Why Customer Experience Leaders Need Business Fluency Before Survey Expertise

In a recent LinkedIn post, Jim Tincher, CCXP discusses how companies should assess candidates who will be responsible for customer experience results. Tincher argues that hiring teams should first test whether candidates understand how the business operates, rather than focusing mainly on survey credentials or software experience. This article reports on Tincher’s LinkedIn post and examines the case he makes.

“Before you hire the person who will own your customer number, give them the cold test. Sit them down and ask them to walk you through your business without notes.”

Business knowledge before measurement tools

According to Jim Tincher, CCXP, many hiring processes emphasize technical qualifications while overlooking a candidate’s grasp of the company’s economics and operations. He describes measurement as “the easy part of the job” and says it can be purchased. His proposed test instead asks whether a candidate can explain how the business makes money and what drives customer outcomes.

Tincher supports that argument with findings he attributes to research behind Do B2B Better. He says only about one in four customer programs in that research could demonstrate improved business results. He also describes successful program leaders as either people who had built knowledge inside the company or experienced practitioners who had worked across several organizations and learned to distinguish useful practices from “theater.”

Connecting customer programs to growth

In Tincher’s account, outside hires with strong credentials but little business knowledge were more likely to struggle. To illustrate the stakes, he contrasts two hypothetical leaders starting at the same company: one spends the first year learning how the company earns revenue, while the other begins changing the business. Tincher says the difference can show up in the outcomes each brings to leadership.

“Twelve months later, the first has survey results to report, and the second has a growth number.”

He further argues that a customer leader who understands account behavior may spot growth potential before it appears in orders. In Tincher’s view, that kind of insight can give the finance chief information that is not readily available elsewhere. The post thus frames customer experience work as a source of business intelligence, not simply a function that gathers feedback.

A practical test for hiring and onboarding

Ask for an unscripted walkthrough

Tincher’s recommendation is to ask the current owner of the customer program to explain the company’s margins, order patterns and account growth without notes. The questions that person cannot answer, he writes, can serve two purposes:

• For an existing leader, they can identify an onboarding or development plan.
• For a hiring team, they can help define the knowledge required for the role.

As Jim Tincher, CCXP notes, the exercise shifts attention from credentials alone to whether a candidate can connect customer information with the company’s commercial realities. The LinkedIn post points readers to episode 12 of From Stalled to Scaling in its comments, while making the central hiring argument directly: a customer leader needs to understand the business well enough to link customer patterns to results.