Beloved companies enable people to decide and act from a corner of their brain that is congruent with doing the right thing. They build an organization with energy and spirit that draws customers to them. We naturally gravitate to companies and people with whom we connect in a human and sincere manner. We like their story because it’s the one we strive to live ourselves. Five five decisions set companies apart. The decisions reveal who they are and what they value.
To make customer experience stick as part of your operation, you need an organized and phased approach to integrate customer experience into your organization. This framework will “demystify” the actions and the end state, which you should be able to recognize when your company and operation become proficient at “customer experience.” The five CX competencies don’t need to be tackled in order. Relevance to your operation is most important. Getting traction is paramount.
Once you’ve determined where the CCO should report, you need to determine what structure will work best in your organization based on commitment and resources. Organize for cat herding the silos together based on your culture and how far along you are in working together. Remember that the structure you select should enable you to influence change and drive action. This post introduces the four ways you can go with organizational structure
Organic customer growth drives long-term profitability. So why isn't the customer as important to you as quarterly sales goals? This is where the customer commitment falls apart because what’s actively asked for, measured and rewarded doesn’t always line up with what’s good for customers. Here are five questions for commanding customer accountability inside your organization... Your answers will tell you how well you are doing with managing customers as assets.
Why does it take such a push to wrap the focus of a company around the customer as the source of their revenue and profitability? I’m no shrinking violet, and I can tell you that for every battle I’ve won, I’ve lost just as many. The big question is: Why has it been a battle? [...]
Chief Customer Officer 2.0 delivers new digital content based on the book, “Chief Customer Officer” by Jeanne Bliss and provides updated tools to establish a repeatable customer experience that drives customer profitability.
Your decisions grounded in belief prove how much you honor customers and employees. They say how fearless you are in suspending cynicism. They indicate whether you nurture people and relationships to their full potential. What you decide to believe defines the spirit inside your organization.
It took 20 minutes for Johnson & Johnson’s board of directors to decide how they would protect the people during the Tylenol catastrophe in 1982. With the Golden Rule firmly strapped to their back, they set to work.
For beloved companies, customers’ lives inform and inspire company behavior, actions, and operations. Beloved companies think and rethink how to conduct themselves, so they earn the right to their customers’ continued business. The “experience” they deliver is far more than the execution of an operating plan.
Beloved companies lock customers in their corporate memory. They honor them by ensuring continuity for serving their needs. At Edward Jones, freshly minted advisors are paired with a successful veteran for at least a year, allowing them to share in the operation of the branch, receive invaluable mentoring from the veteran, and assume responsibility for some of the veteran’s accounts. This assures the advisor has modeled the best behavior and has built relationships with clients he or she will take over from the veteran.
Griffin Hospital decided to make medical records available to patients and their families. They wanted to mend years of a perceived imbalanced relationship, so Griffin made the total transparency of patient medical records an olive branch. Anything the hospital knew, the patient and family could know. In doing so, Griffin Hospital patients could spend all the time they wanted with their records, have them explained, and consider them their “own.”
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Beyond the banking experience, Umpqua Bank believes in customizing experiences by community. Umpqua’s mission is to become a destination for customers. They offer a warm environment customized by community interests and a banking experience personalized to every customer who walks through their doors. They want customers to think of the Umpqua Bank in their community as a gathering place.
“Let’s make sure we do the right thing,” CEO Harry Kraemer told Alan Heller, president of the Baxter International Inc. division responsible for dialysis equipment, when dialysis patient deaths began in August 2001 in Madrid, Spain, and Croatia. Rather than waiting to know if they were at fault, Baxter took accountability immediately, with a global recall and a hold on distribution of product.
Zane’s works to deliver at least seven “wow” moments for each customer. They believe that seven powerful interactions prove to customers that Zane’s is consistently good to them, and the best (and only) place to go for anything regarding bicycles. Zane’s “pays it forward” consistently with their customers, and it grows their business.
Newegg.com knows customers start watching the clock as soon as they place the order. So Newegg.com commits to delivery reliability. If you can place an order for an item on Newegg.com, you are guaranteed that it is on its way to you.
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Beloved companies take the time to be clear about what their unique promise is for their customers’ lives. They use this clarity when they make decisions so they align to this purpose, to this promise. Clarity of purpose guides choices and unites the organization.
Since that book launched, over 50% of all new Customer Executives have read its contents, and I am honored that many have called upon me for support, as I have had the privilege of coaching many Chief Customer Officer and Customer Experience Officers into their positions or supporting them to get traction where work has stalled. We have made great strides together, working from, improving, and adding to the tools first laid out in this book.
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This work by Jeanne Bliss and CustomerBLISS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
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