Christopher Brown
“Culture is not the most important thing, it’s the only thing” – Costco’s Jim...
Customers walk in to buy six months worth of toilet paper and walk out with the latest flat screen TV and a case of French Champagne. Where else would this type of consumer behavior be possible but at Costco, the US's most successful warehouse club/retailer.…
Customer Metrics: Measure what matters most to customers
As business leaders we tend to pay a lot of attention to the metrics important to the business, that is, revenue, cash flow, profitability, growth and so on… but the real drivers of these business outcomes are customers. So the obvious question becomes what customer...
Great customer focused leaders – Jeff Bezos
Amazon, under the leadership of Jeff Bezos, has been a great success story. It really created the online retailing sector with an initial focus on books and now has expanded to sell just about everything that can be sold online. It has been an...
The only 2 sources of competitive advantage
Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, suggested there were only two sources of competitive advantage for businesses. Given his track record at GE - taking its value from $14bn to 410bn when he left in 2004 – he knows a thing or two...
What is the purpose of business?
Ask anyone this question and you will get a variety of answers, the most common being to make a profit. While certainly to make a profit is a requirement I don't believe it is a business's reason for being. Most businesses start out with a...
Why Intuit failed internationally
Intuit have been a great success story in the US, they have built the number one accounting and tax preparation software for the past several decades. When they decided to expand internationally in the 1990s they executed the perfect launch plans in a number of...
Does Facebook have a customer culture? Absolutely!
With Facebook in the business news for all the wrong reasons, a cratering share price, slowing user growth and so on it is useful to think about exactly what type of culture Mark Zuckerberg has created. In a recent letter to shareholders he made his...
Taking the long view
A customer culture is one that takes the long view. It's a company that recognizes the necessity to get short-term results but does not borrow from the future to achieve them. It's a company that will invest in customers today so that they will remain…
A new way to innovate and get funded
One of the biggest challenges in businesses is determining whether your new product or service actually fills a need. It maybe a cool product, you may like it yourself but if no one will pay money for it, its just a hobby. There are some...
Can technology retailers survive? Not without a customer focused culture and some new ideas.
The Amazon online model continues to apply pressure to the traditional bricks and mortar retail stores. Now with the addition of an app that allows shoppers to check prices on the amazon site while in Best Buy or similar technology retailers they continue to...
Apple’s secret manual for customer experience
Much of Apple's success has been attributed to its innovative, high quality products which no doubt have been a crucial ingredient to it becoming the world's most valuable company this past week. Something that is not talked about a lot is its fastidious attention to...
Managing customer expectations
Customer expectations are influenced by a number of factors, many of which are out of our control. For example previous experiences with different products or service providers. Think about how Apple have reset expectations when it comes to technology retailing or how Starbucks have changed...
Employee engagement is simply not enough
Employee engagement is an important measure for many organizations. It does provide an indicator as to whether employees are willing to go the extra mile in their work, something that is only driven by passion and meaning in what you do. However, in today's business...
Prioritizing Customer Experience Investments
Making deliberate efforts to improve the customer experience can require significant investments. So how do you decide on which customer experience investments to make? It begins by understanding the existing customer experience for a defined group of customers and asking the following questions: 1. What…
Maintaining momentum during a customer focused culture change initiative
"A constant trickle of water will wear away the stone that a burst of rain will leave unchanged." How do we maintain momentum? We get asked this question a lot by clients. Undertaking a new customer focus initiative is an exciting and motivating experience. Most…
Customer focused leaders are willing to take short term pain for long term gain
Becoming a truly customer focused organization takes effort. Remember: "Nothing worth doing comes easily" There are substantial pay-offs to aligning your business with your customers. With the Market Responsiveness Index we have proven that customer focused businesses excel in every financial measure important from sales…
The link between customer focus and employee engagement
Customer focus and employee engagement are two sides of the same coin. Clearly if your customers are going to be satisfied it takes an engaged workforce that is passionate about their work and holds a strong desire to deliver great experiences. What we have found…
Are Fortune 100 CEOs laggards on customer focus?
Fortune 100 CEOs Are Social Media Slackers from Blue Trumpet Group The slide show above provides some statistics on the low levels of CEO participation in social media. Given the nature and intense time pressure of these roles it is understandable, social media is a...
Does your leadership have a monopoly on brainpower?
In many organizations the leaders act as though they have all the answers. In customer focused cultures the leaders recognize that great ideas can come from anywhere and their job is to create the environment in which creative thinking can flourish. Who better than front…
Breaking down silos – one of the keys to creating collaboration around the customer
Is your leadership team really a team or a collection of individuals running their own teams? When the team at the top of the organization is fragmented and mis-aligned this trickles down to everyone in the company. If the hard discussions and debates related to...