“How would you change an organization from internally-focused to customer-focused?”
Last week we answered the question with a seasonally appropriate analogy. Here’s part 1 of an action-oriented roadmap.
1. The first step is dialogue, and lots of it. Create opportunities at all levels for dialogue about our own experience as customers, as providers of services and products to customers, and as employees who find themselves dependent on others to deliver customer services. You can’t sustain customer-centricity in the eyes of customers if you don’t also build a customer-centric community inside the company. ?Rather than proclaim a customer-centric vision and values from the top down, lead a dialogue that allows these values and vision to emerge as a shared mindset.
2. Without data you’re just another opinion. Collect data about your customers so you can go beyond having just a vision statement and values of customer centricity to actually being able to run your business on insights about your customers and their behavior.
3. Data is only as useful as the quality of the analysis. With some progress articulating the vision/values side and establishing the data collection/customer insights capabilities, you can better understand your current customers, who among them are your ‘best customers’ (as determined by frequency of interaction and spend), and which customers you aspire to target for higher levels of engagement.
4. Dialogue opens the mind; participation creates ownership. Build broader employee participation and innovation around customer centricity. Have senior executives sponsor initiatives that get them and employees closer to customers. Look for ways to spend time exploring customer related issues from new perspectives.
Look for part 2 of the customer-centric journey: If you believe in it, bet on it.
How is your company taking steps to become more customer-centric?
