Playbooks are everywhere today. I can’t imagine that there are any professional sports teams out there that do not have a playbook they use for each and every game. Behind those playbooks are data – hard facts – that help guide teams to make decisions depending on certain factors. For example, did you know that a group of MIT researchers determined that a 45-yard field goal kicked in the snow is 18 percent less likely to be good than a 45-yard attempt in 50 degree weather? Distance is only one factor among many that help guide what the right play call is during a game, and coaches build their playbook full of these types of facts so they can quickly plot their next move.
Professional sports are just one example among many where playbooks are used. Companies often use them in their new employee onboarding efforts or for sales strategies – but how many of your companies use customer perspective in these playbooks? How many of your companies have a full customer strategy playbook?
Customer input should, at a minimum, be a factor that goes into existing decision making and any legacy playbooks. However, also creating a full customer strategy playbook for your company can be very advantageous. It can and should contain these types of components:
- A plan for how you either build or maintain a customer-focused culture.
- A mapping of the types of customers who are considered the most strategic and least strategic to the company, with supporting service models for each customer type.
- A model for how you will gather customer feedback on your performance.
- A road map for how you will continuously take action on customer feedback, whether it is solicited or unsolicited.
- A communications plan for how you will share company information with customers regularly.
- An overall strategy for growth by various customer types.
Gather all of the facts and analyze any “big data” within your companies to create the best overall customer strategy. Make sure you have a playbook for success!
