Episode 2: Mastering the Chief Customer Officer Role

“I am responsible for ensuring that our customers derive value from our partnership and remain with us for the long term,” says Mary Poppen, President and Chief Customer Officer at HRIZONS and co-author of “Goodbye Churn, Hello Growth!” In this episode, she sits down with Alex Raymond to talk about how the role of a CCO is evolving, especially as customer success becomes essential for reducing churn.

 

Mary walks through her 5Ps framework—Playbooks, Prediction, Prescriptive, Proactive, and Personalization—as a comprehensive strategy for deepening customer relationships and achieving meaningful results. She emphasizes the importance of seeing value through the customer’s eyes and using AI-driven insights alongside personalized communication to create long-lasting connections.

 

With teams being asked to manage larger portfolios but with fewer resources, Mary explains why efficient, cross-functional processes are more critical than ever. She also talks about how keeping sales teams involved after the initial deal can help nurture long-term relationships and find new opportunities for growth. And what about the connection between employee and customer success? Mary believes they go hand in hand—both should be seen as indicators of a company’s overall health. She leaves listeners with valuable insights into how data and technology can help companies stay ahead of customer needs and offer more proactive solutions.

 

Quotes

• “[The CCO role] has evolved over the years. And it looks a little bit different depending on the size of the organization, the type of products or services offered, etc. But in general, how I describe it is that I am responsible for making sure that our customers are getting value from our partnership and that they want to continue the partnership forever.” (02:52 | Mary Poppen)
• “The best way to actually define if the customer is getting value is to have the customer share their measures of success—why they purchased your product or service, what they were expecting to get, and if they are getting that value. And second, how is it helping their organization to grow and be successful? If the customer can put that into measures, or even into words and a story, then you’ve got real, true value measures.” (04:44 | Mary Poppen) 
• “It does take time to get to the true value measures of real impact. So, if you’re rolling out a new technology that is enterprise-wide, once it’s live, it takes time to ensure that users are actually following the use cases and using it correctly. And all of those things really need to be measured. So, it takes time.” (06:24 | Mary Poppen)
• “There are two secret ingredients I have found for really driving a differentiated relationship with a customer and a customer experience. One of those ingredients is customer intimacy. A lot of people shy away from the term intimacy, but to be honest, I’ve never found another term that describes it as exactly as I think of it, which is knowing the customer better than anyone else, knowing what they need, when they need it, and being able to deliver it in the best way for them.” (10:49 | Mary Poppen) 

 

Links

Connect with Mary Poppen:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marypoppen/

 

Connect with Alex Raymond:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/

Website: https://amplifyam.com/

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