Sarah Johnson Dayes on the Chief Client Officer and Professional Services Impact

Be Customer Led – Sarah Johnson

[00:00:00] Sarah Johnson: Welcome to be customer led where we’ll explore, help leading experts in customer and employee experience are navigating organizations through their own journey to be customer led and the actions and behaviors, employees, and businesses exhibit to get there. And now your host bill stagos.

[00:00:33] Bill Staikos: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another week of be customer led. I’m your host bill. Staco thanks so much for joining us. I’ve got a great guest. Sarah Johnson days is the chief client officer for marketing agency called acceleration partners. Now Sarah oversees global client delivery operations, supporting clients in the Americas, AMEA and, and a.

And leads global enterprise client relationships and teams and all global client services employees with a direct team of 200 plus people, which is a massive, massive team. And today we’re talking about the chief client officer role in sort of in a professional services organization. Sarah, welcome the show.

I’m really excited to get into the topic.

[00:01:15] Sarah Johnson: Thanks so much. I’m super happy to be here.

[00:01:17] Bill Staikos: Awesome. So, this is actually the first time I’ve had a chief client officer on the show who has come out of an agency environment or works in an agency environment. So I’m curious to dig into that a little bit with you, but before we do just tell us about your journey.

What were some of the differentiating factors in your career? And you’ve got this really interesting mix of client agency, kind of work. And I think that’s gonna resonate a lot with our listen.

[00:01:43] Sarah Johnson: Sure. Yeah. So I, I, I feel like I’ve been on almost every side of, of customer service, client service hospitality.

So I have been working in this field for 30 years now, which will age me, but I got, I got my first job when I, as soon as I could get that work permit. And, and that was in hospitality, working in, in restaurants and then kind of came up and, and started working retail as I was in college and managed some retail stores in, in the summers when I was in college.

And then after I graduated, I worked for a while at Kaplan test prep. and basically what their model is, is they at the time, anyway, I think lots gone virtual now, but they had, these, these centers, which were essentially their, their kind of customer service arms, where you would go and take your classes.

And I started working there in Boston and pretty quickly ended up running their, center business in Boston, which was one of their biggest locations. And. We were servicing students, everything from folks who were learning the English language, in those centers to, studying and prepping for the GMAT and the LSAT.

But it, that was I think the place where I started to really develop kind of my own pretty distinct point of view on customer service and client service and, and what that looked like. And then I ended up few years in. I was kind of at that typical decision point that I think a lot of business leaders are where I was thinking about getting my MBA in my, my mid twenties.

And instead I had always kind of had a dream of entrepreneurship and. As I said, I had a retail background and I, I felt like there was this, retail niche that was missing in, in Boston at the time and ended up rather than investing in business school. I took the, the money and, put together a business plan and ended up opening a couple retail stores and website in Boston.

So, yeah, so that business really was, was pretty successful for some time. if you think back to 2004, which is when I launched it. eCommerce was barely a thing. I always laugh, like in my business plan, I said e-commerce was gonna be 10% of my business and people, banks. They were like, no, that’s crazy.

You’re, really ambitious there. You can imagine, pretty quickly that actually ended up really taking off and that whole business. And I think how that kind of ties into our conversation today, that business really was built on customer service and we ended up having a really good following, it globally really in the us.

And then in particular had a lot of customers in Asia and it was very much based on word of mouth because of customer service. So that was kind of what we were all about. And then ultimately after seven or eight years, for a bunch of reasons, kind of decided to exit that business, decided I was ready to get out of the fashion industry, which is what I was in at the time.

And then that is ultimately what kind of brought me. I found my way to acceleration partners, which at the time I was just doing some freelance, digital marketing work. And, it was a company of three people needed some help with a couple of clients and yeah, the rest is kind of history. So

[00:04:46] Bill Staikos: tell us a little bit about acceleration partners, how do you guys work with clients?

What do you do?

[00:04:50] Sarah Johnson: Yeah. So, as you mentioned, we are a marketing agency. more specifically we are in affiliate and partnership marketing. And we are the largest partnership marketing focused agency in the world. So as you, again, shared, we are global. And basically what we do is we kind of take full ownership in most cases for the partnership programs on behalf of our brands.

So we’re going out and finding them. Partners to, bring in and, and, we won’t go too deep into the, the economics of partner marketing, but that is specifically what we do. And we work anywhere in the capacity. You we’ve got some clients where, we are, we’ve got a small portion of a couple of people working on the client up to some of our enterprise clients.

We’ve got 14 or 15 full-time employees across the world who are dedicated, to, to a couple of brands.

[00:05:38] Bill Staikos: So at the top of the, at the, at the intro, I kind of, talked a little bit about what you do. So the chief client officer role has really kind of blown up in the last, let’s say three years, even I’m starting to see it more and more.

on the agency side as well. So how do you think about your role from an agency perspective? How have you set it up and how are you kind of impacting the business?

[00:06:02] Sarah Johnson: Yeah, and it is, it’s really interesting. Like when I first took this role, which is probably four or five years ago now it was a rare one.

Like you just didn’t even see this title out there. And now that is really changing and evolving. In our world, really what it, the way I describe it very simply is that I’m accountable for the success and growth and retention of our clients. And I’m responsible for the same for all of the people who service those clients.

And so on that side, it’s really making sure that, the people have the kind of support structures and, and what they need to be successful. So that’s everything. Training operational support, strategic support. How do we resource accounts? And then also that we’ve kind of got the process and the structure set up to, deliver excellence at scale to our clients is, is the way that I think about it.

[00:06:51] Bill Staikos: And do you think that that has changed? I mean, well, I’m sure it’s changed somewhat over the last couple of years, given everything that we’re all going, we’ve all been through and still going through. How do you think, how have you maybe changed your perspective on the role in the last couple of years?

Right. You’re right. When you first took on that role, it was very new, may not have even been called that at the time. Right. for a lot of companies, even though it was similar type work. How has your view on the role evolved over the last couple of years now that you’ve been.

[00:07:17] Sarah Johnson: So it, it’s interesting.

And as you kind of alluded to, so much has changed in the world obviously, and in business. And I think the way that that is, is applying for my role, and I think for my team and for our clients is I think we all have so much more awareness of individuals and the fact that individual circumstances.

For, for everyone, whether that’s an employee or whether that means clients like it, it just, everyone is kind of in a different place. And I, I think the world in general is getting more comfortable with kind of meeting people where they are. And the application of all of this in our business is, again, it’s both on the people side and the client side.

I’m just really making sure that we are being kind of adaptable and flexible. I, as an even going through COVID right. So many of our clients and our brands, some of them were COVID was actually , really a, a Bo for their business, meal delivery kits, or, certain things.

Right. We have one client has like video streaming of classes. we have some clients who that was just really, it’s really. Growing their business overnight and others, in, in travel or lots of other sectors, that it was a very different story. So I think it kind of forced this customization of like, well, how can we best support you right now?

And it started to mean very, very different things for, for different clients and different brands. And. I am seeing a, a continuation, even though we’re knock on wood, kind of through the, the really wild time. I think that that is something that’s really going to persist into the future. As you look at, what does it mean to sit in a role like this?

Or what does it mean to lead a, a client facing organization?

[00:08:52] Bill Staikos: So gimme an example of what you think some of the things that you think might persist in sort of whatever the new normal is. We’re starting to see maybe the, the light on the end of the tunnel lot. .

[00:09:04] Sarah Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I think sometimes it might be creative contracting, right.

And, and we’ve always, certainly tried to do this. I, but I think just the openness to it is, is much greater. Now, as an example, we always try to, we look for a minimum of 12 month contracts. The type of business that we’re in is kind of the long game. And we feel like signing short term contracts doesn’t actually necessarily even allow us.

Kind of get in there and, and show what the value is. And, and I think we’ve had to become a little bit more flexible there. And I think that is the kind of thing that in, for us, that certainly doesn’t mean month to month or two month contracts, or I think it just means being open to some different ways to structure things, because that is what the, the market and the world demands.

The other thing that I would point out, which has a little bit more to do with the interpersonal interaction side of it, but we are a professional services business. Like that’s, that’s what we do, right. Is personal interaction. I think one thing that like, I’m very excited about that I, I see changing is the availability and acceptability of kind of authenticity at work is, has just gone.

So has just changed dramatically. Obviously when people were working at home, Kids were popping up in the corner. Mine certainly did. And we were all in this, this situation. Right. But the really cool thing that I think came out of that is people started to be more comfortable being human. Like not just at work, but with clients.

And they started feeling comfortable and our clients did too. And it, it really deepened relationships and I’m, I’m seeing, and I’m very hopeful that that will continue that. That is one just shift that has, is not gonna totally revert that. Like it’s okay to be a human and it’s okay if your kid does pop up in the screen, that doesn’t mean you’re not doing a great job.

It means, your kid’s home or whatever, and they popped up and people are accepting that a lot

[00:10:51] Bill Staikos: more. Are you thinking about just a really quick question? Are you guys thinking because like so much of what your business also is, is just sort of in person relationship too. I personally think that the, that authenticity is gonna continue now more in that in person kind of space, which I think is a wonderful thing.

But are you, how are you guys thinking, cuz this is a question in everyone’s mind right now, right? Like how are you guys thinking about the in person versus virtual mix? I mean, at least for. You know how, where I am. We’re we’re saying, Hey, new client relationships, new meetings, first intros, like go out and do it in person, if you can, but then you don’t have to have every meeting in person anymore.

Right. So how are you guys thinking about it similarly? Or like, are you guys maybe thinking about it differently?

[00:11:35] Sarah Johnson: Yeah, no, very similarly. And, and so our company has always been remote, so we’ve been remote for 10 plus years. So that part of it hasn’t changed. Obviously has changed to your point is just what, what is happening in the greater world in terms of in person and even, on our client side.

So we are trying to do kind of exactly what you’ve just said, which is when we are, when we are launching something or if we are, at a major pivot point or, and, maybe it’s twice a year versus every quarter for a QBR. It’s been interesting because we’ve also started to find that because our clients are also, now more people are working remote and, and staying remote and people have, where we had clients in San Francisco and New York in particular, a lot of people have now they’ve moved out of the cities because they don’t have to be there.

And so. That’s actually been a challenge is not necessarily we would go to people, but we might be working with three or four people on the client side. And, in New York, one of ’em might be in Connecticut. One might be in Jersey. They sometimes we are actually having a challenge. Like, Hey, we we’re gonna come to you.

But like, we gotta all come together and, and get in the rooms, but it’s starting to move. And actually I’m really excited. Like just even in the last two weeks, we’ve had a few industry events that, haven’t been held for a few years where we know we’ll get in person time with our clients or popping back up on calendars.

I’m I’m hopeful that we’re starting to see, see that shift. I had my first client lunch in two years, in, in London last

[00:12:56] Bill Staikos: week. That must, that must have felt pretty good. Very exciting. Yeah. that must felt pretty good. I’m really, I’m a big measurement person. Just, understanding what a success look like.

What kind of metrics do you use? How do you think about measuring success and your role for your organization? Are there maybe different metrics that are not necessarily the norm, what you might find or like, how do you think about that?

[00:13:19] Sarah Johnson: Yeah. So I think in terms of like our lagging indicators, we probably use pretty standard.

we use NPS, we, we do that quarterly. The, the tool that we use for NPS also allows us to get kind of four other more, drilled down questions around strategy and relationship and, and analytics. And. so we use that. We look at both logo retention and revenue retention, and we also look a lot, so our business, and I think this is part because of the service that we deliver a big kind of growth arm for our business is upsells and expansions.

[00:13:56] Sarah Johnson: So we do a lot of, land and expand kind of work. And so that is kind of a key KPI. For owner for portfolio owners. And certainly for me, is looking at, what is our, our revenue growth for our clients. So those are a lot of, kind of the, what I see as sort of the, the lags. And then, we have a pretty detailed I’m actually in the process of, of reworking in a little bit just at, as we scale, but we have a pretty detailed kind of client health behind the scenes process that we do.

So we look every single week we ask every single account manager to do a very brief and it, the goal is that it takes. 60 seconds, but to do a brief kind of health check on their client and based on, different patterns of what we see in those health checks, there’s certain things that we are automatic flags, you know?

So if a client asks you for a copy of their contract, that’s kind of an automatic yellow, right? And like granted, maybe it’s something totally innocent, but oftentimes that that’s just a sign that someone’s asking something. Right? So there’s some things like that, that we, we look at as part of our client health and engagement.

we also look really heavily at obviously the client. I shouldn’t say obviously, but we look at our client results because, if, if those start to not be where they need to be for a few months in a row, then that’s, what’s gonna lead to problems down the road. and then we also try to really pulse our relationship health.

[00:15:15] Sarah Johnson: So do we have multiple contacts, for example, at a client, especially now? That’s now another thing that’s evolving is just with so much movement on the people side, everywhere with, great resignation and job changes and all of that. That’s actually been a real risk, I think for professional services business, because you have one relationship, who’s your core point of contact gets, it gets what you do and they, and they depart and you’re left with nothing.

So that’s another thing that we kind of, Paul’s not exactly as a KPI, but as kind of a leading indicator of what we know will ultimately translate into, to retention and success. Yeah.

[00:15:48] Bill Staikos: Having multiple champions in an organization, if you are, B2B or a service provider like that is, is absolutely so critical.

I love that you’re looking at. Sort of the, client expansion view, right. Fred Reichle, who, you mentioned NPS like created the MPS score, his recent book winning on purpose talks about earned growth rate. So like not the revenue that you’re buying out there, but the revenue that, because your customers know that they love you every day, you love them every day and they want to do more with you.

That’s such an important metric to be tracking. I’m really curious, just like, how do you think. How do you wanna see the role of chief client officer evolve, maybe over the next couple of years? And how might you think about sort of the impact of your own team, in that context as well?

[00:16:33] Sarah Johnson: So I think one thing which actually, I believe we at acceleration partners, this has kind of always.

Been the case, but again, I’m seeing it happening more in, in other places is where, I mean that you’re, if you are a services organization, like your chief client officer needs to have a really important seat at the table and I don’t, it’s interesting because I think I’ve seen some companies and to, to what we were talking about before, if you looked at, you, you looked at the, who is in the C-suite, what are the roles in the C-suite at a lot of companies and you looked at that 5, 6, 7 years ago.

You would have the CMO and the CFO and, and a COO who might have had client stuff underneath of them. Right. But I think as you actually see this seat kind of elevating to that key seat at the table, it’s gotta be you, you, that chief client officer role, you have to be one of the most key people in shaping what’s going on in the organization.

Usually you’ve got most of the head count. So the cultural stuff is all very applicable and you’ve got the accountability for that revenue retention and, and growth. So I think that’s, that’s the biggest kind of single.

[00:17:37] Bill Staikos: Do you see at least maybe on the professional services side, do you see like the, the chief client officer taking over the role of the COO, so even bringing more operations in there or do you think, Hey, there are roles that just should be inherently separate and they should probably be, I’m just curious, hear, hear your

[00:17:51] Sarah Johnson: opinion on that.

Yeah, I think it is it’s, it’s really interesting and this is like a conversation and a debate that, or not even in debate, but just an ongoing conversation that we’ve had at our company. for years. A so much of the operation in, in our case. Right? So much of the operation sits with me and my team and, and we’ve got to.

Be able to be a part of, of shaping that mm-hmm at the same time, especially as a business scales, there really are a tremendous number of operational things that are companywide that are go well beyond client service, even if you are a client service organization. So I, I think it it’s almost, I, I think of it almost like.

some companies, for example, the, the CFO essentially has a CFO and a COO function and some they’re broken out or some, it looks a little different. I, I think that it’s probably going to be the same with the chief client officer role where like that is one direction. Companies could go, what we’ve kind of done.

[00:18:45] Sarah Johnson: Is that my role is not exactly a COO role. However, I have a large, like I have my own client operations team. Yeah. You also have a business operations team who is really charged with all of those things that are hubbed that, if you look at like our revenue operations, right. That touches sales, marketing, and client service, that kind of lives within business operations because it touches the whole company.

At the same time, the, like the people operations or the, that the stuff that resourcing and staffing and all that sits within my team. And, and I even have some people who almost replicate roles on the biz ops team, but they’re totally focused on how that applies to the, the client service team.

So we’re kind of like doing a hybrid. I, I would almost say, but I, it’s an interesting question and I think it’ll be interesting to see how that evolves going into the future.

[00:19:33] Bill Staikos: Interesting. I love how different people are approaching it. It’ll be really interesting to see, like over the next couple of years, to your point, how, how it does evolve.

you’re a founding member of chief, which is an incredible organization for, or some of our international listeners maybe who don’t know who chief is, or even some of our listeners in, in the us who don’t know who chief is, go check it out. the organiz. This is a topic that we talk a lot about on the show, a fair amount, actually, because personally I’m an advocate for more women in experienced leadership roles.

[00:20:02] Bill Staikos: And I’ve had that conversation on the show quite a bit. What advice do you have for leaders out there who aspire to be a chief customer officer Fe more are not frankly, but giving your role at chief, maybe, focus on, other female leaders and conversely, or maybe just on, on a flip side of that.

for allies, what advice do you have for them as well, to be able to support female executive leadership in, in this type of role?

[00:20:27] Sarah Johnson: Yeah, I think this is such an interest first. Thank you. I appreciate you asking the question. I think it’s such an important question and yeah, my voyage with chief has been so interesting because we all we’ve got, I’ve got a bunch of women who are kind of in my core group.

Four of us have been together now for three years and we’re kind of like our own little brain trust. It’s been interesting learning about the different experiences that women have had kind of on the way up. And I, I think I’ve actually been very fortunate that, that I’ve not had to face. I think some of the things that a lot of women have faced.

So, but I’ve been really reflecting on this because it’s not just about my journey. It’s about what is happening for, for a lot of other people too. I think one thing that I would really call out is that I think it’s really important to know and be confident in what you bring to the table and to your point, this is not just women, but, women are O over index for sure.

On, some imposter syndrome. Yeah, yeah. Right. So I think you gotta, if you grapple with that, which I certainly have at points in my career, you gotta figure. What is your internal talk track? Like how, how are you going to overcome that when you are in the moment and you’re in the room, but also, I think women in particular, myself included sometimes I think we, we tend to allow our results to speak for themselves.

And while I still very much believe in that I’m a very results and, and metric driven person. That’s not necessarily all that you have to do. I think sometimes you really have to be vocal about what you’re doing. You have to manage up, you have to share with your, your, your peers or your board or whoever it is here are all the actually really cool things.

I’m doing these numbers that I’m driving, aren’t just happening. So I think it’s important to, to be your own advocate in that way beyond just what your final outcome is. And I think to your question about allies, I I, which again, I really appreciate the question. I. I think it’s really important to do your part in kind of making space for people in all different kinds of thinkers.

And, sometimes that might mean proactively going out and talking to that up and coming female leader, right. To hear more about, what’s going on and how you could support her, what her aspirations are sometimes. And again, this isn’t unique to women, but I’ll make a generalization, right.

That, so. Women may not be speaking up in the room as vocally as some of their male colleagues. And if you, I think as an ally are in a position where you, you see that happening, and again, women are just quiet person in general, like calling them out and, and sort of saying, Hey, I think that Susie’s got something to say, what do you have?

I think that is the kind of thing that we can all do as, as allies for people who might feel underrepresented in, in any

[00:23:05] Bill Staikos: room. Such great advice. Thank you for sharing that. I’m curious, who do you look up to? in business.

so many people I was reflecting a little bit on this, and I’ll, I’ll give you, I, I could talk about this for, for days and days, but I will talk about it specifically in the kind of customer and sort of service led given the topic today.

[00:23:22] Sarah Johnson: Yeah. I think, I, I think about her pillar from Southwest. I think last time we talked, I was in Dallas. I had just landed and. I’ve been thinking about him and, and also Tony Shay from, from Zappos and, and obviously, that had a, a sad end, but I think about. The two of them and, they, they had such vision for both the kind of customer experience they wanted to create, but also probably more importantly, the kind of corporate and people experience that they wanted to create.

Yeah. And then that that’s like those two things are what came together with both of those companies to really like, they both kind of changed paradigm and they, they both changed their industries and I, I. I’m sure that was really hard at some points along the way. I’m sure a lot of people were looking at them like they were crazy when they brought in some ideas and, that, that vision and passion and, and leadership I think is, is really very admirable.

[00:24:15] Bill Staikos: I totally agree. I’m a huge fan of the Zappo story and, and what Tony had done for that organization actually order from Zappos just the other day, I was actually concerned with Amazon buying the company, how that might change, right? Like that, hasn’t changed so much actually, which is a nice thing, but.

One last question before, I let you go, Sarah, where do you go for inspiration?

[00:24:35] Sarah Johnson: We talked about chief. yeah, I definitely, I meet with, with my chief group every four to six weeks. And every time I leave inspired. For sure. I’m, I’m a big, Peloton I’m. I do my, my five 30 pelotons almost every morning.

And there are a couple of instructors in particular who just, kind of remind you of the things you need to be reminded about to, to go into your day and of your own, your own strength. So, those, those are big ones and, podcasts and microlearning are, are

[00:25:02] Bill Staikos: important too. I’ve gotta ask really quickly.

Who are your favorite instructors on Peloton?

[00:25:06] Sarah Johnson: I knew that was coming it, it, it rotates. I’ll tell you the two that are always. Steady in my rotation are, Alex tus Tucson and, and Robin, Arizona. Yeah. Alex,

[00:25:16] Bill Staikos: Alex Tucson is my number. Yeah. All right. There we go. I want someone screaming at me telling me to work harder.

Right. But

[00:25:23] Sarah Johnson: making you feel good about it. Yeah. That’s right. No, no. Cause you, you can do better and then he gets you

[00:25:27] Bill Staikos: there. It’s amazing how much positive energy he can bring to it, but still make you feel like you’re not enough sometimes. yeah. Yes. That’s exactly right. Thanks for the gift of your time.

This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you joining us. Thank you

[00:25:41] Sarah Johnson: so much for having me. It was great.

[00:25:42] Bill Staikos: Appreciate it. All right, everybody. Another great week. We’ll see ya. Talk to you soon,

[00:25:46] Sarah Johnson: everyone. Thanks for listening to be customer led with bill Staco. We are grateful to our audience for the gift of their time.

Be sure to visit us@becustomerled.com for more episodes, leave a seat back on how we’re doing or tell us what you wanna hear more about until next time. We’re.