Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Director of Customer Experience

🎯 Role Definition

The Director of Customer Experience (Director of CX) is a senior cross-functional leader who defines and executes the organization's customer experience vision and operational roadmap. This role owns the end-to-end customer journey, voice-of-the-customer programs, experience metrics (NPS, CSAT, CES), and partner relationships across product, support, sales, marketing, and engineering. The Director of CX builds and mentors distributed teams, drives customer-centric cultural change, and delivers measurable business outcomes including improved retention, reduced churn, increased lifetime value, and stronger Net Promoter Scores.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Manager / Head of Customer Experience
Director of Customer Success or Director of Customer Support
Head of Customer Operations or Head of Customer Insights

Advancement To:

Vice President, Customer Experience / Customer Success
Chief Customer Officer (CCO)
Head of Growth or Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Lateral Moves:

Head of Product / Product Strategy
Head of Marketing (Growth & Retention)
Head of Revenue Operations / Customer Operations

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Define, document and operationalize the enterprise CX strategy and roadmap that aligns to company objectives, revenue goals, and product strategy; set measurable KPIs (NPS, CSAT, CES, retention, CLV) and drive continuous improvement.
Own end-to-end customer journey mapping for all segments and channels (digital, contact center, field, partner), identifying friction points and orchestrating cross-functional initiatives to improve conversion, satisfaction and loyalty.
Build and run an integrated Voice of the Customer (VoC) program that collects, synthesizes and operationalizes qualitative and quantitative feedback (surveys, interviews, reviews, social listening, support tickets) to influence product, service and marketing decisions.
Lead, mentor and scale a multi-disciplinary CX organization (customer insights, journey design, contact center operations, onboarding, escalation management) including hiring plans, performance goals, career development and culture-building.
Establish a robust CX measurement framework and reporting cadence; translate data into executive-ready insights, dashboards, and narratives that guide strategic decisions and resource allocation.
Partner with product management and engineering to embed customer needs into the product roadmap, create prioritized experimentation hypotheses, and close the feedback loop from customers to product releases.
Design and implement omnichannel support and engagement strategies (self-service, chat, email, phone, in-app, field) to deliver a consistent and efficient customer experience at scale.
Drive end-to-end onboarding, adoption and lifecycle programs that accelerate time-to-value, reduce time-to-first-success, and increase product usage and retention across customer segments.
Reduce operational cost and improve service quality through process optimization, automation, chatbots, knowledge base improvements, workforce management and third-party vendor optimization.
Own escalations and complex customer recovery efforts, coordinating cross-functional resources to resolve high-risk issues and protect customer relationships and brand reputation.
Collaborate with marketing to design lifecycle campaigns, churn-prevention programs, advocacy initiatives and reference/customer marketing strategies that leverage satisfied customers to drive acquisition and referrals.
Lead root cause analysis for systemic issues, implement corrective action plans, and track remediation to closure while communicating outcomes and impact to stakeholders.
Manage CX-related budgets, vendor contracts and SLAs; evaluate and select CX technology (CRM, ticketing, journey analytics, VoC platforms) to support scale and measurement needs.
Establish a customer-centric operating model and governance (steering committees, playbooks, RACI) to ensure cross-functional accountability and timely execution of CX initiatives.
Drive experimentation and A/B testing on experience changes; measure impact on KPIs and iterate rapidly using an outcomes-driven, data-informed approach.
Champion accessibility, inclusivity and privacy-first design across customer touchpoints, ensuring regulatory and compliance requirements are met for global customers.
Create and deliver executive-level presentations and board materials that quantify CX impact on revenue, retention, operational efficiency and customer lifetime value.
Institute training, enablement and certification programs for frontline teams to ensure consistent experience delivery, product knowledge and soft skills coaching.
Partner with sales and account management to align retention and expansion strategies, identify at-risk accounts, and create escalation/health plans for strategic customers.
Lead cross-functional programs to transform post-sales experience (implementation, support, renewals) into a competitive differentiator that accelerates growth.
Direct vendor and partner relationships (outsourced contact centers, CX platforms, analytics providers) including performance reviews, SOWs, and continuous improvement initiatives.
Foster a culture of customer obsession across the organization through storytelling, customer immersion sessions, and customer advocates integrated into decision-making forums.
Monitor industry and competitive CX trends, benchmark performance, and recommend innovative practices to maintain differentiation and customer delight.
Translate strategic goals into tactical plans and ensure disciplined program management, including timelines, milestones, risk mitigation and benefits realization.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to answer business questions, validate CX hypotheses, and inform prioritization.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by defining CX data needs, quality requirements, and analytics use cases.
Collaborate with business intelligence and data engineering teams to translate CX analytical needs into technical requirements and dashboards.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within cross-functional teams to prioritize CX enhancements, experiments and technical work.
Provide subject-matter expertise on customer experience during product discovery, design sprints and go-to-market planning.
Assist legal, privacy and security teams with customer-facing policies and communications related to data use, consent and compliance.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expertise in CX strategy, journey mapping, and experience design for B2B and/or B2C products and services.
Proficient in VoC methodologies and tools (NPS, CSAT, CES, interviews, focus groups, user testing) and the ability to operationalize feedback.
Strong analytics skills: experience with customer analytics, cohort analysis, retention modeling, CLV calculations, and building executive dashboards.
Comfortable with data tools and visualization platforms such as Tableau, Looker, Power BI, or equivalent; working knowledge of SQL for ad-hoc queries.
Experience with CRM and support platforms (Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk) and modern CX stacks (journey orchestration, VoC platforms).
Knowledge of CX measurement frameworks, experimentation/A-B testing platforms and continuous improvement methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma).
Experience defining KPIs, SLAs, and scorecards and tracking program ROI and business impact.
Vendor management and contract negotiation experience for outsourced support, technology partners and professional services.
Familiarity with agile product development and experience collaborating with product, engineering, and design teams.
Technical literacy to translate CX needs into engineering requirements and evaluate technical trade-offs (APIs, integrations, data pipelines).

Soft Skills

Strategic thinker with strong business acumen and the ability to connect customer experience initiatives to revenue and retention outcomes.
Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing skills; proven experience aligning cross-functional leaders around shared CX priorities.
Strong communication and storytelling skills, including executive presence and the ability to present complex data clearly and persuasively.
Empathetic leader with coaching and people development experience; builds high-performing teams and a customer-first culture.
Problem-solver with a bias for action, able to move from insight to implementation while managing competing priorities.
Change agent who can lead organizational transformation, build governance, and drive adoption of new processes and technology.
Attention to detail with a focus on operational excellence, quality assurance and consistent delivery of CX standards.
Resilience and adaptability in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment with shifting priorities.
Collaboration-first mindset; able to partner across product, marketing, sales, operations and engineering to deliver unified customer outcomes.
Data-driven decision-maker who balances quantitative evidence with qualitative customer insight.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Information Systems, or related field.

Preferred Education:

MBA, MSc in Human-Computer Interaction, Organizational Psychology, Data Science, or equivalent advanced degree preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration
Marketing
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Psychology / Organizational Behavior
Data Science / Analytics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 8–15+ years of progressive experience in customer experience, customer success, customer operations, or related functions with at least 5 years in a people/managerial leadership role.

Preferred:

10+ years in customer-centric roles with demonstrable outcomes (improved NPS/CSAT, reduced churn, increased CLV).
Experience leading cross-functional programs and scaling CX operations in high-growth SaaS, digital products, or enterprise services.
Proven track record of building measurement frameworks, VoC programs, and delivering ROI from CX investments.
Experience managing P&L, departmental budgets, and vendor relationships is highly desirable.