To WOW your customers, you need to understand them
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In a recent article by Colin Shaw (founding partner of Beyond Philosophy) entitled: First, Define What a Valuable Experience Is for Your Customers, he captured an interesting point and asks a very simple yet interesting question:
“What is the Customer Experience that we are trying to deliver?”
As I pondered over this question and read further, I realized that this is not a one-off situation… in fact, this is the norm at almost every organization I know. But why is this and what can be done about it?
Well, the why is often because there is a major disconnect between the executive of an organization and the operative (or the front-line) of an organization. They say that leadership begins at the top and if the leaders of an organization do not enforce and live customer service, how then can the front-line be expected to?
The what is to unify the businss operations and create a philosophy of customer service. Ask your customers what they want and what you can do better, then implement it and focus on the customer, not on the bottom line.
I know that not all executives can grasp this concept or many don’t have the flexibility to implement this, but those that do will be the ones running prosperous companies down the road. The others will just be living quarter to quarter.
2 Comments
I definitely agree in the phrase that the ‘Customer is king’. Any business is dead or dying if they aren’t in tune with their customer needs.
The challenge though is that 98% (my guessimate) of all customer interactions don’t reveal anything.
For the last 2 years I have done customer support for http://www.Collectorz.com. I was hired because the 2 business owners were tired of spending their days answering customer emails. Their time was much better spent on development and marketing.
The evolution of CRM tools does make it easier for managers to keep in touch while keeping an arms length. We use:
http://www.cerberusweb.com/
Which has been fantastic for us.
Peter… thanks for the feedback.
I would argue that the “Customer is King” approach is old school thinking. Today’s business needs to focus on those customers that fit within the comany’s customer profile and those of them that are profitable. A company should not do business with every customer.
For example, Starbucks’ target customer is not Tim Hortons target customer. These companies understand their ideal customer and focus on them.
If a customer interaction does not reveal anything, then perhaps we need to ask different questions during the interaction. I believe that we must get feedback during all interactions in order to become better and to improve our customer experience.
I think the owners of Collectorz are smart people… they clearly understand the value of focusing on your core competencies and outsourcing the rest. Kudos to them, and to you for helping them succeed!
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