Why chief customer officer is the hottest job in retail

When Kim Waldmann joined Foot Locker five months ago, she was tasked with overseeing all of the sportswear chain’s brand and digital marketing, along with e-commerce and its loyalty program. A marketing veteran, Waldmann most recently served as chief digital and marketing officer at Gap Inc.’s Athleta brand. But unlike her predecessor Jed Berger, who left Foot Locker to become president of Kenneth Cole last year, Waldmann is not the chief marketing officer. Instead, her title of chief customer officer is emblematic of the vision of Foot Locker’s new CEO Mary Dillon to create a customer-obsessed brand that prioritizes the needs of the consumer. Ad Age Media Summit Hear from industry leaders during October event in NYC Register here It’s also a shift many retailers are making at a time of economic uncertainty and slumping sales, with the crucial holiday selling season about to start. Though they typically lead marketing and branding, chief customer officers also focus on the entire shopper path to purchase, including mapping out how marketing and product play a role in the ultimate decision to buy or not to buy. Experts say such a holistic strategy could strengthen a brand’s relationship with the consumer, leading to more loyalty and repeat sales over time. “It’s about customer experience and customer journey over customer marketing,” said Robert Ayala, director of contact center consulting at Wunderman Thompson. “I can show an ad to someone that might pique their interest, but what I want to know is what brought them to me, what do they like about the service, why are they coming back and how can I continue to promote that service and behavior to repeat that positive influence on the customer experience?” From chief marketing officer to chief customer officer Since 2020, 18 retailers—including CVS, PetSmart, Victoria’s Secret and Nordstrom—have added chief customer officers to their executive leadership teams, and more than half of the group came from marketing backgrounds, according to executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart. Along with Foot Locker, Bath & Body Works also hired a chief customer officer this year, naming Maurice Cooper, most recently Target’s senior VP of marketing for guest and brand experience, to the newly created role. Some of the retailers kept the CMO position even as they added the chief customer officer, such as PetSmart. “What retailers and brands are getting clued into is they have to organize in a way that allows them to speak to the customer in their language versus whatever is easier functionally because that results in a siloed experience,” said Waldmann. The chief customer officer’s retail rise is partly born of the pandemic, when changing consumer behavior resulted in more online shopping for everyday items. Now, retailers are seeking a way to meld online and in-person shopping, along with loyalty and membership programs that also touch on the consumer experience. While marketing is a key responsibility of the new position, the new job title does not represent the elimination of the CMO role—rather, its evolution, according to Richard Sanderson, who leads Spencer Stuart’s marketing, sales and communications office practice in North America. “There’s no consistency around what’s in the role and what it’s responsible for except table stakes aspects around core legacy marketing responsibilities,” Sanderson said. “The mandate is the chief customer officer really has to bring together a variety of customer touching-touching functions in service of building a customer-centric organization.” Also read: How to get Gen Z to shop in stores Of course, the chief customer officer title is not entirely new. Walmart installed Janey Whiteside as its first chief customer officer five years ago, recruiting her from American Express. Yet, Whiteside left Walmart last year and has not been replaced. Instead, William White remains as senior VP and chief marketing officer, appointed in 2020. The marketing industry is also seeing the rise of chief commercial officer, though the latter post is not so exclusively tied to retail. For example, Amtrak recently hired Eliot Hamlisch, former CMO of AMC Entertainment, as chief commercial officer. This week, the National Women’s Soccer League announced the promotion of Julie Haddon to chief marketing and commercial officer from CMO—she’s tasked with scaling revenue along with brand marketing strategies. Generally, the chief commercial posts are different from chief customer roles in that they are sales and revenue-driven versus customer and experience-focused. Pulling back on perks Chief customer roles are rising amid overall cutbacks as retailers stay focused on their bottom line. Many stores are eliminating longtime shopper perks such as free shipping and unlimited returns, and that’s pressuring brands to have a tighter relationship with the customer. This means better communication and transparency, along with improved customer data sets that can help executives make decisions on future offerings. “Communication is critical—they need to properly communicate what they’re doing and why,” said Ayala, adding that “the backbone to that communication effort and revised offering is data.” Such information can help retailers understand what products shoppers are buying and then devise loyalty programs that offer more of a value proposition around such items, for example. At Victoria’s Secret, understanding the customer mindset in all formats—online, in-store and in-app—is a big focus for Christine Rupp, who joined as chief customer officer one year ago after working in a similar capacity at Albertsons. At the apparel chain, Rupp leads the marketing, customer service, loyalty, data and store experience teams. The heads of each of those departments report to her. The retail chain recently acquired Adore Me, an underwear brand that offers personalized subscription boxes for home try-on-and-buy and plans to roll out the technology to the Victoria’s Secret catalog later this year. The company leverages the data of which items consumers keep in order to build a more tailored consumer profile for future mailings. Rupp also helped Victoria’s Secret bring its in-store bra fitting experience to the online realm in order to meet demand from shoppers who didn’t want to go to the physical shop. “Watching in-store teaches you a lot about customer mindset,” she said, adding that the customer service department is also trained in how to help customers measure online, in case shoppers also prefer not to download the brand’s app. “Bringing the channels together is really beneficial because of the learnings you get that go cross-channel,” Rupp said. “Then everybody becomes less worried about what channel you’re selling to the customer because you shouldn’t care—you should just meet her where she is.” Ad Age Salary Guide The hottest ad industry jobs and what they’re paying Read more here Leading with loyalty Loyalty programs are also a big focus for chief customer officers. While some brands such as Delta Air Lines have recently caught flak for changing such offerings, others are doubling down with new additions. Both Foot Locker and PetSmart are investing in loyalty programs as a way to drive continued interest from shoppers. Foot Locker is currently piloting a relaunch of its program in Canada and the North American version will debut next year, Waldmann said. “Our work to relaunch our loyalty program is a great example of this shift from being product-led to being consumer-led,” she said, noting cash-back value opportunities in the new program. Read more: How McDonald’s and others are driving loyalty apps Also: See Foot Locker's first work from Preacher PetSmart is also building out its loyalty program, which has 60 million members. After joining the pet retailer as executive VP of merchandise and customer experience in 2019, Stacia Andersen last year was promoted to the newly created chief customer officer position, which counts PetSmart’s chief marketing officer and chief merchant as direct reports. Amid the “trickiest retail environments” she has ever navigated, Andersen said PetSmart is working to translate its offerings into more value for its customers. “Sometimes other retailers have thought about how to cut back on their loyalty program, we’re thinking about how to make it rich,” she said. “We feel like loyalty is really important to our customers and we want to make sure she is getting the offers that are tailored to her.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs

Why chief customer officer is the hottest job in retail

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