What Is The Access to Transformation And Authentic Customer-Centricity?

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What Is Transformation?

For the purposes of this conversation, when I speak ‘transformation’ I am pointing at a radical shift in one’s way of being – as in one’s way of showing up and travelling in this world.  If you are Christian, and know your Bible then think of the transformation (often called conversion) of Saul to Paul.  What was intrinsic to this transformation?  Was it not a letting go, a complete letting go, and embracing the unknown?

What Has Transformation To Do With Customer-Centric Business?

What has this conversation to do with all things Customer and especially customer-centric business?  Everything.  As I have said many times before a shift to showing up and doing business in an authentically customer-centric way requires a transformation: personal (Tops, Middles, Bottoms) and business (policies, practices, processes, tools).

a. What is the access to transformation?

What is the access to transformation at the individual (personal), and business (organisational) level?  Allow me to share the following with you:

In some Asian countries there is a very effective trap for catching monkeys. A slot is made in the bottom of a coconut, just big enough for the monkey to slide its hand in., but not big enough for the hand to be withdrawn when it is clenched. Then you put something sweet in the coconut, attach it to a tree, and wait for the monkey to come along. When the monkey slides its hand in and grabs the food, it gets caught. What keeps the monkey trapped? It is only the force of desire and attachment. All the monkey has to do is to let go of the sweet, open its hand, slip out, and go free - but only a rare monkey will do that.

- Joseph Goldstein, A Heart Full Of Peace, Best Buddhist Writing 2008

OK, this Buddhism stuff shows up for you as ‘other worldly’ – unrealistic.  So allow me to make it real for you.

b. The Transformation of Zappos Occurred in March 2003

Listen to Tony Hsieh talk about the early days of Zappos when the leadership team was struggling to find funding to keep Zappos going – the cash had run out (bolding is my work):

A month later, we still weren’t profitable. We still couldn’t raise funding.

But we had a decision to make.

How serious were we about this idea of making the Zappos brand be about the very best customer service? We had discussed the idea internally with our employees, and everyone was excited about the potential new direction.

But was it all talk? Or were we committed?

We hadn’t actually changed the way we did anything at Zappos yet. We did a lot of talking, but we weren’t putting our money where our mouths were And our employees knew it…..

For 2003, we were projecting sales to double, with about 25 percent of our overall sales coming from our drop ship business. The drop ship business was easy money. We didn’t have to carry inventory so we didn’t have any inventory risk or cash-flow problems with that part of the business. But we had plenty of customer service challenges.

The inventory feeds ….. from our vendors for our drop ship business were 95 percent accurate at best …. On top of that, the brands did not ship as quickly or accurately as our own WHISKY warehouse, which meant we had plenty of unhappy and disappointed customers. But it was easy money.

We all knew deep down inside that we would have to give up the drop ship business sooner or later if we were serious about building the Zappos brand to be about the very best customer service. We also knew that the bigger we grew, the more reliant we would be on the cash from drop shipping. There would never be a good time to walk away……

So we made what was both the easiest and hardest decision we ever had to make up until that point. In March 2003, with the flip of a switch, we turned off that part of the business and removed all of the drop ship products from our web site.

We took a deep breath and hoped for the best…..

We had to deal with our first test of our new direction right away. With a drop in revenue, cash was even tighter than before.

Now we had to figure out how to make next week’s payroll.

- Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness

Not easy is it?  Which kind of explains why many organisations which talk about customer focus, customer obsession, customer-centricity are playing at the periphery: making process changes, buying-implementing technology etc.  Which CEO or leadership team looks forward to taking a deep breath and hoping for the best?

Summing Up

If you are serious about cultivating genuine-meaningful loyalty between yourself and your customers then you have to open up your clenched fist. And let go of all the policies-practices-products-people that generate bad profits – profits made at the expense of your customers.

As Tony Hsieh says there is NEVER a good time to do this. So the best time to do that which goes with showing up and travelling the authentic customer-centric path is NOW! Why now?  Get this, everything that ever happens, happens NOW. I know that this is not how it shows up for you, or me. And look into this, deeply, and you will see the truth of it. All action occurs in the present, NOW.

Here is where it gets interesting. There cannot be an organisational transformation unless it is preceded by individual/personal transformation; this individual/personal transformation has to start with the Tops – it is called leadership.

What is the subtitle of Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness book? “A path to profits, passion, and purpose”.   It occurs to me that the many with whom I speak show an avid interest in profits – increasing profits.  Few show any interest in any purpose other than ego: self enrichment in its many disguised. Passion?  Passion for great customer service, passion for great Customer Experience, passion for the genuine well-being of customers as fellow human beings?  If you come across it then please share it with me.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Maz Iqbal
Independent
Experienced management consultant and customer strategist who has been grappling with 'customer-centric business' since early 1999.

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