Chief Marketing Officers and Client Service Initiatives
There's an article in Fast Company magazine about the average tenure of chief marketing officers. It's not good news for client service.
"For the past three years, an annual survey conducted by executive-search firm SpencerStuart has shown that the tenure for CMOs at the top-100 consumer-branded companies has averaged a scant 23 months. (By contrast, CEOs hang on to their jobs for 54 months.) Some sector averages are particularly grim: If you're in telecommunications, you're looking at 15 months; in the food industry, you've got about a year."
My understanding is law firm CMOs last, on average, only 19 months. Really bad news, and not just for the person out looking for a new job. Client service initiatives are, in my mind, longer-term ventures. They reap fabulous rewards, but I doubt they'll reap them immediately.
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Worse, client service initiatives can unearth some pain points, something most new CMO's aren't real eager about doing. The last thing I'd want to do is go to some partner and tell him/her that their clients aren't real pleased with our customer focus. It isn't exactly Christmas in June-type news.
If my tenure's likely somewhere between 18-24 months, I'm focusing my efforts on something that makes others feel warm and fuzzy. At the minimum, I'm likely to focus any client service initiatives on the "low hanging fruit" (translation: clients I'm sure will repay my efforts with positive scores and make us look good--after all, that looks great on my resume). I'm certainly not going to try and drag my reticent children up a tree with no fruit at the top!!
Yet another problem with short tenures is that client service initiatives are not a one-and-done venture. They require ongoing monitoring. That's difficult to maintain when there are sporadic leadership changes.
Maybe that's why there appears to be more talk than action in most law firms. By the way, thanks to a good friend of mine, Don Short, for the photo. It's fresh from his backyard!!
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Mike, I love this. It will be very helpful to me as I am new in marketing for the Law profession. My background is financial marketing for asset management firms. I will be sure to read your blog often as it will be a great resource for me. I don't like the statement re: CMOs for law firm's, I would hate to lose our CMO, he's been here for over 24 months. He has done a great job in 2 years and has many plans for the present future and future, future. Perfect choice for a picture for this entry too.