What is a Customer Advocate? Responsibilities, Salaries, and More
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the field, understanding the nuances of customer advocates is essential for success.
In this guide, we’ll delve into the core responsibilities, salary insights, essential skills, and more, providing you with the knowledge and tools you need to excel as a customer advocate.
TL;DR
- A customer advocate is a professional who represents the customer’s interests within a company, ensuring their needs and feedback are addressed to improve products and services.
- This involves gathering detailed customer feedback through different channels and collaborating closely with internal teams to ensure that customer needs and insights are integrated into the product roadmap and design processes.
- One of the biggest factors influencing your salary is your experience level. Here’s how experience can impact your customer advocate salary, according to Glassdoor:
- Entry-Level (0 to 2 years): $45,288/year
- Mid-Level (3 to 5 years): $58,880/year
- Senior-Level (6+ years): $72,322/year
- Looking into tools for customer advocates? Userpilot is an all-in-one product platform with engagement features and powerful analytics capabilities. Book a demo to see it in action!
Product Teams Can Use Userpilot to:
- Improve Product Adoption with Insights from Analytics
- Improve User Onboarding Interactive Guidance
- Collect User Feedback with No-Code In-App Surveys
What is a customer advocate?
A customer advocate is a professional who represents the customer’s interests within a company, ensuring their needs and feedback are addressed to improve products and services.
In the SaaS industry, a customer advocate focuses on understanding user challenges, providing support, and collaborating with internal teams to enhance the user experience.
What does a customer advocate do?
A customer advocate focuses on understanding user problems, suggesting product enhancements, and driving initiatives to foster a positive customer experience.
This involves gathering detailed customer feedback through different channels and collaborating closely with internal teams to ensure that customer needs and insights are integrated into the product roadmap and design processes.
Additionally, customer advocates work on developing educational materials and support resources to help customers get the most out of the product.
Customer advocate’s main responsibilities
A customer advocate is essential in representing and addressing customer needs, particularly in the SaaS industry. They work to ensure that customers feel heard and
Main Responsibilities:
- Assist in user onboarding: Help new customers get started with the software, guiding them through the initial setup and feature usage.
- Provide ongoing support: Offer continuous education and support to help customers maximize the value of the product.
- Develop relationships: Build and maintain strong relationships with key customers to foster loyalty.
- Conduct regular check-ins: Engage in regular check-ins with customers to gather feedback and assess their satisfaction with the product.
- Facilitate communication: Bridge communication between customers and internal teams to ensure customer concerns are understood and prioritized.
- Create support documentation: Develop and update user guides and troubleshooting resources to enable customer self-service.
- Monitor support tickets: Oversee customer support tickets to ensure timely resolutions, escalating issues when necessary.
- Improve service quality: Participate in the development of customer support policies and procedures to enhance service quality and efficiency.
Customer advocate salary
One of the biggest factors influencing your salary is your experience level. Here’s how experience can impact your customer advocate salary, according to Glassdoor:
- Entry-Level (0 to 2 years): $45,288/year
- Mid-Level (3 to 5 years): $58,880/year
- Senior-Level (6+ years): $72,322/year
Industries where the demand for customer advocates is highest, tend to be the same industries that pay the most on average. Finance, technology, e-commerce, telecommunications, and software represent more than three-quarters of customer advocate job openings. Here are salaries, as reported by Glassdoor:
- Finance customer advocate: $50,034/year
- Technology customer advocate: $55,332/year
- E-commerce customer advocate: $52,849/year
Where you live can have a big impact on how much you make as a customer advocate. As more companies employ a geographically dispersed workforce (including remote workers), it’s common for companies to offer location-based salaries.
According to Glassdoor, these are the midpoint salaries for customer advocates in the following large US cities:
- San Francisco: $60,071/year
- New York: $54,187/year
- Boston: $51,931/year
- Washington, DC: $52,323/year
- Chicago: $50,022/year
Customer advocate career path
From entry-level roles to executive leadership positions, each step on this path builds on a foundation of customer service, product knowledge, and strategic thinking.
Whether you’re just starting out or aiming for the C-suite, this guide outlines the key milestones and progression opportunities within the customer advocacy career ladder, helping you navigate your way to becoming a Chief Customer Officer (CCO).
1. Junior customer advocate: As a Junior customer advocate, you address basic customer inquiries and assist senior specialists with troubleshooting issues. This entry-level role focuses on learning the company’s products while building foundational skills in customer service. Progress by gaining experience through various customer interactions, participating in mentorship programs, and seeking feedback to continuously improve your performance.
2. customer advocate: In this role, you take on more responsibility by representing customer interests within the company. You gather and analyze customer feedback, address more complex issues, and work closely with product teams to ensure customer needs are met. Progress by developing in-depth product knowledge, and leading small initiatives to improve customer satisfaction.
3. Senior customer advocate: As a Senior customer advocate, you manage high-stakes customer issues, mentor junior team members, and lead larger initiatives to enhance the customer experience. You will also be responsible for developing strategies to drive customer retention by working closely with key accounts and ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes. Progress by demonstrating leadership skills, managing a small team, contributing to strategic planning and decision-making processes, and showing proficiency in project management.
4. Director of Customer Advocacy: As a director, you are responsible for the strategic direction of the customer advocacy function. You lead a team of customer advocates, set goals, and ensure the organization remains customer-focused in its operations. You will be coordinating efforts across multiple teams to ensure a seamless journey for customers. Progress by exhibiting strong leadership and strategic thinking, engaging with executive leadership, and contributing to the company’s overall vision.
5. Vice President of Customer Experience: This executive role involves overseeing all aspects of customer experience and advocacy within the organization. Your responsibilities will include developing a comprehensive customer experience strategy, leading large teams, and driving significant improvements in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Progress by achieving significant results in previous roles, demonstrating the ability to drive organizational change, and engaging with the board of directors to align customer experience strategies with business goals.
6. Chief Customer Officer (CCO): As the CCO, you are the highest-ranking executive overseeing the entire customer experience and advocacy efforts. You lead strategic initiatives to ensure the organization prioritizes and consistently delivers exceptional customer value. Your role involves leveraging extensive experience in customer advocacy to drive company-wide projects, influence corporate strategy, and foster a customer-centric culture throughout the organization.
Best practices for being a great customer advocate
There is always a place to improve and upskill in your position as a customer advocate.
Here are some tried-and-true ways to do so:
- Listen Actively to Customers: Pay close attention during interactions, ask follow-up questions, and confirm your understanding of their issues. This demonstrates that you value their input and are dedicated to resolving their concerns accurately.
- Communicate Clearly and Frequently: Keep your customers informed with regular updates using clear, jargon-free language. Frequent communication builds trust and ensures customers feel valued.
- Adopt a Personalized Approach: Remember customers’ names, and past interactions and take into account their specific needs, and provide customized solutions for each customer instead of blanket replies.
- Proactively Identify Issues: Monitor customer interactions to spot potential problems early and proactively address them. Addressing issues before they escalate shows customers that you are committed to their satisfaction.
- Use Data to Drive Decisions: Instead of relying on guesswork, leverage customer feedback and product analytics data to inform your product strategies.
- Be empathetic to the Customer: Show genuine empathy by acknowledging the customer’s feelings and challenges. This approach builds trust and demonstrates that you truly care about their experience.
- Stay Informed and Updated: Keep yourself informed about the latest product updates, company policies, and industry trends. Staying knowledgeable ensures you can provide accurate and relevant information to customers.
By following these best practices, you build strong relationships and ensure a positive customer experience.
Product Teams Can Use Userpilot to:
- Improve Product Adoption with Insights from Analytics
- Improve User Onboarding Interactive Guidance
- Collect User Feedback with No-Code In-App Surveys
Customer advocate FAQs
- What is the role of a client advocate?
A client advocate supports and represents clients’ needs within an organization, ensuring their feedback is heard, and their issues are resolved effectively.
- What is an example of customer advocacy?
An example of customer advocacy is a company implementing changes based on customer feedback, such as adding a new feature that customers requested to improve to meet their expectations.
- How to measure customer advocacy?
Customer advocacy can be measured using metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction surveys, and tracking customer referrals and positive reviews.
- How to act as a client advocate?
To act as a client advocate, listen actively to client concerns, communicate their needs clearly to internal teams, ensure their input is considered in decision-making, and follow up to ensure their issues are resolved, and their expectations are met.
Conclusion
We hope this guide has provided you with valuable insights into the roles, responsibilities, and rewards associated with this role.
Looking into tools for customer advocates? Userpilot is an all-in-one product platform with engagement features and powerful analytics capabilities. Book a demo to see it in action!
