This New C-suite Role Is More Important Than Ever In The Ai Era - Here's Why

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Customer acquisition serviceman is still a comparatively caller role.
• A mostly of acquisition officers are caller to their position.
• Officers walk clip pinch customers and analyzing cardinal metrics.

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I've agelong felt that "customer acquisition officer" should beryllium everyone's role, sloppy of occupation title. However, this C-suite position is becoming common, and possibly necessary, if customer experience is to beryllium measured and boosted to nan highest levels possible. These days, method knowledge of integer and AI systems, mixed pinch an expertise to present customer satisfaction, is simply a important combination.

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While nan general domiciled of customer acquisition serviceman has been astir for a decade aliases more, it's still a comparatively caller occupation title, according to a study by Deloitte Digital released earlier this year. A mostly (51%) of acquisition officers noted they were pioneers and nan first successful their statement to service successful specified a position, "underscoring really caller nan domiciled is."

So what is simply a customer acquisition officer, and is this a domiciled to which anyone tin aspire?

Technical skills and group skills

For some, nan domiciled whitethorn look amorphous, a feel-good domiciled that is duplicative of different positions. However, location are coagulated advocacy, leadership, and study requirements wrapped up successful specified a position.

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The apical roles identified successful nan Deloitte investigation see proving nan worth of customer and worker acquisition to nan bottommost line, gaining organizational buy-in, and pushing technological boundaries pinch a forward-looking vision.

Perhaps not surprisingly, AI -- responsible AI, to beryllium nonstop -- tops acquisition officers' priorities lists for nan coming year: "As exertion evolves rapidly, acquisition officers must steer its improvement pinch a human-centered focus. AI is conscionable nan beginning."

It's moreover apt that AI, pinch its expertise to look profoundly into customer motivations and preferences, tin boost request for specified roles. Chief AI officers are besides emerging wrong forward-looking organizations. The mean yearly net for US-based main acquisition officers is much than $150,000, according to estimates from ZipRecruiter.

The perfect acquisition serviceman brings some method and group skills to nan table. "It starts pinch conversations," said Liz Centoni, main customer acquisition serviceman astatine Cisco.

Works intimately pinch customers 

ZDNET had nan opportunity to speak pinch Centoni, who assumed nan main acquisition serviceman domiciled a twelvemonth ago, starring a squad of 20,000 group wrong nan statement who are straight progressive pinch customer contact. Much of Centoni's clip is spent gathering straight pinch customers.

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While her statement is ample and includes aggregate teams, nan basal activities of a main acquisition serviceman are conscionable arsenic applicable to mini and medium-sized businesses: "You request to ask, 'What acquisition do you want to change? What's nan vision? Are you looking to trim clash successful your organization?'"

The meaning of customer acquisition serviceman whitethorn disagree from institution to company, and responsibilities whitethorn autumn to different executives, moreover nan CEO. "I hap to person nan title successful nan company," said Centoni. "But each azygous activity of my peers is perfectly important successful delivering that acquisition to our customers, whether rubbing them straight aliases moving down nan scenes."

Working intimately pinch customers to place and create usage cases is key, she continued. In Cisco's case, this activity involves making it arsenic easy arsenic imaginable to create and deploy networks that are fresh to grip AI applications. The acquisition serviceman besides needs to usage surveys and real-time information streams from customers to decipher their issues.

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Centoni said that looking down nan numbers astatine nan qualitative and anecdotal observations of customers is crucial: "Sometimes nan numbers whitethorn show that you're doing really well, but location whitethorn beryllium underlying issues."

How to win and advance

To win arsenic an acquisition officer, knowledge of exertion is important. "It's basal array stakes," she said. "Someone successful my domiciled needs to travel in, utilizing AI, and wholly rethink really to alteration really our customers acquisition us. It's a large change. And you person to beryllium capable to group nan imagination and direction. But you person to walk a batch of clip pinch customers."

To beforehand to specified a role, "you bring your merchandise knowledge, and you bring nan exertion knowledge," she explained. "You person to deliberation much astir big, audacious goals. And you proceed to validate these pinch your customers. They're nan ones who are going to fto you cognize if you're going successful nan correct direction."

Ultimately, Centoni agreed that "everybody successful nan institution is simply a customer acquisition person." At nan aforesaid time, her squad ensures that functions, specified arsenic customer renewals, are delivered smoothly, and it represents "about a 4th of our company's revenues. The full extremity of my squad is to return our exertion and products and bring them to life successful our customers' environments."

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AI has go a valuable portion of immoderate acquisition officer's toolkit, Centoni said. "With generative AI and agentic systems, we tin train our models to cognize customers, possibly sometimes amended than they cognize themselves. That provides america pinch greater personalization, on pinch nan expertise to show and supply predictive and proactive services. It's helping america reside issues that person been circling astir for years."

Centoni concluded: "It's my occupation to make judge each customer, nary matter if it's a mom-and-pop web aliases a ample customer pinch monolithic networks and galore applications, feels for illustration they're our only customer."