Mobilize your People to Deliver on Customer Centricity
It is a well-known reality in business today: competition is getting much tougher. Many companies try to position themselves as “Customer-Centric”. But what does that really mean? To be successful at Customer Centricity, you have to get everyone working together to deliver a superior customer experience with your company. Getting people to act together as a Customer-Focused Organization is extremely difficult. Executives consistently underestimate the issue of people alignment. They blame people for being “difficult” or “resistant to change”.
But most people want to do a good job for customers. They want to be part of an organization that deserves a reputation for being customer-focused. How can you make changes in your management system that will motivate and enable your people to deliver Customer Centricity?
∧Take a Hard Look at Reality - Are Your Customers Willing to Recommend You?
"Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your product or service, and that bring friends with them."
W. Edwards Deming
What gets measured, gets managed. Your top leadership team, and everyone in the company, needs a baseline view of what customers REALLY think about doing business with your company. When you ask, you will find surprising information about how customers experience doing business with your company. Senior management is occupied with steering the company and far removed from what happens at the front line. Each front line employee has a small view of customer interactions but misses the big picture. Many support staff do not realize how what they do impacts the customer experience. A baseline measure brings the issue out into the open.
Based on research conducted by Bain & Company and Satmetrix
Measure customers’ willingness to recommend
Asking just a single question, "Would you recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” gives you a reliable indicator of how you’re doing on delighting the customer. Many B2B and B2C companies, as well as public organizations, have adopted this measure in their key performance metrics to drive and to track improvement in Customer Centricity. They measure their progress regularly. This simple metric has several advantages:
Internally: It is simple and intuitive. It can be communicated everywhere in the organization and everyone can understand it. It is tangible, meaningful and credible. It can rally people across functions to impact and track progress on a common metric. Finally, it is very motivating to see the metric improve.
Externally: Customers who recommend you are doing your marketing for you and bringing you more business. Customers who recommend you also tend to be repeat purchasers themselves. This metric tracks that important fact and is an indicator of future revenues.
Ask customers an open question on WHY they would or would not recommend you
In order to improve your score, you have to know what, exactly, is delighting or upsetting your customers. Ask them for their verbatim feedback on why they scored you as they did, and they will tell you. The feedback will likely hold some shocks and surprises, but these insights are necessary for improvement. No complex research reports are needed, the information is simple enough for everyone to understand.
Providers of Customer Recommendation Measurement
- NPS™ provided by Satmetrix
- Tri*M™ provided by TNS Global
- CLASS© provided by MetrixLab
It’s simple to collect and analyze data
It is not difficult to set up your own measurement system. It is also possible and inexpensive to outsource measurement to specialists who have dedicated software just right for the purpose. MCE can recommend several providers, and help you determine which is best for your purposes.
Determine How to Improve. Then Implement the Improvements
Let the Customer’s Verbatim Feedback be your Guide
A senior and middle management task force reads through the feedback regularly. In a short amount of time, they will begin to see some patterns, providing insight. Management then needs to decide what to do about it. Smart companies involve people across all functions to discuss the scores and generate ideas for becoming more Customer-Centric. People can then be focused on fixing the issues (or perhaps revisiting the strategy) rather than rotating blame. MCE can facilitate workshops to help your managers understand the data and draw appropriate conclusions for your company.
Get People On Board with Implementing the Improvements
The difficulties arise when you try to implement the steps to address customer feedback. The logic for change is there. Getting everyone in the company to make the changes is much more difficult. There can be disbelief, resistance, excuses, or simply lack of skill. But the ability to align everyone around creating a superior customer experience is what makes a real Customer-Focused Organization. Leaders must get involved in leading implementation of the changes – it is not enough just to tell people to do it. MCE’s Leadership Model for the Implementation of Strategy and Change shows where misalignments in the management system can prevent you from being able to implement your change. If the elements are not aligned, people get mixed and confusing signals from the company about what is expected.
Continue Measuring Customer Recommendation to See if the Improvements are Working
Integrate the Customer Recommendation Score into your Key Performance Metrics. Make it a priority in your company scorecard, and in departmental or even individual scorecards. This helps everyone to focus on improving the score. It is a measure to see if the improvements you have implemented are working. Finally, improvement in the score is a great motivator for everyone involved. Repeat the Cycle:Measurement, Analysis, Implementation of Improvements Continuous effort on Customer Centricity Improvement is a driver for incremental innovation and continuous improvement in a company. This builds a solid based of competitive strategy over time. Continuous improvement on Customer Focus is a well-known practice and can be adopted by any kind of organization.
Talk to MCE about Achieving Customer Centricity in your Organization
How MCE helped Philips:
Transforming a global giant into a more customer-centric business, worldwide and in all divisions. A conversation with Geert Van Kuyck, Chief Marketing Officer, Royal Philips Electronics N.V.
Click here for the full story.
MCE has helped many global organizations improve Customer Centricity. We focus especially on aligning your people, and leading the change in the organization that is needed toward becoming a Customer-Focused Organization. We can advise you in setting up your measurement programme, including recommending a measurement provider. We can facilitate your management in analyzing the feedback, and in determining action steps. We can assist you in communicating to staff and helping your people understand the fundamentals of Customer Centricity. Read below to learn more about our capabilitiess and the services we offer to help your organization become a Customer-Focused Organization.
∧How MCE Can Help You
MCE enables individual managers and management teams to deliver on strategic goals. 60% of strategic success is about implementation and people alignment. Therefore, people are at the core of everything we do to help you get your strategy implemented. We enable you to deliver your strategy through people, by providing them with the functional and cross-functional capabilities they need to measurably improve performance, in function of your strategy.
For Individual Managers
Workshops for Individual Managers
MCE offers a workshop to help individual managers plan customer centricity, customer loyalty measurement, aligning people and communicating improvements. In this workshop, your managers can interact with managers from different industries and geographic regions struggling with similar issues of customer centricity. In this richly diverse environment, they can work on finding solutions. They will benefit from the guidance of an MCE Senior Associate who is experienced in implementing customer centricity programmes in a corporate setting: Profitable Customer Centricity: How to Get There.
Executive Mentoring & Coaching
Individual managers may benefit by one-on-one coaching by an MCE senior associate who has experience implementing customer centricity programmes in a corporate management role. MCE associates are in a position to both coach and mentor managers who are struggling with customer centricity.
For Teams, Divisions, Organizations
Business Transformation Programmes
We help you design and implement your customer centricity programme across the organization, and manage change to align people. We use a combination of methodologies appropriate to your particular situation.
Strategy Implementation Programmes
MCE can provide tailored programmes to enable your managers to plan and implement needed aspects of customer centricity in your organization.
Consulting
An MCE senior associates with corporate experience and expertise in your industry and/or management issue can mentor, advise and coach your management team on customer centricity, and help you plan for implementation.
Corporate Learning & Development
Experienced MCE associates can design and manage your development curriculum on an outsourced basis.
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