Customer Centricity In Action
Inaccurately captured data, inconvenient processes, unnecessary subscription requirements, long delays, under-valued add-ons, technical jargon in reports and ‘in-your-face’ greetings. The list of customer experience flaws goes on. If this sounds familiar, you might just want to revisit your organisation’s approach to customer centricity, as these are just a few symptoms of weak commitment to what it takes to deliver on your brand promise.
When the customer experience alarm bells go off, business executives often commit time to weekend retreats, extended monthly performance review sessions, long team meetings, strategy sessions with special themes, all with the urgent desire to resolve the issue (s) asap! Whatever the forum, however, I have seen market facing teams and support unit teams at loggerheads, where each person believes they are right and seeks to protect their turf. Front office people think that their colleagues in support units do not understand the customer and people in support functions think that their front office colleagues disregard compliance issues and simply choose to be wasteful.
A case in point is a situation where client services at one of my clients in the financial service sector, resented operations for the way they constantly missed deadlines for commitments to clients as well as their ‘difficult to interpret’ client reporting formats. Conversely, operations had little regard for client services as a result of the frequent aggressive confrontations from their colleagues in client facing roles. It turned out that, whilst the staff in each department cared about the client, they simply didn’t realise the adverse effect of their disharmony on the resulting client experience.
Bottlenecks between people or departments are often caused by disagreements on how processes should work as well as unspoken expectations from one another internally. These bottlenecks can severely impact the customer experience.
As such, some introspective questions for executives and CX leaders to answer objectively, include: How well do departments work together? Do members of staff look forward to, or loathe committee work with other departments? Does it seem as though the aims of some departments undermine the objectives of others? When other departments are contacted for help, are there situations where it is regarded it as a distraction and an absolute waste of valuable time? Can people see the greater good that comes from helping co-workers across the organization solve their problems or fulfil their needs?
If the answers to these questions reveals a weakness in working together cohesively, it’s time to embrace a more customer centric culture.
Customer centricity is often referred to as, “Putting customer focus at the heart of everything you do, in order to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty”.
This definition as well as the nature of these questions both point to the fact that customer centricity entails with a combination of business-wide practices that support creating and strengthening a connection with the customer and high morale in the workplace.
With all this in mind, here is my take on practices to adopt to achieve and sustain true customer centricity:
- Leadership support and commitment
In recent times, I have spoken to several executives and senior managers, to safely conclude that there is a widespread weakness in commitment to customer centricity.Senior management should, therefore, not only seek to understand and communicate the importance of placing the customer at the centre of all decisions, but also demonstrate visible support for customer centric initiatives and behaviours.
- Recruit the right people
I have facilitated numerous behavioural change sessions and as such, I know that changing people’s behaviours is costly and time consuming, especially if it is to be achieved uniformly business wide. A client recently told me that in her desperation to fill a vacancy, she took on a candidate who expressly stated that, she turned down a job because it involved showing customers how to use a mobile app. In my opinion, that was a red flag right there and of course the candidate did not last more than month. It’s always best to get people with service in their DNA, heart and soul!
- Customer understanding
Steve Jobs is known to have said, “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” Executives may already have an idea of who they are targeting and their needs, but it’s important to have a deep understanding of customers. Customers may be able to define their superficial needs, but often struggle to identify their base needs. To really ensure a great experience, in-depth customer understanding is absolutely, crucial.
- Frontline capacity building
Ensure that staff at the frontline are equipped with decision-making and problem-solving skills such that the need to escalate issues is limited. This should be done on an on-going basis.
- Organisation-wide understanding of the customer experience ecosystem
A participant during one of my workshops, for an insurance client, once aired a protest against his nomination to my session. He specifically, said that he had no business being at the workshop, given that his role is in risk management and compliance.
After an appeal and a request for patience on his part, up to the end of the exercise, he came up to me and expressed with excitement, his “aha!” moment. People outside customer facing roles often need to be re-oriented to get a better appreciation of how their roles affect CX. Customer experience ecosystem mapping is a great way to educate and promote customer centric behaviours especially amongst staff in support roles.
- Measurement and progress tracking
The most important purpose of measurement is to, interpret the implications and take action, to drive a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. Identifying and measuring outcomes that indicate progress and support overall corporate goals, simply provide the much needed, encouragement to intensify commitment to customer centric behaviours over time.Businesses allocate millions and even billions, to advertising with the aim of attracting and retaining customers, while attention to customer experience is even more important. The big question is, “how long can a company continue to spend money on catchy advertising without investing in CX?” The answer is, “not for long!”. The result, as is often seen, is overworked and disillusioned staff, who eventually leave the organization if nothing is done.
Thank you for reading!
Mosun Shasore, CCXP
Over the 20+ years of my career, I have worked for organisations such as Procter & Gamble, ARM Investment Managers and Accenture.
Today I run Q Advisory, where I have engaged with thousands of participants across the nation from local and Pan African institutions.
I am a CX change driver who is deeply interested in helping African businesses evolve from local best in class to global examples of excellence!
Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter - @mshasore