Customer-Focus: Why leaders of companies talk the talk but don't walk (or run) the walk?

Over the years I have written about many aspects of (not) Walking the Talk. I found that Chris Brown, CEO of MarketCulture Strategies, hit the nail on the head and effectively summarized (below) some key reasons why customers and employees don't believe what companies say.

Customer-focus is a term both overused and underdone. It sounds good in a mission or vision statement but many leaders don’t really know how to achieve a customer focused culture nor are they doing anything specific about improving it in a sustainable way. Many other leaders may know how to do it, but feel it may not be worth the effort and time required to achieve it.

There are many reasons the leadership of companies talk about it. They believe their customers and employees want to hear the “customer first” story. It sends the right message. Most leaders believe, at some level, focus on the customer is an important part of running a successful business. They understand that without customers there is no business.

So why do leaders of companies talk the talk but do not walk (or run) the walk?
The reality of being truly customer-focused – that is, having a customer culture – is somewhat different. It is challenging, particularly when companies have developed habits and structures that work against it.

Internal focus on operations, processes and working in silos create habits that can be hard to change. As companies grow they become more complex, communication becomes difficult and frequently confusing, processes are set-up to maintain quality and improve efficiency and eventually get in the way of doing the right thing for customers. Silos develop and internal politics result in people acting in their own best interests above the customer and the business. These conditions lead to at least 5 reasons why customers don’t believe you.

1. Misdirected compensation
Sometimes people are compensated in ways that work against the best interests of customers. There is no better example of this than the mortgage crisis in the US where mortgage salespeople were incented to sell mortgages to people that could not afford them. This leads to customers not having their real needs met.

2. Short-term focused behavior
Another reason for the lack of customer culture is the short-term behavior driven by an investor focus and reporting of quarterly results. This leads to a focus on profit and revenue to the detriment of customers. An underlying customer culture providing a sustainable business focus will lead to more integrated thinking and reporting based on medium term performance trends.

3. Focus on technical skills
Many of today’s professionals are specialists with highly developed technical skills in their areas of expertise. This leads to a narrow focus without a broader understanding of the business environment and how they affect the value received by customers. Some professions even view customers as inhibitors to getting their jobs done – an annoyance to minimize. For example the university academic that laments the fact that they have to teach students rather than focus 100% on research or the surgeon that dislikes having to communicate in person with patients. Others focus on profit to the exclusion of customer interests. When this attitude takes hold in organizations it becomes a significant roadblock to a customer culture regardless of what the mission states.

4. Operating in silos
Functional silos where there is lack of cross-function collaboration and unclear customer “ownership” creates problems for customers. We have all experienced being sent from one department to another by customer service representatives who are not empowered to take ownership of our problem. This leads to customer frustration and then your customer promise lacks credibility.

5. Lack of strategic alignment
When staff do not understand or care about the company’s strategy and how what they do contributes to delivering value to customers. This leads to the customer receiving mixed service and conflicting messages.

So, why should your customers believe them?

 

Moving Up from Customer Service to Customer-Focus

I have just published on SlideShare a deck.

Moving Up from Customer Service to Customer-Focus
10 Lessons Learned by a Seasoned Customer Service Consultant

10 Questions frequently asked about Customer Experience Management

                                                     
1) How long will it take to develop a Customer Experience Strategy?
That will be dependent on:
The quality and consistency of your current customer experience performance
How much time you can commit to working through the process
How well you have explained the what ,why and how and the importance of the commitment from all those involved in the business

2) Why don’t we just provide customer service training for our front-line people?
Answer - We launched Customer Experiences after our research found that when customer service training is carried out without a proper Customer Experience foundation, the training itself has very little impact on changing employee behaviour and ultimately little impact on improving the customer experience.
Customer service is a vital part of any quality customer experience. A customer experience strategy however covers far more than just customer service in fact it covers every aspect of a business because every aspect will have some impact on the quality and consistency of the experience a business delivers.

3) How do we gain total commitment from our people to ensure the success of a Customer Experience Strategy?
Answer - Commitment comes from engagement. The Customer Experience approach involves everyone. The fact is that everyone plays a role in your Customer Experience, not just those people directly interacting with your customers. Our customer experience development program is based on the fact that your people support what they create. A successful customer experience strategy is the result of total involvement from everyone associated with the business.

4) Why is a Customer Experience strategy difficult for your competitors to copy?
Answer - Leadership, culture and your people are vital parts of your Customer Experience strategy and the great news is, they are all difficult to copy. Everything else you do is relevantly easy to copy.
A customer experience strategy can be a businesses sustainable competitive advantage in a world where sustainable competitive advantages are rare. You can be sure that once you start gaining market share as a result of your customer experience your competitors’ will be looking closely at what you are doing.

5) Why is creativity such an important part of a Customer Experience strategy.
Answer - Creativity is today’s great competitive advantages. The reason there is not more creative thinking in business is its not encouraged in most organisations. The key to on-going customer loyalty is the ability to continually "add value" to what you provide your customers. This requires a steady flow of ideas from your people, the more creative the ideas the greater the impact on your Customer Experience.

6) How does a Customer Experience strategy help us to attract the right people?
Answer - Great people want to work with organisations that are totally focused on their people and customers. They know that these businesses take time to build real relationships with their customers and it’s these relationships that lead to loyalty and advocacy. The fact is that your working life is so much more enjoyable when your customers are smiling and coming back because your people have taken the time to build relationships.

7) Why is a vision so important to a Customer Experience Strategy?
Answer - A good vision keeps everyone focused, on track, inspired and motivated and that’s vital to a long-term strategic business approach. You must be able to clearly show how your customer experience strategy will move your business towards its vision.

8) Why is word of mouth so much more powerful today? 
Answer - Word of mouth has always been powerful in fact it’s today’s most powerful form of advertising. When you recommend a business to someone you are putting your reputation on the line and we don’t do that lightly. Today individuals have the ability via social media to reach many more people and share both great and not so great experiences. Business is only started to understand the power shift that has taken place.

9) How does a Customer Experience strategy take away the focus on price?
Answer - We do business today in a world we call "the world of sameness" the only way most businesses can come up with to get customers in the door is to reduce prices. The result is reduced margins and a struggling business. Customer focused businesses look for ways to add value, this is why it’s so important to understand your business from the customer’s perspective and foster creative thinking that will result in added value other than a price reduction. Research clearly shows as customers we will pay more for a consistent, quality customer experience.

10) Why does business have difficulty relating to customers emotions
Answer - emotions drive our lives however when we are on the other side of the counter we only see business as a logical process. A large part of how customers measure a businesses customer experience performance is by the way they feel and feelings are emotions. Thankfully understanding customer’s emotions is a major part of a Customer Experience strategy.

Source: Chris Bell, Customer Experience on Voxy.co.nz

Quick-Results method for improving your customer service

If you are looking for a pragmatic and quick-results method for improving customer service, you have come to the right place.

More specifically, your needs may include:

• Taking stock of your current customer service delivery;
• Looking for near- and longer-term opportunities for customer service improvement;
• Managing and measuring customer satisfaction;
• Mobilizing and hearing the voice of your front-line staff;
• Finding a seasoned, pragmatic and results focused customer service consultant.

I have launched a new website - the home of my widely proven and high-value Customer Experience Workshop. It provides context by means of the S-Curve and details of the methodology. Moments of Truth / customer touch point management moves you up the S-Curve, makes customers happier and thus bolsters profits. Making such customer service improvements is a profit strategy. strategy. A sharper customer focus leads to a sharper competitive edge.

Expert Witness for Customer Service

Defense attorneys in the U.S. and Canada can now avail themselves of my Expert Witness services in areas concerning customer service.

In today’s climate of robust consumer protection and burgeoning internet business, government bodies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Competition Bureau, and Auditors General are increasingly vigilant. 

If you are an attorney in the U.S. or Canada who is defending a case that involves the rights and treatment of consumers, you will find that often issues related to customer service come into play.

If your defense will benefit from the assistance of a pragmatic and seasoned expert witness for customer service, you should contact me. I am available for a no-obligation telephone consult, often on short notice.

What I can do for you as expert witness in the customer service arena

Considering my wide and deep customer service consulting expertise and experience you can expect me to assist you in matters related to topics such as:

• Customer service strategies and policies;

• Customer service processes and procedures;

• Customer satisfaction research evaluation;

• Customer service implementation issues, related to complaints, refunds and customer contact (center) practices;

• Customer service best practices and assessing your client’s practices against them.I will access the necessary research data and specific experts as required.

My qualifications as expert witness for customer service

• Specialized customer service consultant with wide and deep experience of 25 years, in a large variety of industries: Helping clients capture and act on the voice of the customer and make required alignments to close customer service/loyalty gaps.
  

• Clients in some twenty industries and six countries (predominantly U.S. and Canada);

• Eight years of working with a “Big Six” consulting firm (Coopers & Lybrand Consulting – Center for Excellence in Customer Satisfaction);

• Access to an extensive network of specific subject matter specialists;

• 27 Recommendations on my consulting LinkedIn profile.
  

For more information about my background and experience qualifying me as expert witness for customer service visit my consulting website.

“Eric brought a wealth of essential knowledge and practical experience to the table.

He was also easy to work with and prompt in his own customer service.”

“You Are Richer Than You Think.”

In my previous blog entries I have argued about the validity of the People > Service > Profit idea, the importance of Hiring Right and the fact that often good people are stopped by bad processes or bad management.  I am obviously of the view that the road to success for great customer service and experience excellence goes through People Management that is aligned with strategies that make customer service and customer experience into a sustainable strategic differentiator. 

Today’s business environment is constantly changing as companies work to stay competitive. But change only happens when people change their thinking, beliefs, and behaviours. This is hard and requires constant effort from employees and executives. Forrester analyst Claire Schooley reports that “Seven in ten - seventy percent - of change management initiatives fail. That is a dramatically high rate of failure.”  It could happen to you unless you take into account that any change in business process or strategic direction  is strongly related to personal change — that means your people — and this is often the component that gets shortchanged.

This blog entry pursues the line of thought that organizations often fail to realize the impact of change on the employees it will affect. This can be change due to process re-design or strategies and initiatives for sharpening Customer Focus.  They often do not plan and execute carefully enough to address the people issues through all phases of change management.

That means that frequently people are insufficiently informed and engaged and therefore not enabled or allowed to contribute what they could otherwise bring to the table, based on their experience, knowledge and creativity (that everybody has). Over the more than 25 years I have been involved in many types of organizations I have developed the cynical view that more often than not “the enemy is within” and that many organizations unwittingly go to great lengths to give the competition a leg up. I will be so bold as to estimate that thus many organizations are not getting one-third to one quarter of the payroll dollars (and benefits plus overheads) they spend.

My message to a great deal of organization is therefore what it says in the headline (a tagline of a ubiquitous Canadian bank campaign): You Are Richer Than You Think... but you are likely not getting what you pay for. Often organizations don’t know what they don’t know and what they could get from the people they are paying anyway.

Affecting change successfully is admittedly not an easy thing. There are many models, approaches and philosophies. In addition to a clear vision and capable leadership, among others, there is one critical element which I want to highlight here: Communication. Yes, how hard we try, there never appears to be enough of it. It shows up as an improvement opportunity in virtually every employee survey, doesn’t it.

One of my standard recommendations to my clients is to undertake making Communications a forethought rather than the afterthought it so often ends up being. That means they could benefit from appointing a member of a change steering group as Communications Advocate. At each and every turn, decision, new project etc. this person raises the question of What and How for Communication. Of course having a strategy to guide the process always helps...

To conclude, I would like to share with you how impressed I was by the use of an off-the-shelf technology that is cloud based (and does not interfere with or depend on IT infrastructure), to act as enabler and catalyst of customer-driven change. Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts is known for its exemplary service. Just like award other companies competing successfully on a sharp customer focus such as South West Airlines, Ritz-Carlton, Zappos, USAA and Costco, it understands the value of hiring the right people and enabling and empowering them to do right by the customer. Four Seasons decided to employ a Social Intranet (with very similar features to Facebook and LinkedIn) to carry and facilitate its customer service / experience strategy. This platform was simple and quick to deploy technically, but of course needed to be populated with thought and efforts. However, once Redwood eLearning’s BOOST was up and running it took very little effort to manage it. Who did manage it then?  Their people of course... A sure way to ensure that they get from their people what they paid for, and more...

What stops you from harvesting your richness?