We have often heard the phrase, “Customer is king”. While it is self-evident that higher satisfaction levels give a company an edge over sales, company growth and reputation, what it really does in the long term is to ensure that existing customers stay happy, resulting in better relationships and happier employees. Customer-focused companies are more attuned to the market and better able to stay ahead.
I refer to Harley-Davidson’s customer focused culture as one of the best in the world. It is the longest, continuous manufacturer of motorcycles in the US and has outlived nearly all of its competitors. In the twenty short years since Harley-Davidson started its Owners Group programs, it has grown to over 500,000 members & each of them own at least one motorcycle. The question to ask is: Is there any other consumer product in the world that will prompt customers to travel over several continents to be part of a group experience? Customers and employees alike take great pride in their affiliation with the company and this continues to make Harley-Davidson one of the great success stories of our time.
There is simply nothing – nothing – more important than getting to know the needs of your customer in a detailed and scientific manner. In the words of Michael Dell, “By spending time with your customers where they do business, you can learn more than by bringing them to where you do business”.
80% of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience; however, only 8% of their customers agree. Why? Your customers are looking for maximum value when spending their hard-earned cash, particularly in this economy. The customer experience requires the active participation of everyone in your organization. This is where the word “Satisfy” comes into play. What it means is that your company is providing nothing more or less than what the customer expects. Creating a customer-focused culture is a proven strategy for both short-term success and long-term growth.
Going by the industry’s best practices, let me share with you some key insights into what will really work for you or your company.
1. Make a list of the values you’d like your company to exemplify. Then, examine your current culture, and ask yourself if those values are apparent in your company and driving your everyday efforts. 2. Before you can convince your company’s end customers of your focus on satisfaction and service, you need to convince an even more important customer audience – your internal customers – the employees who represent your company to the world. Talk with all your employees about corporate values and ask for input and suggestions. 3. Customer focused companies constantly seek and document feedback. They have a system to analyze and feed this information back into the loop so that response is immediate and not an annual feat 4. A strong customer orientation also demands that the company treats customer complaints positively. They not only make toll-free numbers and helpdesks available, but also staff it with knowledgeable people to work on them. 5. This means that they get back to these customers within an acceptable time frame So how does one tell if the customer is truly on your side? Most companies survey their customers in some way, shape or form – formally or informally. After decades of forms, interviews and focus groups, studies have shown that in gauging a particular customer’s overall satisfaction, a single question is needed to provide a fairly accurate answer: “Would you recommend us to your family, friends and colleagues?” If the answer is “Yes,” you are meeting or exceeding that customer’s expectations; if it’s “No”, it’s time to get to work.
It’s important to have carefully defined, written standards for a customer service-centric culture. Don’t be afraid to keep raising the bar; after all, that’s exactly what your competition will be doing. By visibly measuring – and rewarding – superior customer service, you’ll establish it as a top priority in employees’ mindsets. By holding associates accountable for the agreed-upon standards, you’ll build a high level of trust—one from which your customers will ultimately benefit. At the same time, it’s important to take advantage of “coachable moments” when employees occasionally fail to meet established standards. Don’t “blame”, but just analyze the situation and offer encouraging, constructive feedback. In time, your employees may actually welcome the occasional complaint as an opportunity to improve service.
Globally, companies like Apple and IBM have reaped rich rewards by being customer focused. In India, Microsoft aims to become relevant to the country’s one billion population; it made a start by introducing the Windows 2000 and Office 2000 range, which supports Hindi/ Devanagari and Tamil scripts. In 2001, it launched the Office XP and Windows XP, which supported 11 Indian languages. It also launched Project Bhasha to promote local language computing in 2003.
Our mantra is what we call customer inspired innovation – our true north. This also includes the ability to capture unarticulated needs & experimentation. This tolerance for failure is a key attribute of 3M innovation. Special emphasis is given to observe and understand the needs of the customers, on-ground. For instance, the technical and sales team of 3M lived through the life of housewives and discovered unarticulated cleaning needs in Indian households. What came out of it was a simple yet valuable solution – a floor cleaning cloth that could absorb & retain optimum amount of water, could pick dust particles and also remove the toughest of grime and stains along floor corners and skirtings. The product was designed to be superior to those available in the market at an affordable price point and today, it enjoys the loyalty of innumerable housewives across India. Several other initiatives are also aimed at keeping our innovation engine running – including very clear, measurable metrics.
You may want to apply different approaches to improve performance – Balanced Scorecard, Total Quality Management (TQM) or benchmarking to improve client satisfaction, but the answer to the how will be evident in how the customer evaluates you and your company to fulfill desired outcomes. As Peter Drucker said, “Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it”.
