About Leadership Commitment and Customer Service Excellence

On a previous occasion I stated that no organization can expect to rise above the level of commitment of its senior leadership.

A recent blog entry by Bruce Temkin of Forrester reinforced this. He made the point that successfully managing customer service and experience really is a competence and not a function of a (delegated) program.

Bruce writes: "To achieve this principle, companies need to infuse customer-centric DNA into their culture. But this level of change requires a high degree of commitment from the senior executive team. I think this quote from Mario Andretti explains why: Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek.

In a previous post I discussed how companies with customer experience leaders are progressing faster than other firms. The creation of that type of role can be a sign of commitment, but the president or CEO and all of her/his direct reports must demonstrates an ongoing commitment in order to change the culture.

My sense is that senior executives are intrigued with customer experience, but most are not yet fully committed to it.

8 Signs Of Executive Commitment
If a senior executive team is fully committed to customer-centricity, then it can answer yes to all of the following questions:

1. Do senior executive staff meetings have a recurring agenda item on customer experience? (this does not include dealing with customer emergencies)
2. Do internal communications from the CEO/President regularly include discussions of customer experience?
3. Do external communications from the CEO/President regularly include discussions of customer experience?
4. Is customer experience explicitly discussed (in some form) within the company’s strategic plan(s)?
5. Does the executive team have a clear set of customer experience objectives?
6. Do most of the executive team members have goals based on customer experience objectives?
7. Is the compensation of executive team members tied to customer experience objectives?
8. Does the organization believe that the CEO/President would trade-off some short-term financial results for longer-term customer experience gains?
   

The bottom line: Senior execs with less than full commitment need to be committed."

Thanks, Bruce...