and people go and leave as a
result of that, so you can't just say, 'oh we're going to be more diverse by just attracting
people' you've also got to think about how you're how you're retaining and nurturing that
talent.

What one piece of advice would you give to a business who wants to drive inclusion
and equality?

The first is don't do things sequentially, a lot of organisations took years to say what
everybody knew, which is they weren't diverse, it was like we're going to spend the next year
kind of doing this report and finding out all of our data and seeing where we are. You could
have talked to your employees, you could have just looked around the room but yeah that took
a while. I get people are data driven but what progress was made as a result of doing that?
 PAGE 26 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Ashleigh Ainsley
THOUGHT Ashleigh is a Co-Founder of
Colorintech, a not for profit who

LEADERSHIP work to develop partnerships within

the tech community to improve

DIVERSITY
diversity. He is a graduate of
Oxford University, a Forbes 30
Under 30, and a tech evangelist.

What do you see today as the biggest opportunity for the advancement of inclusion and
equality in business?

The opportunity to keep going is the biggest thing that we have so, if I look at the increasing
work around racial justice over the last kind of five years or so, we've seen a lot of
improvement in discourse around what's been going on, you know people now have teams
strategies, ideas and budgets and lots of things to put in place to make things happen. I think
the biggest opportunity is harnessing that momentum; I think we've started and it's continuing
that, making sure that it doesn't just dissipate, it doesn't just become a thing, like a nice
phase, it's important we are continuing on the progress that we started to make and you know,
it will take time, I think sometimes people hope that there's a silver bullet or it's a flash in the
pan. I always say to my team, nothing worth having isn't without hard work so you've got to put
in that work to make it happen, so I think the biggest opportunity is to continue on the path
that we're now moving on.

On the gender paygap:

With ethnicity pay gap reporting, it was quite disappointing to see that the government
decided that they weren't going to support a mandate or even strongly encourage
organisations to do it. We have seen some of the world's biggest organisations do it: PWC, BT,
Sainsbury's; massive employers in the UK have shown that it's possible to do those sorts of
things, and all organisations should be doing and really why don't they? If it smells fishy or
sounds fishy it's probably because it is. It's easier not to and you know you probably would do
it and find out but it wasn't what you wanted it to be, then that is going to require work and
energy and therefore people default to not doing anything.

I’d love for people to tell me I’m wrong. If there isn't an ethnicity pay gap tell me, let's put it
out there, let's shout about it. If I’m wrong I’d love to be wrong - please tell me.

What do you see as the primary reason stopping businesses from attracting more
diverse talent?

I think this is an industry-wide thing, historically and let's be honest, there just hasn't been
enough intention around doing it. Over the last five years we've seen a massive growth in tech
and non-tech roles; until sadly George Lloyd was murdered, a lot of organisations didn't really
think that they needed to do anything about this and that's a sad reality.
 PAGE 27 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Ashleigh Ainsley
THOUGHT Ashleigh is a Co-Founder of
Colorintech, a not for profit who

LEADERSHIP work to develop partnerships within

the tech community to improve

DIVERSITY
diversity. He is a graduate of
Oxford University, a Forbes 30
under 30, and a tech evangelist.

Of course you need data, of course you need to measure things, of course you need to
understand the improvements that you're making but you need to do things together, you can't
just do things sequentially. You have to have a multi-faceted, multi-pronged dual tribe
approach to make things happen together and you have to get into that thing of
experimenting and not everything will work but actually by doing more you're gonna probably
hear more things that do work so you know I think that's probably the main thing that I would
say for any organisation that's really thinking about what they should do.

The second is to really look outside of the walls, I think organisations have spent a lot of time
looking internally and doing things on that and I think that's super important to that belonging
of attention piece so, I’m not saying don't do that but you can't just do that. If you do, are you
any more diverse than when you started? Your retention numbers might actually improve a bit
but you've got to also bring new people into your environment, and also not just look for
culture fit, I call culture add value and what are people adding, not just do they fit - are they
challenging what fit looks like?

In order to really make sure that you are developing a more holistic approach to
understanding your customers, your clients, you have to look internally and externally and think
about how you engage with new people that you don't usually engage with.

"Diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a choice we make everyday. As leaders, we have

to put out the message that we embrace, and not just tolerate, diversity."

NELLIE BORRERO
 PAGE 28 DOUGLAS JACKSON

The Impact Room

You might not be aware that Douglas Jackson have a feature called The Impact Room.
The Impact Room is where exceptional, diverse and impactful leadership and wisdom is
shared...

These are bite sized conversations where we welcome leaders and subject matter experts
from customer-centric organisations to share their ideas, thoughts, opportunities and
challenges, to help educate and inspire.

In our 27 episodes so far, we have welcomed individuals including; Eoin Lyons, Damian Kirk,
Manoj Sangany, Jo Causon, Louise Smith, Vatsana (Vosy) Gordon, Chris Middlemass, James
Revell, Qadir Pemberton, Kelly L. Kuhn, Bontle Senne and many more, from a wide range of
industries; Utilities, Travel, Housing, SAAS, Telco, Finance, Insurance.

You can watch here, or if you would prefer just audio listen here

If you have any thoughts for future subjects or might like to feature in a future session, do let
us know.

The Impact Room is where exceptional, diverse and impactful leadership

and wisdom is shared...
 PAGE 29 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Movers and Shakers

We have been tracking Movers and Shakers across the

INSIGHTS Customer Service and Customer Experience

community at a C-suite, Director and "Head of"
appointment level to produce a quarterly report.

Some of the activity from August '22 to January '23

includes:

23
Chief Customer Officer
appointments

33
Customer Service Director
appointments

75
Customer Experience
Director appointments

In our Winter report, which included the months between November 2022 to January
2023, we saw a 25% increase in total moves (promotions and new appointments), in
comparison to the 3 months previous and an uplift of 58% in new appointments.

Over the last 6 months, we tracked a total of:

23 Chief Customer Officer appointments

33 Customer Service Director appointments
75 Customer Experience Director appointments

Want a copy of the latest customer moves report? Please click here.
 PAGE 30 DOUGLAS JACKSON

Looking to the future, written by Michelle

Ansell, Managing Partner (she/her)

CONCLUSION Michelle is the founder and Managing Partner of Douglas

Jackson, retained search and recruitment consultants
leading the way in customer experience executive
search. Placing more impactful, diverse leaders that
help save you time and money
CX and our customer contact channels seem to have gone backwards in so
many respects these last few years. Many organisations look to technology
to bridge the gap but technology alone cannot deliver the results we want.
With Chat GPT scaling at a pace not seen before and with further AI
advancements on the horizon, we must consider both the opportunities and
the implications to our business, customer and workforce.

AI is going to be a game changer and rightly organisations are looking to

Artificial Intelligence as the next advance for their customer experience.
There is no doubt that AI can help businesses improve the customer
experience by providing hyper-personalised interactions, efficient support,
The opportunities
sales and upsell great newsand is that
proactive solutions. By leveraging AI,
businessesresilience can customer
can better meet be taught.expectations and build long-lasting
commercially viable
It can relationships
improve with their customers.
with interventions.

But we must learn from previous mistakes, we have to engage and develop
the human element right from the start and throughout any change
programme, this is all too often overlooked. We must also consider the
question of trust and the relationship we as a business want with our
customers and the role AI and ChatGPT has to play in this relationship.
It is time for our leaders to bring their authentic and best self to work, our leaders are not meant to be
perfect, we are ofhuman, and all make mistakes.
our investments
have tripled in the past
We have been through a really tough few years for employers, leaders and employees, many feel tired, under
five years of our
resourced, undervalued with a lack or purpose, trust and or development. It isn’t enough to go back to how
growing business.
it was, expectations have changed and the lack of meaningful daily contact many of us have lost or maybe
never had with our leaders and employees is significant and cannot be underestimated.

We need to stop hiring the way we always have. Stop considering what the problems of today and in the
past have been and look to the future of what we want to achieve and think about how we can hire more
diverse impactful individuals that we can support, coach, train and develop to bring their best possible self
to work and deliver the required performance level, whilst feeling fulfilled and heard.

For our Customer Leaders and Directors, it is clear we must align the customer proposition with the business
strategies and metrics more effectively to be considered a viable function that adds a significant return on
investment and not just an area to deliver cost efficiencies.

ChatGPT will emerge from its beta phase into an early trial and pilot phase,” says Bern Elliot, Vice
President and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. “During that time, we expect adoption to increase, best
practices for use to mature, and to see increased adoption into business workflows and applications.
However, it is also possible there will be a negative response to a range of issues, including privacy
concerns, misuse of information and bias. This is common as a technology moves from the peak of inflated
expectations to the trough of disillusionment.”
 Executive Search and Recruitment
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Utilities Planning, Insight, Analytics C-Suite & Director Finance & Insurance
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