Christopher Brown
You can’t handle the truth – why most leaders say they want their businesses...
What separates the businesses that sustain from those that wither away? Customer obsession. So why do leaders say they want their businesses to be customer-centric but are not willing to take the first step?
Why intensity and metrics matter when reshaping an organization’s culture: Lessons from Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo’s challenges over the past few years have been well documented. It took a turn for the worse when it created an aggressive sales culture based on unrealistic targets.
Is it possible to compete with Amazon and win?
For businesses everywhere, this is becoming an increasingly relevant question. Not long ago most business could just ignore Amazon and say to themselves that’s fine for them in retail they are not operating in our industry. Well, times are changing, a...
A Customer-Obsessed Culture is like employee engagement on steroids
Can you imagine a business where everyone connects with its true purpose and gives the very best of himself or herself every day to deliver on that purpose? What an awesome place that would be to work! And wouldn’t you love to be their customer!…
Why being customer obsessed pays! Lessons from the CEO of massively successful startup Naked...
Luke Jecks, the Former CEO of Naked Wines, founded and led an online wine business that operates in the US, the UK, and Australia. The company connects wine lovers with boutique wineries and uses a subscription model where “angels” – consumers who pay...
The reason what they teach in business school is wrong and why a customer-obsessed...
Many of today’s senior leaders were educated in an era where business school professors told them the sole purpose of a business was to create value for shareholders. This, at a time when only a few voices professed what revered thinker and writer, Pe...
You can’t fake customer-centric culture
We hear a lot about fake news these days – what’s real and what’s fake is sometimes hard to know. That’s not the case when it comes to customers “reading” your culture. Let me recount my experience with 3 upmarket restaurants in Sydney, Australia. Sydney…
Is there a customer-centric gene?
Recently I was talking with Dmitry Pukhov, co-founder and owner of a very successful event catering company in Moscow. When I asked him about customer-centric leadership he said the core characteristic is a desire to help people that comes from the heart. He said...
This is why superb customer experience is not consistent or sustained by most businesses.
Don Peppers wrote a profound article recently pointing out that most companies are not acting on building superior customer experience over the medium and longer term. He tells us that most of what is being done delivers minor efficiencies and is short-term in impact...
How a customer culture makes or breaks new product success: A lesson from Comcast
For those of you familiar with our work you will know that we successfully validated the link between a customer centric culture and new product success. Our chart below shows the links between our 8 dimensions of a customer centric culture and the key...
Adapting to change by putting Customers at the center of everything: Lessons from Macquarie...
“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change” – Heraclitus 500BC It’s hard to believe this quote is from more than 2000 years ago… I can’t think of a more relevant quote to describe the times we are living in right now! From a business context…
What happens when you don’t have a corporate culture obsessed with customers – Lessons...
A man is forcibly removed after not giving up is pre-paid seat on a United Flight We witnessed one of the most extreme examples of what can go wrong in a business that has truly lost site of its purpose. As a former United Global…
Why it’s time for the banks to shift their corporate cultures
Image Source: htmvalerio Big banks and investment houses around the world have been guilty of bad behavior stemming from unacceptable corporate cultures that have led to the disaster of the global financial crisis in 2007-2009. This was followed by the London foreign exchange scandal in May...
Why are so many customer-centric leaders on their own?
Many customer centric leaders we have spoken with are facing challenges they did not expect. While they themselves understand the imperative for a customer culture that will drive future business performance and sustainability and act as role models in leading the business in this...
What is the kryptonite for disruptors?
Established businesses everywhere are under attack. The headlines are full of stories of business disruption. Entrepreneurs everywhere are building companies to unseat the entrenched firms. While many think the answer is to invest in more technology, lobby government or follow their competitors actually the answer is right...
Why People Empowerment is Essential to Delivering Memorable Customer Experiences
Uber, a 5 year-old company recently valued at more than $60 billion, has smashed the taxi networks’ monopoly in many countries. Traditional taxi drivers were expected to follow rule-book procedures with little thought of passengers’ problems and experiences. Uber drivers have a mandate to...
Lexus – a beacon of customer centricity
The auto manufacturing industry will soon be under siege – impacts are already being felt with easy consumer access and convenience of services like Uber, better public transport, parking costs and restrictions in increasingly large cities around the globe and technological advances in communications...
How to create a customer centric transformation – Lessons from Air New Zealand
A little more than a decade ago Air New Zealand posted the largest corporate loss in New Zealand corporate history. Inside 24 months it was turned around to a profit. Since that time it has been amongst the consistently highest profitability of full-service airlines...
Lessons from REI: Aligning your People
We have just completed one of the busiest weeks in retail in the United States, with Black Friday for the physical stores and Cyber Monday for the online retailers. This week now blends together with doorbuster deals bombarding us constantly online and instore in the week...
Customer Experience is a Team Sport – How a no tipping policy is changing...
Tipping in restaurants has always been a strange experience for me, being an Australian who has spent the last decade in the US. In Australia it is optional while in the US it is mandatory. So it came as a huge surprise to learn that a very...