David – The customer-focused executive

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Top customer experience professionals know how to get things done. In particular, they know how to work through others to drive results. In a series of blog posts I’m taking a look at several personas representing key users of customer intelligence – their role, their needs, and tips on working with them.

Today’s post looks at David – a company executive. Customer intelligence is a critical ingredient for executives to make important business decisions.David - the corporate executive

HIS ROLE:

David is a regional executive for a global technology company. He is responsible for P&L performance including production, sales, and delivery of his company’s products, solutions, and services throughout one of the company’s largest regions. To run the business, David coaches his department executives towards their goals and tracks essential metrics.

HIS NEEDS:

David needs to see customer experience scores regularly and use these in the mix of performance metrics to run the business. He pays close attention to the trends in customer loyalty and commitment to spending more. He will read verbatim comments from customers when they are well organized by topics he is interested in, such as key product lines and for their most profitable offering – professional services.

WORKING WITH DAVID:

David’s mindset is, “How will this help us meet our goals and how will it pay off for the business?” He is partly bought into investing time and priority resources for the sake of customers. However he also regularly faces high-level problems in other areas – operational efficiency, new regulations, technology, personnel, demands from the corporate office, budget pressures, and more.

For David to engage with the customer intelligence you provide, you must first earn his mindshare. Here’s how:

  • Make the case – Show him the impact on the business, and you will gain attention from him. His job is all about performance, so he needs to see that the opportunity you present helps him achieve those goals.
  • Be straight and clear – Avoid any customer intelligence jargon and keep what you describe in terms that are straightforward and logical.
  • Use connections to make it more relevant – Try to connect what you propose into other aspects of David’s job. For example, say you are proposing ramping up the number of customer initiatives with his support and reporting the volume of those as a new metric. That will be most relevant if David sees the metric as part of what he already hears in quarterly business reviews. It also helps when he can show his boss, the corporate COO, the effectiveness of his customer initiatives.

Note: This is the sixth in a series of blogs looking at the key users of customer intelligence. Other blogs focused on strategic account managers, quality managers, technical service representatives, sales professionals, and product managers.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Patrick Gibbons
As senior vice president of marketing, Gibbons has global responsibility for definition, branding, and promotion of the company and its solutions. In addition, he works with market leading organizations to develop communication initiatives that engage employees around customer-focused strategies.

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