 | Customer Connections By Steve Walker Steve Walker, Walker's Chairman and CEO, shares his thoughts on customer connections. |
Last month, we named Phil Bounsall as the new President of Walker. If you know Phil, then this news came to you as either “no surprise” or as a “pleasant surprise." He has been so instrumental in the leadership of our company for more than a decade. While, I was happy to recognize Phil with a new title, more important than that, is what it will mean for the future of our clients, associates, and other stakeholders.
Phil has been the chief architect of our transformation into a professional services firm focused on customer strategy consulting. So many of the things that we do today have Phil’s signature all over them. Some of the most important are the continuing development of our professionals, the creation of our strategic account management processes, and our ability to drive and measure the financial impact or ROI of customer-focused initiatives inside of our client companies.
I have been around this company my entire life (almost 52 years), worked full time here for more than half of my life (27 years), and until last month, had been President for nearly 15 years. In a career full of rewarding working relationships, one of the most productive has been the one I have with Phil. There are so many breakthrough ideas that became reality and it is gratifying to look backwards and see what has been accomplished. But the future is what I am really looking forward to.
Despite the current global economic uncertainties, I find myself more optimistic and excited about our future than ever. We continue to unlock the secrets that make customer-focused companies hammer their competition and outperform average companies by several times over. With Phil as our President, I believe we will only see those opportunities continue to multiply and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Phil has been the chief architect of our transformation into a professional services firm focused on customer strategy consulting. So many of the things that we do today have Phil’s signature all over them. Some of the most important are the continuing development of our professionals, the creation of our strategic account management processes, and our ability to drive and measure the financial impact or ROI of customer-focused initiatives inside of our client companies.
I have been around this company my entire life (almost 52 years), worked full time here for more than half of my life (27 years), and until last month, had been President for nearly 15 years. In a career full of rewarding working relationships, one of the most productive has been the one I have with Phil. There are so many breakthrough ideas that became reality and it is gratifying to look backwards and see what has been accomplished. But the future is what I am really looking forward to.
Despite the current global economic uncertainties, I find myself more optimistic and excited about our future than ever. We continue to unlock the secrets that make customer-focused companies hammer their competition and outperform average companies by several times over. With Phil as our President, I believe we will only see those opportunities continue to multiply and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
The above statement is one of my favorite ways to simultaneously:
1. Confess to my severe bias when it comes to solving complex business issues, and
2. Place the role of customer advocacy in a more strategic setting.
In the best circumstances, my oft-used statement lightens up the mood. It disarms people by admitting that we think every business problem/issue ultimately relates to a misunderstanding of customer wants/needs. Yet, it also suggests that the survey isn’t always the first tool we need to use. We’ll probably get around to using it at some point, just like a hammer, but we will use other tools as well. This allows people to pause, step back from the details and consider the broader issues.
People don’t conduct customer surveys, collect customer feedback, and organize customer information just to provide people like us with employment. They want to solve business problems, take advantage of a market opportunity or manage change better. Far too often, too much emphasis is placed on just getting the data, more data, and even more data. Like a guy running around a construction site with a hammer hitting nails and screws and bolts, anything that you could hit and not taking the time to consider the objectives and select the proper tool.
At Walker, we have studied why this happens for many years. We know that customer listening programs that fail rarely do so because of the quality of the research. Failure usually occurs because the program is not seen as aligned with the business issues and/or the outputs are not seen as answers to the business questions. We have a simple solution to that.
Before you open that tool box to pull out that hammer, just sit back and ask a few questions about what the organization is trying to learn/accomplish. To help you, my colleagues at Walker have organized an exhaustive list of business issues/problems and they all fall into one of four buckets as follows:
1. Growth & Profitability
2. Predictability of Results
3. Competitive Position
4. Corporate Strategy
And, lucky for all of us customer advocates, having good information about the customer is essential to making the right decisions in each category. And just when you think it can’t get any better, we have insights and expertise about how to use this knowledge of the customer to address these concerns that top management is interested in. Want to learn more? Search around on these blogs or get in contact with us.
Don’t worry. You will still get to swing that hammer. But at least you will know that you are hitting the nails.
Originally posted in Customer Connection July 30, 2009.
1. Confess to my severe bias when it comes to solving complex business issues, and
2. Place the role of customer advocacy in a more strategic setting.
In the best circumstances, my oft-used statement lightens up the mood. It disarms people by admitting that we think every business problem/issue ultimately relates to a misunderstanding of customer wants/needs. Yet, it also suggests that the survey isn’t always the first tool we need to use. We’ll probably get around to using it at some point, just like a hammer, but we will use other tools as well. This allows people to pause, step back from the details and consider the broader issues.
People don’t conduct customer surveys, collect customer feedback, and organize customer information just to provide people like us with employment. They want to solve business problems, take advantage of a market opportunity or manage change better. Far too often, too much emphasis is placed on just getting the data, more data, and even more data. Like a guy running around a construction site with a hammer hitting nails and screws and bolts, anything that you could hit and not taking the time to consider the objectives and select the proper tool.
At Walker, we have studied why this happens for many years. We know that customer listening programs that fail rarely do so because of the quality of the research. Failure usually occurs because the program is not seen as aligned with the business issues and/or the outputs are not seen as answers to the business questions. We have a simple solution to that.
Before you open that tool box to pull out that hammer, just sit back and ask a few questions about what the organization is trying to learn/accomplish. To help you, my colleagues at Walker have organized an exhaustive list of business issues/problems and they all fall into one of four buckets as follows:
1. Growth & Profitability
2. Predictability of Results
3. Competitive Position
4. Corporate Strategy
And, lucky for all of us customer advocates, having good information about the customer is essential to making the right decisions in each category. And just when you think it can’t get any better, we have insights and expertise about how to use this knowledge of the customer to address these concerns that top management is interested in. Want to learn more? Search around on these blogs or get in contact with us.
Don’t worry. You will still get to swing that hammer. But at least you will know that you are hitting the nails.
Originally posted in Customer Connection July 30, 2009.
It seems like more and more companies are struggling with incessant pricing pressure. Making sure that you get paid for the value you bring is tough, even when times are good. Under the current economic conditions, smart pricing is even more essential. This is especially true for complex business-to-business sales. The more complicated the product/service offering is—the more difficult it becomes to explain the value. Don’t despair. There is hope. Your customers can tell you a lot.
Try this seven step process to insure you get paid for your value.
1. Segment your customers by how much they like you. We call this relationship segmentation. In our example, we’ll use the Walker Loyalty Matrix to do this.
2. Select a few customers from the Truly Loyal, Trapped and High Risk quadrants.
3. Relate the relationship segmentation to the financial performance of the accounts. Does the Truly Loyal segment have better margins than the Trapped? And do the Trapped outperform the High Risk?
4. Look also at how the different segments value the key aspects of the service experience. Does the Truly Loyal segment have better experiences than the others?
5. If so, now dive deeper into the relationships. Talk to the account managers and customer service staff assigned to the accounts. Are there patterns that emerge from these analyses?
6. Can you now craft a model of what an ideal account for your company looks like in terms of how the customer sees your value and how you get paid for it?
7. Now, can you use this model of the ideal account to align and change your operations to move more accounts in this direction and bring in new accounts with a vision of making them more like ideal accounts?
What’s the matter? You can’t do all these steps today? Are you missing key components of the information? Don’t have a relationship segmentation of your customers? Don’t have account level financial metrics? Well, what are you waiting for?
Just as you can’t prepare for a day of outdoor activity without a weather report—you can’t effectively understand how to value price without knowing what your customer’s value and what they are willing to pay for. This is exactly how the best performing customer-focused companies are addressing the issue of value pricing. Yes, it takes hard work and discipline and leadership and the right tools and good processes and systems. But it can certainly be done.
One of the most important reasons to have a systematic and valid measurement of the strength of your customer relationships is to be able to relate it to other things we know about the business. Only then can you make the kind of change that benefits the customers in a way that you get paid for the value. Walker can help. Give us a call.
Originally posted in Customer Connection July 23, 2009.
Try this seven step process to insure you get paid for your value.
1. Segment your customers by how much they like you. We call this relationship segmentation. In our example, we’ll use the Walker Loyalty Matrix to do this.2. Select a few customers from the Truly Loyal, Trapped and High Risk quadrants.
3. Relate the relationship segmentation to the financial performance of the accounts. Does the Truly Loyal segment have better margins than the Trapped? And do the Trapped outperform the High Risk?
4. Look also at how the different segments value the key aspects of the service experience. Does the Truly Loyal segment have better experiences than the others?
5. If so, now dive deeper into the relationships. Talk to the account managers and customer service staff assigned to the accounts. Are there patterns that emerge from these analyses?
6. Can you now craft a model of what an ideal account for your company looks like in terms of how the customer sees your value and how you get paid for it?
7. Now, can you use this model of the ideal account to align and change your operations to move more accounts in this direction and bring in new accounts with a vision of making them more like ideal accounts?
What’s the matter? You can’t do all these steps today? Are you missing key components of the information? Don’t have a relationship segmentation of your customers? Don’t have account level financial metrics? Well, what are you waiting for?
Just as you can’t prepare for a day of outdoor activity without a weather report—you can’t effectively understand how to value price without knowing what your customer’s value and what they are willing to pay for. This is exactly how the best performing customer-focused companies are addressing the issue of value pricing. Yes, it takes hard work and discipline and leadership and the right tools and good processes and systems. But it can certainly be done.
One of the most important reasons to have a systematic and valid measurement of the strength of your customer relationships is to be able to relate it to other things we know about the business. Only then can you make the kind of change that benefits the customers in a way that you get paid for the value. Walker can help. Give us a call.
Originally posted in Customer Connection July 23, 2009.
I was on vacation recently and did some pleasure reading. I read a cool book on astronomy called A Briefer History of Time. It’s about the history of the science that has gone into making discoveries about the universe. You may recall from past entries how much I like the history of scientific discovery. We can draw a lot of parallels from these stories to inspire our quest as customer advocates.
In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton made perhaps the most important scientific discovery of all time when he published his theory of gravity. It built upon the work of Copernicus and Galileo who were the first to suggest that perhaps the Earth was not the center of the universe. His theory, while not perfect, was essentially correct. When it was employed, time after time and observation after observation, it helped explain many of the key questions of the times. Looking back today, it’s hard to believe that Newton’s genius was not embraced by other leading thinkers of the time. They would dwell on the few discrepancies in his observations as well as criticize the man himself as a way of delaying the acceptance of this important theory, thus delaying the breakthroughs in science that it could explain.
This story sounds very familiar to what I see play out in companies that are trying to make their cultures more customer-focused. While we know that listening to and acting upon customer feedback is a good business strategy, it’s almost sure to create some resistance in the organization. Instead of working on the essentially correct insights, much too much effort goes into discussing where the insights are wrong or a waste of effort. Sometimes, they even attack the messenger personally, too.
Helping your organization become more customer-focused really is an exercise in scientific discovery. Just like Isaac Newton had to overcome his detractors, so too do we. Keep the faith and keep pushing your organization. It’s worth it.
Originally published in Customer Connection July 13, 2009.
In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton made perhaps the most important scientific discovery of all time when he published his theory of gravity. It built upon the work of Copernicus and Galileo who were the first to suggest that perhaps the Earth was not the center of the universe. His theory, while not perfect, was essentially correct. When it was employed, time after time and observation after observation, it helped explain many of the key questions of the times. Looking back today, it’s hard to believe that Newton’s genius was not embraced by other leading thinkers of the time. They would dwell on the few discrepancies in his observations as well as criticize the man himself as a way of delaying the acceptance of this important theory, thus delaying the breakthroughs in science that it could explain.
This story sounds very familiar to what I see play out in companies that are trying to make their cultures more customer-focused. While we know that listening to and acting upon customer feedback is a good business strategy, it’s almost sure to create some resistance in the organization. Instead of working on the essentially correct insights, much too much effort goes into discussing where the insights are wrong or a waste of effort. Sometimes, they even attack the messenger personally, too.
Helping your organization become more customer-focused really is an exercise in scientific discovery. Just like Isaac Newton had to overcome his detractors, so too do we. Keep the faith and keep pushing your organization. It’s worth it.
Originally published in Customer Connection July 13, 2009.
There are a lot of excuses that come up when a company is rationalizing why they can’t become more customer-focused. In my 27 years in this business, I have heard a lot of them. Here are three common ones that I hear all the time. I also offer a counter argument for each excuse.
Excuse #1: “We don’t have a good way to communicate efficiently with our customers. We don’t have access to their emails.”
What you should be doing instead: You really need to be accumulating customer emails in your customer database. I guarantee your sales and account reps are communicating with customers in this way. In the information economy, customer contact information is a corporate asset. Start treating it as such.
Excuse #2: “Our sales reps stay very close to our customers. We trust them to tell us everything we need to know about our customer relationships."
What you should be doing instead: Allowing the Voice of the Sales force to “proxy” as the Voice of the Customer is the equivalent of skipping your annual physical because you “feel OK”. Taking an accurate and objective measurement on the health of your relationships in regular intervals is essential to being customer-focused.
Excuse #3: “Now isn’t a great time to be talking to our customers. We’ve made some changes to our business model that could have affected them adversely. We don’t really want to stir anything up by asking for their opinions."
What you should be doing instead: The above excuse assumes that customers aren’t going to be talking about it anyway. If you are changing the business (and when are we not?) that is exactly the time when it is most critical to be monitoring the state of your relationships.
In our No Excuses approach, there are no valid reasons why companies should be avoiding or delaying initiatives that improve the understanding of how customer relationships affect business performance. This is the mandate for customer advocates.
Originally posted in Customer Connection on June 23, 2009.
Excuse #1: “We don’t have a good way to communicate efficiently with our customers. We don’t have access to their emails.”
What you should be doing instead: You really need to be accumulating customer emails in your customer database. I guarantee your sales and account reps are communicating with customers in this way. In the information economy, customer contact information is a corporate asset. Start treating it as such.
Excuse #2: “Our sales reps stay very close to our customers. We trust them to tell us everything we need to know about our customer relationships."
What you should be doing instead: Allowing the Voice of the Sales force to “proxy” as the Voice of the Customer is the equivalent of skipping your annual physical because you “feel OK”. Taking an accurate and objective measurement on the health of your relationships in regular intervals is essential to being customer-focused.
Excuse #3: “Now isn’t a great time to be talking to our customers. We’ve made some changes to our business model that could have affected them adversely. We don’t really want to stir anything up by asking for their opinions."
What you should be doing instead: The above excuse assumes that customers aren’t going to be talking about it anyway. If you are changing the business (and when are we not?) that is exactly the time when it is most critical to be monitoring the state of your relationships.
In our No Excuses approach, there are no valid reasons why companies should be avoiding or delaying initiatives that improve the understanding of how customer relationships affect business performance. This is the mandate for customer advocates.
Originally posted in Customer Connection on June 23, 2009.
In the course of my career, I have had the pleasure to meet with many senior leadership teams and talk about how their customer relationships interact and impact their business results. It seems to happen more and more often and that is a good thing for our business—and our clients too. I’ve been on a role lately having done three of them in a relatively short period of time. I just wish I could do two or three every week.
It is always a positive experience, not only for our company, but for the clients too—both the senior leaders and our customer advocates. We add more value to our clients business. The senior management gains insight into the customer. And, our customer advocates' roles become more important moving forward.
I can make three generalizations about the senior executive meetings I have attended:
1. We “zero-in” on a few key aspects and to the “bottom line” in short order.
2. The information is received incredibly well.
3. A call for action always occurs.
My take on this is that good executives are more worried about what they don’t know than what they already know. It is the nature of the successful executive to continuously be improving all aspects and systems within the business. In order to do that, one must be taking in multiple sources of input—both old and new—and integrating that information into other things that are known.
Senior executives seem to have a real appetite for customer feedback and quickly relate it to other things going on in the business. They relish the opportunity to collaborate on the interpretation and outcomes. They don’t get hung up with contradictions or ambiguity that is inherently found in customer relationship information and are not particularly sensitive to less than favorable news. To paraphrase an old saying, “they seem to enjoy finding something to be paranoid about.”
If you want your company acting on customer information—it’s always easier if it starts from the top. If your senior execs aren’t reviewing the information, implications, and action plans at least annually (semi-annually or quarterly is preferred), make a commitment and make it happen. You won’t be sorry and your stock in the company will rise. If we can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask. Like I said, I wish I did it two or three times every week.
Originally posted in Customer Connection June 10, 2009.
It is always a positive experience, not only for our company, but for the clients too—both the senior leaders and our customer advocates. We add more value to our clients business. The senior management gains insight into the customer. And, our customer advocates' roles become more important moving forward.
I can make three generalizations about the senior executive meetings I have attended:
1. We “zero-in” on a few key aspects and to the “bottom line” in short order.
2. The information is received incredibly well.
3. A call for action always occurs.
My take on this is that good executives are more worried about what they don’t know than what they already know. It is the nature of the successful executive to continuously be improving all aspects and systems within the business. In order to do that, one must be taking in multiple sources of input—both old and new—and integrating that information into other things that are known.
Senior executives seem to have a real appetite for customer feedback and quickly relate it to other things going on in the business. They relish the opportunity to collaborate on the interpretation and outcomes. They don’t get hung up with contradictions or ambiguity that is inherently found in customer relationship information and are not particularly sensitive to less than favorable news. To paraphrase an old saying, “they seem to enjoy finding something to be paranoid about.”
If you want your company acting on customer information—it’s always easier if it starts from the top. If your senior execs aren’t reviewing the information, implications, and action plans at least annually (semi-annually or quarterly is preferred), make a commitment and make it happen. You won’t be sorry and your stock in the company will rise. If we can be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask. Like I said, I wish I did it two or three times every week.
Originally posted in Customer Connection June 10, 2009.
We have been discussing the ways to make sure that our companies take action and make customer-focused improvements. One of the essential elements is to engage senior leaders. Change will happen much faster when it is supported from the top. How do we make sure that we have commitment and support from the top of the organization?
The answer to this question begins with translating customer feedback into concepts that resonate with senior leaders. As customer advocates, we are too quick to conclude that the senior leaders don’t care about the customer. We buy into the fact that we can’t be customer-focused and drive good financial outcomes. We even say things like “Our senior leaders aren’t customer-focused. They only care about the financial results”. But what if we take the position that these two things are one in the same?
This is exactly why we are adamant about the need to link customer feedback with business results. It becomes compelling to senior leaders. Here are three tips to make your communications with senior leaders more convincing.
1. Don’t talk about “truly loyal customers.” Talk about “customers that are growing their share with you and are more profitable.”
2. Don’t talk about “high risk customers.” Talk about “customers that will not be retained.”
3. Don’t talk about changes in customer loyalty in a vacuum. Convert the customer metrics into projections about operating results and then talk about the potential impact on revenue or earnings.
Changing our mindset about the value we bring to senior management is a first step to making an impact on the business. As always, let me know if I can help.
Originally posted in Customer Connection June 3, 2009.
At the Walker Spring Forum last month, we rolled out a framework for World Class Customer Listening. After several years of development, we have “cracked the code” on how to make positive things happen for a business by leveraging the voice of the customer. It is no longer a matter of us knowing what to do. We do know what to do. It is only a matter of commitment to do what it takes and that is why we have instituted a “zero-tolerance” policy for failure to take action.
One of the six cornerstones of our World Class Customer Listening Framework is “Validation”. To us, validation means that we can prove that positive customer relationships yield the kind of financial results we desire in the business. This is how we make our work relevant to senior executives. Through validation we can talk not about customer loyalty in terms of something warm and fuzzy, but as a solid business strategy. We can calculate the ROI on customer-focused initiatives. We can talk about what we do as customer advocates as not something extra to do, but as an essential element in the future of our company’s sustainability.
Ten years ago, creating the link between customer loyalty and financial outcomes was just a dream. We were pretty sure that it was logical—but we could not prove it. Today, not only can we prove it, but increasingly we can diagnose and predict how changes in customer relationships will affect those financial outcomes.
There are lots of excuses for why the validation can’t work but none of them are valid. All it requires is some initiative, discipline, and perseverance.
If you are running into any of these excuses in your environment, please contact us. We would love to help you overcome these and in the process, we will make customer listening a mission-critical aspect of your management information.
Originally posted in Customer Connection May 27, 2009
One of the six cornerstones of our World Class Customer Listening Framework is “Validation”. To us, validation means that we can prove that positive customer relationships yield the kind of financial results we desire in the business. This is how we make our work relevant to senior executives. Through validation we can talk not about customer loyalty in terms of something warm and fuzzy, but as a solid business strategy. We can calculate the ROI on customer-focused initiatives. We can talk about what we do as customer advocates as not something extra to do, but as an essential element in the future of our company’s sustainability.
Ten years ago, creating the link between customer loyalty and financial outcomes was just a dream. We were pretty sure that it was logical—but we could not prove it. Today, not only can we prove it, but increasingly we can diagnose and predict how changes in customer relationships will affect those financial outcomes.
There are lots of excuses for why the validation can’t work but none of them are valid. All it requires is some initiative, discipline, and perseverance.
If you are running into any of these excuses in your environment, please contact us. We would love to help you overcome these and in the process, we will make customer listening a mission-critical aspect of your management information.
Originally posted in Customer Connection May 27, 2009
My colleagues and I got engaged in a discussion about how we might define the constructs of a customer-focused organization. We were just throwing out some ideas and trying to figure out how to quantify them. This is actually what we do—what we are good at—taking something that has not been measured scientifically and figuring out how to do it. It was a very thought-provoking and stimulating discussion and I thought it was worthy of sharing with you here.
I have written multiple times about how customer advocates need to behave in certain ways if they are to drive the kind of change customer-focused change that we envision. It’s like any other change you try to make to your business, your family or your personal life. First you have to change your attitude and then you begin the harder work of changing your habits.
As customer advocates, we spend considerable time analyzing and understanding what it is that our companies should be doing to become more customer-focused. We also spend time commenting about what others in the company (salespeople, functional and business unit leaders, and senior management) ought to be doing to drive the business based on the customer feedback. But how much are we driving our activities as advocates? Are we doing the right things to make it happen? Here’s a quick inventory for you to use to challenge yourself to see if you are engaged in the right behaviors.
1. How much of your work time do you spend alone analyzing, preparing, and organizing vs. spending time talking with others about customer focus?
2. Of that time spent with others, how much is internal vs. external?
3. Of the time spent with others internally, how much is focused on the process of understanding the customer vs. the outcomes the customers are seeking or demanding?
4. How often is the word “customer” used in the communications you personally issue to your company?
5. If I looked at your company’s org chart and pointed to the major units, in how many of them could you identify someone in that organization that “gets it”?
Mahatma Gandhi is credited with the quote -“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” There is nothing that could be more appropriate for how customer advocates should behave. It is an aspiration and can help keep you focused on doing the right things right!
In preparing to write something this week, I often go back and review what I wrote the previous week. Last week I wrote about the good things that happened at our Spring User Forum and upon reviewing what I wrote, it dawned on me that I have effectively “thrown down the gauntlet” on taking action. Essentially, we are no longer accepting any excuses for delaying the efforts to improve our customer focus. I stated that we have a solid framework for how the best customer-focused companies operate and that it is not a matter of what or how to do things. The question then becomes, “Do we have the resolve and the discipline to do them?”
One of the six key elements of our framework for world-class customer focus is called “Relevance and Alignment”. This aspect of the framework describes the extent to which listening to customers and acting upon their feedback has become a part of the everyday processes and activities of the organization. I recently saw a best practice in this area that every customer advocate should be implementing immediately within their organization. It goes as follows:
Each week, customer comments are culled from the feedback and a list of “Customer Resolutions” is created by the customer advocate. The customer advocate sends it to her boss who, in turn, sends it onto the division president. After review and understanding, the president then assigns the items on the list to the appropriate manager or department. The follow up on these items becomes part of the weekly cycle of reporting along with new issues that are raised. This closed-loop process over time has simultaneously resulted in faster resolution of customer issues and also an overall reduction of customer complaints.
This is a very simple and effective way to change culture and it reminds me of one of the basics models of how you go about improving importance. It can be boiled down to three simple steps:
1. State the expectations for performance (follow up and resolve customer issues).
2. Role model the behavior (weekly discipline on reporting and assigning).
3. Institute accountability (closed loop process).
I will plan to continue to post entries around the theme of "Zero Tolerance" in the future. A key takeaway for this week is to assess how much of our time we spend talking about taking action versus actually taking the action to the organization. Let's resolve to spend more time doing the latter.
Originally posted in Customer Connection May 5, 2009.
Last week I wrote about how much I was looking forward to our annual User Forum. My enthusiastic anticipation was not in vain. We had a great meeting and continued our tradition of advancing the thinking and practice of how to make companies more customer-focused. The event confirmed for me that when you bring the leading thinkers together to tackle common problems, the sum is greater than the parts and great progress can be made. As customer advocates, we need to support and learn from each other. Below are three reflections I had from the time I spent last week:
1. Reinforcement of the concept of “customer-focus” as a journey. I have written about this topic many times but we just have to learn how to enjoy the ride because customer focus is not a destination. While all of the companies in attendance expressed current frustrations, all of them also acknowledged that progress and improvement had been achieved over the past. It is very apparent with the companies that are in the more mature phases of their efforts, are operating at a different level than those that are just starting the journey. The job of making your company customer-focused is never really done, but it is meaningful and valuable. Besides the alternative (being less customer-focused) is not an option.
2. No more excuses for not taking action. For the past five years, we have been asking our clients what their biggest challenges are. Within the past two years or so, we started asking other companies (“our future clients”) as part of our prospecting and business development activities. At the top of both lists has consistently been the challenge of “getting the organization to take action on customer feedback and improve the business.” At this forum, we presented a framework of the six critical foundations of taking action. More about the framework some other time. The general consensus was that the problem of failing to take action is not a matter of knowing what to do—we do! Rather, the issue is how disciplined and resolute are we, as advocates, to make the right kind of action happen. From now on, we at Walker, are instituting a zero-tolerance policy on excuses for not making customer-focuses action happen at your company. We know what to do and we know how to do it! Bring on your challenges.
3. We need access to the business operators to make it happen faster. One of the consistent findings is that success at taking action is greatly accelerated when a business leader—not a customer advocate but a business unit, line or department manager—starts embracing our knowledge as a tool to help them accomplish their business objectives. We cannot continue to guess what information they might like or worse yet, blast them with reams of data and ask them to sift through it to find what they need. This is not that hard to do. We need to sit down with them, discuss their business issues, and how insights about the customer might impact these issues. Based on these discussions, we commit to come back with some customer insights that might help solve the business issue. As we present our information against the business issue, the business leader will give us more insight and the process repeats. This continuing and iterative dialogue eventually creates a business champion that is using the information in a fashion that doesn’t make it seem like something extra to do. In return, we get an ally in our quest to improve our customer focus. I’ve seen this work dozens of times over the past few years. Don’t think it work in your environment, try us.
It really is a great experience to immerse one’s self with smart, well-intentioned and like-minded people to advance your understanding and knowledge. It is also always good to keep your perspective on any journey, and especially the customer-focused one. Yes, we still have a long way to go, but look at how far we have come and how much we have learned.
Originally posted in Customer Connection April 28, 2009.
I’m writing this entry today from the beautiful location of Dana Point, CA. We are here to host our annual Spring User Forum which begins later today and runs through a lunch on Wednesday. Then we move the meeting up to San Jose for the inaugural executive forum. This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I get to spend quality time with our clients and my colleagues. I get much of the strategic input that we use to drive our business. Best of all, I get to watch a great group of smart, like-minded professionals advance the thinking around how the voice of the customer drives successful business models. Even though it hasn't yet begun, I know great things will be accomplished before this week is done.
One of the reasons that I know good things will emerge is that we have been at this for more than a decade. We launched our first User Forum in Chicago in March 1998. Only about ten clients braved blizzard conditions to attend a half day session, but it was clear that we were onto something that would change our way of conducting our business. We borrowed the User Forum concept from what we saw many of our technology clients doing—bringing their users together in a environment where it was safe to share—not only successes and best practices—but also pitfalls, obstacles and challenges. In order to create this environment of trust, we committed from day one to keep these events exclusive for Walker clients and we remain committed to that principle today.
From these humble beginnings, our Forums have grown in attendance, content, format and discussion. In recent years we have been holding two client forums a year—one in the spring in a nice western US location and the other in the fall in Indianapolis. Attendance peaked at our spring forum last year in Sonoma County, CA where we had more than 70 clients from more than 25 companies participate. Our attendance this week will be off due to the travel restrictions and general economy but between the three days in Dana Point and the Executive Forum, we will still have 32 clients representing 17 companies. For that, we are grateful. We are real excited about the addition of the Executive Forum and plan to continue to develop that offering.
One of the enduring themes of my blog entries has been around learning to enjoy the “journey” of becoming more customer-focused. The beginning of this latest forum seems to conjure up an analogy of visiting a favorite vacation spot or returning back to your home town. While some things may change, many of the other things endure. It’s good to remind yourself where you have come from so you can understand where you are going.
When I reflect on all of the forums that I have been fortunate to attend, I see that many of the same issues and challenges remain, but that we have indeed made progress, increasing our insights, elevating the level and depth of our discussion and understanding. We have improved, and will continue to improve our company’s business performance and the conditions for our customers. This is an ongoing effort that will never be finished but is purposeful and worthy of the effort we give to it. It requires perseverance, discipline and perspective.
How am I so confident that good things will occur this week? Well, how could it not, when we assemble the people who are responsible for keeping these great companies focused on their customers? I have said it each time we have come together and I will say it many times this week. The collective brainpower applied to this subject this week, will be unmatched anywhere on earth. We will envision a better future and then go about creating it.
Originally posted in Customer Connection April 20, 2009.One way to envision the ideal customer-focused company of the future is to reflect on a time when things were much simpler. Travel back with me, at least 100 years,—before mass marketing, large scale media advertising, big box retailers and lean manufacturing.
Think about being a member of a small village in the late 1800’s and how commerce might have been conducted. Imagine yourself as a member of such a community—maybe you are a local farmer, or a shopkeeper, or a blacksmith or other service provider. You know all of your customers by name and how they each like to acquire and use your products and services. You personalize things because it makes good business sense and word-of-mouth is very powerful. You don’t dare mess with the quality of your offering and if you do have a problem, you fix it fast and make it right because you can’t afford not to. Not only are you a provider to most everyone in the community, but you are a customer of most them to, because in these simpler times, people really had to depend on each other.
In many ways, the aspiration of a truly customer-focused company in today’s environment would be to emulate the much more simple days of the past. Even though our companies are much bigger and our solutions are much more complex we are still seeking to interact with our customers on a much more personal way. Various technologies are accelerating this impact. The Internet, social networking and mobile communications are serving to make the global marketplace look more like the modern day equivalent of the late 1800’s village. Word-of-mouth travels fast and much of the communication about the products and services are controlled by the customers, not the suppliers. So, what does this mean to us as customer advocates?
In the future, the customer experience will be even more heavily weighted to what the customer says it is. Your company will have less and less control over how the quality and value of your offerings will be assessed. Perhaps more impactful, will be the customer’s ability to communicate this message to anyone and everyone instantaneously.
Customer advocates must continue to condition their organizations for the new future by insisting that customer input be listened to, organized, analyzed objectively and acted upon continuously. Maybe the future isn’t that much different than the past?
Originally posted in Customer Connection April 13, 2009.
Think about being a member of a small village in the late 1800’s and how commerce might have been conducted. Imagine yourself as a member of such a community—maybe you are a local farmer, or a shopkeeper, or a blacksmith or other service provider. You know all of your customers by name and how they each like to acquire and use your products and services. You personalize things because it makes good business sense and word-of-mouth is very powerful. You don’t dare mess with the quality of your offering and if you do have a problem, you fix it fast and make it right because you can’t afford not to. Not only are you a provider to most everyone in the community, but you are a customer of most them to, because in these simpler times, people really had to depend on each other.
In many ways, the aspiration of a truly customer-focused company in today’s environment would be to emulate the much more simple days of the past. Even though our companies are much bigger and our solutions are much more complex we are still seeking to interact with our customers on a much more personal way. Various technologies are accelerating this impact. The Internet, social networking and mobile communications are serving to make the global marketplace look more like the modern day equivalent of the late 1800’s village. Word-of-mouth travels fast and much of the communication about the products and services are controlled by the customers, not the suppliers. So, what does this mean to us as customer advocates?
In the future, the customer experience will be even more heavily weighted to what the customer says it is. Your company will have less and less control over how the quality and value of your offerings will be assessed. Perhaps more impactful, will be the customer’s ability to communicate this message to anyone and everyone instantaneously.
Customer advocates must continue to condition their organizations for the new future by insisting that customer input be listened to, organized, analyzed objectively and acted upon continuously. Maybe the future isn’t that much different than the past?
Originally posted in Customer Connection April 13, 2009.
One of the things that customer advocates need to be aware of and deal with is the notion that customer satisfaction and loyalty is a quick fix. That “customer satisfaction” is something that a company or management team can “check off their list” and then get back to doing more important things. There are a lot of influences out there that try to peddle this thinking.
I recently read about a Tampa-based health care plan that touted its very well-known ranking for customer service only to have federal regulators suspend them from signing up new clients, because of poor service. In the credit crises of last fall, one of the first large banks to be acquired by an even larger bank at a “fire sale price” was the same bank that publicly claimed to have some of the highest recommend scores in the industry. It seems almost daily that I hear a radio ad for a car insurance provider that claims “97% customer satisfaction”—whatever that means? It must work, because I hear the commercial all the time.
It is this kind of thinking that fuels the perception that achieving customer loyalty is an end unto itself, rather than an on-going journey to discover the truth. If customer metrics do not predict business outcomes with increasing accuracy, of what value are they? It would be like a doctor telling a patient that the treatment he is receiving is showing improvement, only the patient keeps getting sicker.
I have written a lot in previous entries about the importance of the science we use to measure how customers behave. This is not simply an academic interest or bias that I have, but a very functional and well-grounded principal of scientific discovery. All scientific advances are the results of failures that lead to better understanding and better methods. Again, I will turn to the medical analogies.
In the United States today, the incidence of infant mortality is approximately 0.7%, essentially unchanged since the year 2000. That is, 7 out of 1000 babies die before reaching their first birthday. Most experts believe that the rate in the year 1900 exceeded 300 out of 1000—as this was the data provided in the major cities of the day. No doubt it was higher in the rural areas. This is an incredible example of improvement in a valid indicator and is a testament to the improvement that we have made in health care in the past century. Think about it—30% of babies dying within the first year to less than 1%? But it took 100 years of improvement! (By the way, still today depending on the year, 25 to 30 countries in the world have better infant mortality rates than the U. S.)
Will medical doctors and researchers continue to lower the infant mortality rate? I believe that they will, because even 7 out of 1000 are still too horrible to imagine for the seven families affected. Thankfully, there are people who will not accept that we have reached the limit of what is possible.
And so it is with our efforts to understand how customer loyalty drives business success. Businesses that really do have good customer relationships will not fail or will have many more good outcomes than bad. It is also in these companies where the work of improving the customer focus is never really done. The company that is truly dedicated to accurately understanding how its customer relationships relate to business outcomes will, in the long term, be more successful.
As a customer advocate, make sure that you define “customer focus”, not in terms of proving how great you are, but rather by explaining how much more improvement is still left to be accomplished. Enjoy the journey, read the map objectively, and never get too satisfied about reaching the destination.
Originally published in Customer Connection on April 7, 2009.
I recently read about a Tampa-based health care plan that touted its very well-known ranking for customer service only to have federal regulators suspend them from signing up new clients, because of poor service. In the credit crises of last fall, one of the first large banks to be acquired by an even larger bank at a “fire sale price” was the same bank that publicly claimed to have some of the highest recommend scores in the industry. It seems almost daily that I hear a radio ad for a car insurance provider that claims “97% customer satisfaction”—whatever that means? It must work, because I hear the commercial all the time.
It is this kind of thinking that fuels the perception that achieving customer loyalty is an end unto itself, rather than an on-going journey to discover the truth. If customer metrics do not predict business outcomes with increasing accuracy, of what value are they? It would be like a doctor telling a patient that the treatment he is receiving is showing improvement, only the patient keeps getting sicker.
I have written a lot in previous entries about the importance of the science we use to measure how customers behave. This is not simply an academic interest or bias that I have, but a very functional and well-grounded principal of scientific discovery. All scientific advances are the results of failures that lead to better understanding and better methods. Again, I will turn to the medical analogies.
In the United States today, the incidence of infant mortality is approximately 0.7%, essentially unchanged since the year 2000. That is, 7 out of 1000 babies die before reaching their first birthday. Most experts believe that the rate in the year 1900 exceeded 300 out of 1000—as this was the data provided in the major cities of the day. No doubt it was higher in the rural areas. This is an incredible example of improvement in a valid indicator and is a testament to the improvement that we have made in health care in the past century. Think about it—30% of babies dying within the first year to less than 1%? But it took 100 years of improvement! (By the way, still today depending on the year, 25 to 30 countries in the world have better infant mortality rates than the U. S.)
Will medical doctors and researchers continue to lower the infant mortality rate? I believe that they will, because even 7 out of 1000 are still too horrible to imagine for the seven families affected. Thankfully, there are people who will not accept that we have reached the limit of what is possible.
And so it is with our efforts to understand how customer loyalty drives business success. Businesses that really do have good customer relationships will not fail or will have many more good outcomes than bad. It is also in these companies where the work of improving the customer focus is never really done. The company that is truly dedicated to accurately understanding how its customer relationships relate to business outcomes will, in the long term, be more successful.
As a customer advocate, make sure that you define “customer focus”, not in terms of proving how great you are, but rather by explaining how much more improvement is still left to be accomplished. Enjoy the journey, read the map objectively, and never get too satisfied about reaching the destination.
Originally published in Customer Connection on April 7, 2009.
I have periodically referenced my interest in and affinity for various inspirational messages. I subscribe to a variety of sites that provide me with daily inspiration. I know, it’s corny, but it works for me. One of my favorites is Simple Truths. I received a message the other day that included this video and book. You can go to this site and watch the video or scan the book.
Simple Truths Video
Simple Truths Book
The central message is that “success” should be defined, not in terms of what happens to us, but by having a clear vision of what we want to achieve, how we think about it, and how hard we work at it. While this simple truth can be applied to most life journeys, I think it is particularly relevant for customer advocates. Consider the following as a possible guide for your customer-focused efforts:
1. Be secure in the fact that your company will benefit from your efforts to make it more customer-driven. Your cause is just!
2. Have a long term goal that is idealistic, and articulate it to everyone you interact with.
3. Be realistic about what you can accomplish in the short run. Break the task down into very manageable tasks. Here’s a few examples:
a. I’m going to get five account managers to understand how to use this feedback during this month.
5. As you engage others (like account managers, your marketing communications folks, and department leadership) discuss mutual goals, document them, and help hold them accountable. Soon you’ll see that they will value your efforts as you help them achieve their goals.
I know it may seem trite and naïve, but things really do work out over the long run for the people that have high intent and do the right things. Don’t let little things get you down or naysayers to distract you from what you know is right. Make sure you are planting corn and not poison.
Originally published in Customer Connection March 31, 2009.
Simple Truths Video
Simple Truths Book
The central message is that “success” should be defined, not in terms of what happens to us, but by having a clear vision of what we want to achieve, how we think about it, and how hard we work at it. While this simple truth can be applied to most life journeys, I think it is particularly relevant for customer advocates. Consider the following as a possible guide for your customer-focused efforts:
1. Be secure in the fact that your company will benefit from your efforts to make it more customer-driven. Your cause is just!
2. Have a long term goal that is idealistic, and articulate it to everyone you interact with.
3. Be realistic about what you can accomplish in the short run. Break the task down into very manageable tasks. Here’s a few examples:
a. I’m going to get five account managers to understand how to use this feedback during this month.
b. I’m going to get our customer-driven effort branded inside my company and get on the homepage in the company intranet this quarter.
c. This week, I’m going to get a meeting scheduled with the leadership of the customer service department, go over their results and help them create an action plan.
4. Write down all of your goals, keep track of them and measure your performance. Over time you will see small improvements and quick wins turn into momentum and support for your efforts. 5. As you engage others (like account managers, your marketing communications folks, and department leadership) discuss mutual goals, document them, and help hold them accountable. Soon you’ll see that they will value your efforts as you help them achieve their goals.
I know it may seem trite and naïve, but things really do work out over the long run for the people that have high intent and do the right things. Don’t let little things get you down or naysayers to distract you from what you know is right. Make sure you are planting corn and not poison.
Originally published in Customer Connection March 31, 2009.
I have often written about how important it is for customer advocates to “enjoy the journey” of helping their companies become more customer focused. That is because the work is never really done. You are never totally "customer-focused." You can only hope to be keeping up with the changes in the marketplace as quickly as or quicker than your competition.
This need to keep ourselves motivated as customer advocates was recently reinforced to me while talking to a group of folks. They were discouraged that their efforts had to be constantly reinforced, redoubled, and supported. They were really griping. It reminded me of what the legendary business guru, Zig Ziglar, once said “People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”
Think about this. If we stopped bathing, we could pick up anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour of productive time each day. Think of what you get done with that extra time? Then think about how you might feel, or worse yet, smell after a couple of days? This is a great analogy for how we think about “customer focus” in our companies. If we stopped trying to make our companies more customer focused, we might pick up some more time in the short run, but the long term impacts would be really stinky. As a matter of fact, companies can’t survive for very long without being customer focused at some level and that’s why the companies that are the best at being customer focused outperform their competitors.
This got me thinking that the name “Customer Advocate” is perhaps a little too tame for what we really need to become. Perhaps we should call ourselves “Activists.” This conjures up visions of those who take to the street in protest, holding up signs, doing sit-ins until our companies “get it” and improve their customer focus. Or maybe, we should consider ourselves “Evangelists.” You know, on a crusade to change the minds of people and spread the good news to all who will listen.
I offer these thoughts only slightly in jest. The reality is that if you are going to make your companies more customer focused, you will have to be part advocate, part activist, and part evangelist. You must never relent or let your organization become complacent, or think for a minute that your company can succeed or thrive while devaluing the customer. You have to tell the story to everyone in the company, in all departments and at all levels. Many will not “get it” and some others will even work against you. You have to be unreasonable and hard-nosed but also be a counselor and psychologist.
Returning to Mr. Ziglar, in order for us to fulfill our mission as customer advocates, we really do need to insist on a new standards for customer-focused hygiene in our companies by making it not something extra to do, but by making it part of our everyday routine.
Originally posted in Customer Connection March 18, 2009.
This need to keep ourselves motivated as customer advocates was recently reinforced to me while talking to a group of folks. They were discouraged that their efforts had to be constantly reinforced, redoubled, and supported. They were really griping. It reminded me of what the legendary business guru, Zig Ziglar, once said “People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”
Think about this. If we stopped bathing, we could pick up anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour of productive time each day. Think of what you get done with that extra time? Then think about how you might feel, or worse yet, smell after a couple of days? This is a great analogy for how we think about “customer focus” in our companies. If we stopped trying to make our companies more customer focused, we might pick up some more time in the short run, but the long term impacts would be really stinky. As a matter of fact, companies can’t survive for very long without being customer focused at some level and that’s why the companies that are the best at being customer focused outperform their competitors.
This got me thinking that the name “Customer Advocate” is perhaps a little too tame for what we really need to become. Perhaps we should call ourselves “Activists.” This conjures up visions of those who take to the street in protest, holding up signs, doing sit-ins until our companies “get it” and improve their customer focus. Or maybe, we should consider ourselves “Evangelists.” You know, on a crusade to change the minds of people and spread the good news to all who will listen.
I offer these thoughts only slightly in jest. The reality is that if you are going to make your companies more customer focused, you will have to be part advocate, part activist, and part evangelist. You must never relent or let your organization become complacent, or think for a minute that your company can succeed or thrive while devaluing the customer. You have to tell the story to everyone in the company, in all departments and at all levels. Many will not “get it” and some others will even work against you. You have to be unreasonable and hard-nosed but also be a counselor and psychologist.
Returning to Mr. Ziglar, in order for us to fulfill our mission as customer advocates, we really do need to insist on a new standards for customer-focused hygiene in our companies by making it not something extra to do, but by making it part of our everyday routine.
Originally posted in Customer Connection March 18, 2009.
In this entry, I’m going to start on a new theme that I have been thinking a lot about lately. I intend to return to musing on it from time to time—like I do on measurement analogies, the history of applied sciences and other random thoughts that this blog allows me to opine upon. While much of my background is rooted in survey research, I have long been concerned that survey thinking limits our ability to envision and embrace all that customer information can provide an organization, especially in a business-to-business environment.
Using customer information to drive your business strategy, attract and retain better customers and improve your business performance is proving to be a key differentiator for many industry leading companies. By better understanding of the needs of their customers, these companies create solutions which are desired by their customers. In the process they earn the loyalty from these customers because they are viewed as business partners, problem solvers and trusted advisors. Said in perhaps a simpler and more succinct way, the beneficial outcome of developing a loyalty leading strategy is that you get better customers who are willing to pay you a premium because you help them achieve what they are trying to accomplish.
An essential input into improving our customer understanding is accurate and reliable information. For most of us that grew up in this business, that has traditionally meant survey research, but in today’s environment, it is much too limiting to think of customer information in those terms. While use of survey techniques and methodologies remain at the core of collecting the information, there are several legacies that we need to revisit as follows:
1. Instead of “sampling” we are “defining our marketplace”. We should not be taking samples or even describing what we do in terms of randomness. To the contrary, we should be aspiring to define our marketplace inside of our database and populate it with all the appropriate information we would want about each customer and update it no less than annually.
2. “Response rate” should become “marketplace coverage”. We should stop talking about how good (or bad) our response rate is. Instead we should be on a continuous-improvement effort to maximize our coverage of the essential elements desired in our “defined marketplace” (see item 1 above). Furthermore, we should seek to have the highest levels of coverage in the segments of the business that are most important to us.
3. “Analyzing the data” will now become “action planning in-and-out puts”. Way too much emphasis is placed on the output—how to present it, who to present it to, what to call it and when to use it. The word "output" even suggests what it far too often becomes—the end of the process. In our new frame of mind, this is a pivotal event that should be considered both a beginning—to a next cycle of dialogue, collaboration, and shared visioning—as well as an assessment—of the progress and improvements made in the prior period.
Survey research has given us many good tools, methods, and lessons which are useful for helping our companies become better at attracting and retaining good customers. However, there are pitfalls that can doom what should be mission-critical management information back to the pile of “interesting” reports left in a file cabinet somewhere.
Orginally posted in Customer Connection on March 10, 2009.
Using customer information to drive your business strategy, attract and retain better customers and improve your business performance is proving to be a key differentiator for many industry leading companies. By better understanding of the needs of their customers, these companies create solutions which are desired by their customers. In the process they earn the loyalty from these customers because they are viewed as business partners, problem solvers and trusted advisors. Said in perhaps a simpler and more succinct way, the beneficial outcome of developing a loyalty leading strategy is that you get better customers who are willing to pay you a premium because you help them achieve what they are trying to accomplish.
An essential input into improving our customer understanding is accurate and reliable information. For most of us that grew up in this business, that has traditionally meant survey research, but in today’s environment, it is much too limiting to think of customer information in those terms. While use of survey techniques and methodologies remain at the core of collecting the information, there are several legacies that we need to revisit as follows:
1. Instead of “sampling” we are “defining our marketplace”. We should not be taking samples or even describing what we do in terms of randomness. To the contrary, we should be aspiring to define our marketplace inside of our database and populate it with all the appropriate information we would want about each customer and update it no less than annually.
2. “Response rate” should become “marketplace coverage”. We should stop talking about how good (or bad) our response rate is. Instead we should be on a continuous-improvement effort to maximize our coverage of the essential elements desired in our “defined marketplace” (see item 1 above). Furthermore, we should seek to have the highest levels of coverage in the segments of the business that are most important to us.
3. “Analyzing the data” will now become “action planning in-and-out puts”. Way too much emphasis is placed on the output—how to present it, who to present it to, what to call it and when to use it. The word "output" even suggests what it far too often becomes—the end of the process. In our new frame of mind, this is a pivotal event that should be considered both a beginning—to a next cycle of dialogue, collaboration, and shared visioning—as well as an assessment—of the progress and improvements made in the prior period.
Survey research has given us many good tools, methods, and lessons which are useful for helping our companies become better at attracting and retaining good customers. However, there are pitfalls that can doom what should be mission-critical management information back to the pile of “interesting” reports left in a file cabinet somewhere.
Orginally posted in Customer Connection on March 10, 2009.
One of my real passions in life is being active in the community. I believe that a lot of the good fortunes that I have been blessed to enjoy have come about because of my activism in causes that are important to me. One such event occurred about two years ago when I was asked to become a member of the US Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. I just returned from a Board meeting where the state of our current economy was discussed in great candor.
The discussion at the meeting was sobering, but there were reasons to feel optimistic. At least, I came away from the meetings with some optimism and I wanted to share some of what I learned with my readers:
*President Obama’s administration has reached out to the US Chamber and included them in key discussions regarding the stimulus package, the proposed budget and other key issues that affect business. This would indicate a level of compromise/inclusion that has not been made evident in the media.
*The Chamber supported the President’s stimulus package and was influential in impacting various aspects of the bill that would have been harmful to business. While the voting in Congress was basically down partisan lines, the Chamber did work with the Administration and this bodes well for future issues.
*It was confirmed factually that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression. It’s not just media hype. The recession has now lasted 15 months and will last at least 5-6 months more. The recession of 1973-1975 lasted 16 months. The amount of household wealth that has been lost is forcing all Americans to save, invest and pay off debt. This will be a good thing for our future.
*There are encouraging signs in the housing market. With the drop in prices and a virtual halt on new housing starts, existing home sales are starting to rebound and inventory is declining. Furthermore, houses have never been more affordable for new buyers.
*The actions of the Fed last fall to restore the credit markets and stabilize the banking system are working—despite what we hear in the media. Lending seems to be loosening up and credit is flowing more normally.
*Every business person I talked to at the meeting was still focused on doing business. There was no hand-wringing or belief that the sky was falling. There was plenty of concern, but also a quiet confidence that we have what it takes to get through this difficult time.
This last observation struck me as particularly important and consistent with what I believe is the role for customer advocates in my past entries. The most successful companies (and people) are the ones who stick to the fundamentals, persevere and grind it out regardless of the circumstances. They stay focused on what they can control. It struck me that this is exactly how we will get out of this mess and restore our economy back to health.
Originally published in Customer Connection on March 5, 2009.
The discussion at the meeting was sobering, but there were reasons to feel optimistic. At least, I came away from the meetings with some optimism and I wanted to share some of what I learned with my readers:
*President Obama’s administration has reached out to the US Chamber and included them in key discussions regarding the stimulus package, the proposed budget and other key issues that affect business. This would indicate a level of compromise/inclusion that has not been made evident in the media.
*The Chamber supported the President’s stimulus package and was influential in impacting various aspects of the bill that would have been harmful to business. While the voting in Congress was basically down partisan lines, the Chamber did work with the Administration and this bodes well for future issues.
*It was confirmed factually that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression. It’s not just media hype. The recession has now lasted 15 months and will last at least 5-6 months more. The recession of 1973-1975 lasted 16 months. The amount of household wealth that has been lost is forcing all Americans to save, invest and pay off debt. This will be a good thing for our future.
*There are encouraging signs in the housing market. With the drop in prices and a virtual halt on new housing starts, existing home sales are starting to rebound and inventory is declining. Furthermore, houses have never been more affordable for new buyers.
*The actions of the Fed last fall to restore the credit markets and stabilize the banking system are working—despite what we hear in the media. Lending seems to be loosening up and credit is flowing more normally.
*Every business person I talked to at the meeting was still focused on doing business. There was no hand-wringing or belief that the sky was falling. There was plenty of concern, but also a quiet confidence that we have what it takes to get through this difficult time.
This last observation struck me as particularly important and consistent with what I believe is the role for customer advocates in my past entries. The most successful companies (and people) are the ones who stick to the fundamentals, persevere and grind it out regardless of the circumstances. They stay focused on what they can control. It struck me that this is exactly how we will get out of this mess and restore our economy back to health.
Originally published in Customer Connection on March 5, 2009.
I have received some good feedback on a few recent posts due to my use of analogies. One comment suggested I was getting a little too serious. With that in mind, I decided to “lighten up” one of my favorite analogies. This one is about getting in shape.
The role of the customer advocate for a company is really very similar to the role of a personal trainer. Some people I know have the discipline to commit to and stick with a program of diet, exercise, and habits that keep them in great shape. However, most of us need a little more structure and support. Similarly, a few rare companies are innately customer focused, but most of them have to work hard to maintain themselves in tip-top customer-retaining shape. Regardless of whether we are talking about people maintaining their individual health or companies retaining and enhancing their competitive health, there are certain similarities and patterns that can be observed.
The first lesson is that the recipe for success doesn’t vary that much from top performer to those who are on the edge of disaster. Whether you are a world-class athlete or middle-aged person trying to enhance your quality of life, you still have to:
1. Objectively measure the key indicators of health.
2. Be aware of your limitations, issues and potential injuries.
3. Set realistic and measurable improvement goals.
4. Access the right tools, advice, and expertise to drive the appropriate improvement.
5. Get started now, do not make excuses or procrastinate.
The same can be said for a company trying to improve their customer focus. Whether it be a clear industry leader or a company that is struggling, you still have to do the same things:
1. Objectively measure the existing state of your customer relationships.
2. Know what your company can commit to doing and, more important, what it cannot.
3. Set and communicate targets and time frames for improvement.
4. Ensure that you are working to improve those drivers with the most impact.
5. Don’t wait. There is always plenty to do and some improvements to be had.
Improving one’s overall health is dynamic and ever-changing. The best you can do is to work on the things that you can control—your own actions and attitude—while being aware of the things in the environment that you can’t control—like the aging process. The same is true for your customer retention efforts. Yes, your customers have choices and yes, your competitors will do what they must do. But, you have the ability to control your own actions and attitudes, and if you do those things well every day, you will keep improving and the results will follow.
Orginally posted in Customer Connection on February 25, 2009.
The role of the customer advocate for a company is really very similar to the role of a personal trainer. Some people I know have the discipline to commit to and stick with a program of diet, exercise, and habits that keep them in great shape. However, most of us need a little more structure and support. Similarly, a few rare companies are innately customer focused, but most of them have to work hard to maintain themselves in tip-top customer-retaining shape. Regardless of whether we are talking about people maintaining their individual health or companies retaining and enhancing their competitive health, there are certain similarities and patterns that can be observed.
The first lesson is that the recipe for success doesn’t vary that much from top performer to those who are on the edge of disaster. Whether you are a world-class athlete or middle-aged person trying to enhance your quality of life, you still have to:
1. Objectively measure the key indicators of health.
2. Be aware of your limitations, issues and potential injuries.
3. Set realistic and measurable improvement goals.
4. Access the right tools, advice, and expertise to drive the appropriate improvement.
5. Get started now, do not make excuses or procrastinate.
The same can be said for a company trying to improve their customer focus. Whether it be a clear industry leader or a company that is struggling, you still have to do the same things:
1. Objectively measure the existing state of your customer relationships.
2. Know what your company can commit to doing and, more important, what it cannot.
3. Set and communicate targets and time frames for improvement.
4. Ensure that you are working to improve those drivers with the most impact.
5. Don’t wait. There is always plenty to do and some improvements to be had.
Improving one’s overall health is dynamic and ever-changing. The best you can do is to work on the things that you can control—your own actions and attitude—while being aware of the things in the environment that you can’t control—like the aging process. The same is true for your customer retention efforts. Yes, your customers have choices and yes, your competitors will do what they must do. But, you have the ability to control your own actions and attitudes, and if you do those things well every day, you will keep improving and the results will follow.
Orginally posted in Customer Connection on February 25, 2009.
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