Customer Focused Leadership

According to Walker’s Customers 2020 study, the role of the CX professional is changing. (This study is focused on how the customer experience industry will look in the year 2020.) Several emerging leadership roles on the customer experience management team are identified. New roles will evolve, all roles will change, and the expertise, requirements, and responsibilities will be a bit different from what they are today.

For example, the role of customer intelligence advocate will require even more in the future. These professionals will be responsible for supporting the use of customer intelligence within their part of the business which will be increasingly broad – internal operations, such as HR and Finance, Product groups, such as R&D and Product Development, and client-facing roles, such as Sales and Account Management.

What does this mean for customer intelligence advocates?

• They will be key communicators within the organization. They will need to understand, socialize and “sell” customer insights to help make change happen.
• They will work cross functionally, communicating both internally and externally.
• In addition to understanding customer feedback & insights, other critical skills will include: establishing credibility, exerting influence, and of course being great communicators.

Based on a conversation with a group of customer strategists, my take is that the customer intelligence advocate role of the future builds on what is happening today - yet kicks it up several notches. More focus and dedicated attention will be needed, along with additional skills and experience. To be successful, our VoC teams will require executive support & buy-in, along with a culture of being customer centric.

Do you have what it takes?

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

During Walker’s recent Customer Experience summit in San Diego, we focused on two major releases from Walker experts –  Customers 2020 which looks into the future of B-to-B customer experience, and Driving Results which provides a practical guide for using CX to drive action, real change and business results.  Along the way, I heard many people talking about CULTURE.  Some are just plain lucky – CX professionals that inherit a true customer-oriented culture find it to be one of their most important accelerators.  For those who aren’t so fortunate, of course, they want to know how to take steps to get there.  Usually, the place to start is leadership and securing genuine awareness and support.  But there are grassroots efforts that can change the landscape too.  Here is one such story I was fortunate to witness:

The setting…   New Voice of Customer program, with inside sales teams being asked to approach “hot alert” follow-ups with customers for the first time in a formal way

What happened?…   One particular person came on strong as an early adopter – his name is Corey.  Within a matter of days, he single-handedly contacted dozens of customers, and was able to pull from some of his roots in customer service to engage in a very positive and natural way with customers.   This activity was a natural fit for Corey and he got the job done.   Later, when Corey was asked to share his experiences at a monthly CX leadership team meeting, what started as a good thing turned into something bigger - something that could actually ignite a culture change.

So what happened next?…   Corey stood up and shared his story with 25 leaders newly charged with CX responsibilities.  With great confidence and pride, he went on to share his viewpoint:

• This was an amazing move for the company – most customers wanted to tell a story, and through this process they had the opportunity to do just that. 
• Customers were truly impressed that someone actually reached out to them about their feedback, especially this quickly.
• Despite the complexity of the business, many issues could easily be diffused within the first contact.  For some, there was simply a disconnect, and now a chance to be able to educate those customers a little bit more. 
• With great enthusiasm he said he was “very proud to be part of a company that does this and honored to be involved in this capacity by being the first touch back with customers.”  

For his efforts and probably most of all his renewed and positive attitude, he was given a big round of applause from the team.  As CX professionals, we know that closing the loop with customers can have a direct positive impact on both loyalty and future response rates, but sometimes we forget what effect it can have on the staff that participates in the process.  This type of attitude and willingness to engage with the customer is what is needed for employees to transform an organization’s culture to truly be customer focused. 

Krista Roseberry

Vice President, Consulting Services

Through our employee loyalty program here at Walker this year, a priority that was identified was an increased focus on mentoring.  As such, we have charged an internal team to re-energize our mentoring program.  There are three primary objectives for this:

1. Stay Competitive: increased competition drives the need for continuous learning, and talent development can yield competitive differentiation in a crowded market.
2. Stay Connected: increasing remote/virtual communications, social media, etc. are decreasing human connections and relationships, and mentoring offers proven ways to share our knowledge, experiences, and best practices (often in face-to-face, personal methods).
3. Stay Ahead: mentoring is shown to improve leadership elements such as retention rates, employee morale, individual self-confidence, trust, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, accelerated leadership development, reduced stress, stronger/more cohesive teams, and heightened learning.

A 2011 Sun Microsystems survey (a study conducted over 5 years) cited additional statistics to support the advantages of mentoring:

• Mentors are promoted 6x faster than those not in a program of this type
• Mentees are promoted 5x faster than those not in a program of this type
• Retention rates for both mentees (72%) and mentors (69%) are significantly higher than those who did not participate in mentoring (49%)

In addition, our own exit interviews and employee survey results show people want to stay when they are invested in relationships within the company.  With its impact on employee satisfaction and loyalty, mentoring contributes to the Service Profit Chain linking internal development investments to business success:

As the diagram depicts, mentoring can be a contributor to higher Employee Loyalty, which translates to better customer service and customer experiences, which influence stronger Customer Loyalty, which aligns with and impacts a company’s improved financial performance leading to success of the business.

Bottom line, not only is the decision to invest in mentoring reap internal benefits (such as retention, morale, trust, stronger teams, and deeper talent), but it also is strongly related to external advantages that give a company a competitive edge and a leadership advantage.

Please share your own experiences where being mentored or mentoring someone else led to a positive outcome for you in your career.

Brad Linville,

Walker Information

My family and I celebrated the U.S. Independence Day at a nearby amusement park. We spent the day at the water park and afterward, went to our hotel, had dinner, and then went back to the amusement park for the July 4th fireworks.

Upon our return, we were informed that we couldn't re-enter because we didn't get our hand stamped when we left the water park. As a season ticket holder, it never occurred to us that we needed to get our hand stamped.

The ticket agent told us to talk with guest relations to see if they would make an "exception." So, off we went.

At guest relations, we gave them our season passes and explained the situation. And then it happened. 

The young man (who is probably 18) says, "It is our policy to not allow guests to reenter the park without a hand stamp."

"Hmm. Your policy. Really?" I say.

"Yes. This policy is to protect you," he replied.

"No. I think this policy is to protect you and at the present moment, this policy is making it difficult for one of your premiere customers to enjoy your park," I reply.

Now, of course the 18 year old isn't responsible for the policy and can do little to change it.

Eventually he lets us into the park, stating, "If this happens again, we will not make another exception."

Now, as you can imagine, this soured our mood. We reentered the park aggitated questioning whether or not we'll purchase season tickets again.

While policies are inevitable, customer focused leadership should regularly review its policies to ensure they don't cause unnecessary issues for customers. They should consider options to take the burden off the customer and explore ways to protect the company, while delivering the optimal experience to their customers.

Companies should consider adding customer feedback into the incentive compensation plan when they want to...

• Create a culture of customer-focus: Creating a culture change takes time and building customer feedback into associate compensation will reinforce the importance of customer-focused actions.
• Improve customer relationships: Process improvement, product innovation, and account relationships are areas that benefit from increased use and attention to customer feedback. Improvements in these areas will benefit your customer relationships and retention strategies.
• Gain attention from key stakeholders: Customer focused leadership often face resistance for common Voice of Customer (VoC) activities, such as reviewing contact information, following up with the customers, or creating customer-led action plans. If the resistance is strong, offer an incentive to help prompt attention to these important activities.

This post was published as a part of Walker Weekly, an e-newsletter featuring best practices and tips for B-to-B customer strategy.

Have you seen this e-card yet?

For some reason it got me thinking about customer retention strategies and the role of customer focused leadership.

Here's what I mean:

Glass is half empty:  This view might say, "Our role is never done. This is a journey, not a destination, and we will face internal resistance and barriers that are going to make this journey challenging. Be prepared."

Glass is half full:  This view might say, "This isn't a journey, it is a race and the company that gets there first wins. So, what are we waiting for? Let's get going. We can do it."

Room for more wine: This view might say, "The race is a journey and the journey is a race. Some progress is better than none. So, let's start small and nail it, then scale it. We will face obstacles, but these will create opportunities for more wine (not more whining)." 

One of the common challenges we hear from customer strategists is centered around taking action. People will say things like,

"How do I get people to pay attention?"

"When I share results from our customer survey research people are engaged, but after the meeting, nothing happens."

"Our leadership team says they are committed, but they aren't engaged."

Creating a customer-focused culture has many challenges, and taking action appears to be at the top of the list.

One of the first steps to taking action is goal setting. There are many different formats and criteria that companies use for goal setting. But, I was recently reminded of one criteria that often gets overlooked  - "Excitment."

My daughters are on a swim team and each year, they set goals that are:

• Specific
• Exciting
• Believable

While I doubt requiring goals to be exciting will singularly solve the taking action challenge, excitement (and food) never hurt to get people engaged.

And, who said customer retention strategies couldn't be fun and exciting anyway?   

While Channel Partners are customers too, unlike the traditional customer, partners are able to provide a unique perspective. When it comes to Voice of Partner versus Voice of Customer survey research, consider these four differences:

1 - Many Channel Partners sell competing products and services giving them a unique perspective on what drives customer purchase decisions. Their input can help companies understand what causes a customer to purchase one product over another competing product.

2 - In a similar manner, OEMs can use partner input to understand what drives a partner to recommend one product over another.

3 - Many partners are combining an OEM's products with other products to deliver a complete solution. Having a better understanding of solution offerings, can be valuable input for the product group.

4 - Customers who purchase from a channel partner often go to the partner for support. Partners can provide a unique perspective on what is needed to support the indirect customer. This input can also be leveraged for serving the direct customer.

Corporate business strategy can benefit from insights provided by the channel. The partner perspective can be used to grow market share, enhance the product roadmap, and deliver an experience that both direct and indirect customers value.

If you are working to create a customer focused leadership position, consider including the perspective from all customer types.

Photo credit: stevendepolo

One common challenge customer-focused leadership faces is knowing the right question to answer or problem to solve. This isn't just a challenge reserved for customer strategists. It is a challenge faced by all leaders.

In the movie Moneyball, this challenge surfaces during a meeting where the Oakland A scouts discuss how they are going to replace their most valuable player. The discussion went something like this: 

Scout 1: "We're trying to solve a problem here Billy."

Billy Beane: "Not like this you're not. You're not even looking at the problem."

Scout 1: "Look Billy. We all understand what the problem is."

Billy Beane: "Good. What's the problem?"

Scout 1: "The problem is, we have to replace three key players."

Billy Beane: "No. What's the problem?"

Scout 2: "Same as it's ever been. We have to replace these guys with what we have existing."

Billy Beane: "No. What's the problem Barry?"

Scout 3: "We need 38 home runs 120 RBIs."

Billy Bean: Makes a buzzer sound indicating another wrong answer and goes on to explain the real problem.

Knowing the real problem that you are trying to address is the first step to developing a customer strategy that will ensure success. Before you get too far down any path, take a step back and challenge the problem you are trying to solve.

Once you've identified the real problem, you can design a customer satisfaction and loyalty program that is aligned with the true business need. 

• Technical Skill (for support and design)
• Capacity/Scalability The buyer company is not only growing and changing, but may also try out a new vendor with a small piece of business before ramping up the purchase.
• Competitive Pricing - the sum of vendor costs help keep the buyers competitive in their own markets
• Reputation/Brand counts, but often more as table stakes in B2B --  such as assuring financial stability, that the vendor stands by its work, etc.

Are we or aren’t we headed for a double-dip recession? Hard to say, especially since most of us feel like we never left the first recession. So how about this premise: It doesn’t matter. For most businesses right now, demand is soft, business could be better. Forget what the economists think about the macro-situation; let’s all worry about our own businesses and get them headed in the right direction.

What can we do to deal with the current environment that is, at best, apathetic and at worst, slowing from lethargic to near dead?

1.      Be confident. I’m not crazy and asking you to be confident in leadership or government. I am suggesting we all be confident in ourselves and in the value we each offer to our customers. That confidence is contagious and we could use a heavy dose of viral growth in the feel-good arena.

2.      Focus on success. Focusing on avoiding failure is much like trying not to lose—it almost certainly assures that you will. Look for ways to take advantage of the current market. Focus on positives and find the growth opportunities where you can.

3.      Celebrate wins. Don’t worry about the size of the wins, if you see some wins, call them out. Celebrate them. Get in the habit of winning. Constantly losing or underperforming tends to breed a culture or build a habit, even an expectation. Build an expectation of performance.

4.      Help your customers. First realize if your demand is not great, chances are your customers are hurting a little too. Can you help them solve some of their problems? That is what customer-focused companies do well.

5.      Co-create. Find ways to work together with your customers to identify the best way out of this bramble. There is no better time to innovate than now and no better partners than those you will be helping with your innovations.

6.      Partner with your best customers. Your best customers, those where the mutual value is the highest, are terrific sources of opportunity. If you are looking to grow your market share (after all, if the market is not growing you will have to take market share to grow), look first to grow your share of wallet within your best customers (those that view you as a partner.)

Double dip or not, there are ways for us to succeed in this soft economy. And guess what happens as one-by-one companies start to succeed? We dig ourselves out of this mess. Double dip? Maybe, maybe not. Long-term recession? It’s up to us.

This might start to sound like another sports story and candidly, it involves a sports team, the Chicago Cubs. But it is not a story about baseball, it is a story about loyalty. And let me tell you, being a Cubs fan since I was nine years old through thick and thin (OK, OK, through thin and thin) requires a LOT of loyalty.

There are a few theories as to why so many are loyal to a team that has been so unsuccessful (the Cubs have not won the World Series in over 100 years). The most common theories are the Cubs are loveable losers or have benefitted from the early nationwide broadcasts of Cubs games by WGN TV. I just heard a new theory about the real driver of loyalty to the Cubs -- what really brings people to fill the stands whether they are in last place, next to last place or teasing us with conference leadership. The new theory supposes that people are not loyal to the team, they are loyal to the Friendly Confines, Wrigley Field.

I just returned from a three generation (my dad, my son, and me) trip to Wrigley, and as much as it hurts me to say so, I think this theory has legs. I have been to at least 30 top-level professional sports venues and never do I feel the way I feel when I walk out of the inner concourse and get my first glimpse of the green grass of the infield and celebrated ivy covering the outfield walls. My first trip to Wrigley Field was 40 years ago and there have been many since, yet I still get giddy just thinking about entering Major League Baseball’s second oldest stadium.

How is this related to loyalty? Well, the important question in this case is what drives loyalty? The Cubs team was recently purchased by the Ricketts family who will need to make many decisions about the future of the team. Wrigley Field is lacking in modern amenities for the players. Should they build a new stadium? Would that be meaningful in helping the Cubs win? What would it do to attendance? Would it change the experience that fans have enjoyed for so many years? What happens if fans really are loyal to the Wrigley Field experience and not to the team?

This is a pretty simple illustration of the shortcoming of minimal discussions with your customers. If you are going to reach out to your customers and ask them to take any time to answer questions, you had better make them count. They should help you make decisions, not post a number or keep a score. Simplicity is good but not if it leads to inaction or the wrong actions. There are no “silver bullets” in terms of understanding your customers. In order to make the right decisions in a customer-focused manner, your customer information must be predictive and prescriptive rather than short and simple.

One last caveat: I’m good with a new stadium if the Cubs would start winning World Series. But I really prefer them to win in good old Wrigley Field.

When we are faced with uncertain times, the most important decisions we must make are centered around resource allocation. It usually boils down to answering this 2-part question: Where should we continue to spend (maybe even increase spending) and where should we cut back?

Different companies take different approaches, some going as far as cutting programs and resources that they admit are necessary to grow and succeed once we emerge from the economic funk we are in.

Let me propose a customer-focused approach to making these decisions. A quick clarification first: customer-focused does not mean do whatever the customer wants for whatever they want to pay. We still have to balance the needs of our business and our shareholders with that of our customers. But an approach that considers the customer and recognizes that the best way to succeed is to help customers succeed is a customer-focused approach. Your customer listening programs should give you incredible help in these decisions.

The areas in which we should continue to invest and perhaps even increase resource levels during tough times are those areas that are valuable both internally and to customers. Innovation is one of these areas…our customers are looking for new solutions and we need new solutions to grow. Innovation benefits us both and should probably continue to get resources. Initiatives that help us to deliver more value to our customers and therefore continue to realize reliable revenue streams are mutually valuable and need continued investment.

By contrast, some areas are important or valuable to neither our customers nor our businesses. You cannot cut fast enough in these areas. (Blogger note to self: any example you give here is going to hack off someone because you will be calling their efforts low value. Be smart for once and don’t go there. Better yet, create some crazy example that no one would believe. Nah, don’t be lazy, think up a real life example that is a good one…). John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems didn’t just cut in a low value area, he turned a low-value resource eater into a mutually valuable one. Chambers dumped private plane travel (no value for the customer, very little if any value for the company, high convenience value for the traveler) in favor of more frequent communication via Cisco Telepresence, putting Cisco’s product line in plain view of strategic customers. Kudos to Chambers for true Customer Focused Leadership.

Spending that is high value to the customer but low value to the company should be maintained unless it is actually detrimental to the company. In other words, low value might be acceptable if it is important enough to customers, but no or negative value is not. Same goes for spending that is of high internal value but not that valuable for our customers; maintain these areas unless they are of negative value to your customers (there are many items of no value to our customers—quality control, forecasting, accounting, bureaucracy—but necessary for our business. These are ok to maintain as long as they don’t hamper customer success. ). (Blogger note to self: Yep, you just had to go there.) These areas are important. But from our customers’ point of view, they are not value-added. Take quality control. We must deliver quality products or services and need quality checking to make sure that happens. But, customers expect it done or produced right, there is no value to them in terms of how you get there.

This model only addresses resource allocation and not individual performance. We still must deal with performance issues and look to increase the competence of our teams. After all, those teams deliver the value to our customers.

Before you cut, consider how many degrees away from customer success you are cutting. Lowering the value you deliver will start a cycle that has only a bad ending. Focus on your customer, think about your business. Find the areas that neither of you need and redeploy those resources into areas that neither of you can do without.

Once again, Willow Creek Association put on a tremendous Global Leadership Summit last week. As soon as Len Schlesinger started his presentation, I knew I was in for a whirlwind of new ideas and different ways of thinking. As President of Babson College (ranked #1 business school for entrepreneurship by U.S. News & World Report); former Harvard Professor; and noted author, he is an entrepreneurial genius. 

In the 1990’s, he and his co-authors helped us better understand how to build profitability in a service business via The Service Profit Chain (1997). Per Harvard Business Review, the service-profit chain established relationships between profitability, customer loyalty, and employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity.

More recently, Len Schlesinger has been focused on using entrepreneurship in all kinds of settings to create economic and social value. His book Action Trumps Everything (2010) makes the case that conventional approaches to problem-solving don’t work as well in an uncertain world.

Instead, a very simple framework used by successful entrepreneurs can be more effective: Act. Learn. Repeat.

1)      Act: Take a small step forward.

2)      Learn: Pause to see what you have learned by doing so.

3)      Repeat: Incorporate that learning into what you do next.

At Walker, we know that taking action can be one of the biggest challenges faced by customer strategists. I suspect that is due in part to our tendency to set aggressive, stretch goals that may at times seem unachievable. This can lead to inaction. But, what if we didn’t try to solve world hunger from the onset? 

What if we make a decision to just do something that might have a small impact? 

1)      Act: Take a small step. 

2)      Learn: After taking that first step, see what customers think and say about it in your customer feedback program. 

3)      Repeat: Then, incorporate that learning into your action plan and take another step forward.

Do we make the idea of taking action more difficult than it needs to be? 

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services 

• The kind that are focused on other things - financial management, operational efficiency, or any number of other business concerns. They know it is important to have customers, but they may not be very committed to hearing what they have to say. That is, until there's a problem.
• The kind that are supportive, but not very involved - they know it's important to use customer insights in running the business, but aren't personally very involved. Instead, they leave it to others.  
• The kind that are very customer focused - they know customer strategies drive performance and believe it is everyone's responsibility take action on customer insights. What's more, they are involved and set the example for the organization.

Companies can enhance their customer retention strategies by combining the solicited feedback from their customer survey programs, complaint management systems, and sponsored communities with the unsolicited feedback that is available through social media.

Doing this can create the following outcomes:

1. Appropriate resource allocation. By relying solely on one type of information the complete picture might not be visible. However, if both solicited and social media discussions are viewed together it will accentuate areas of the business that impact both forms of feedback.

If you are in a boat in choppy waters and you start to feel seasick, what do you do? While I'm no expert in marine medication, I have heard a common cure. Look to the landscape, find an object, and focus on it. As you stare at it, the commotion around you is not as evident to your body, your equilibrium adjusts, and your stomach begins to settle.

Over the last few years, a lot of businesses have been through some rough waters. Those that stayed focused on their customers have been able to endure the choppy economic environment and are now benefiting from better relationships, higher customer retention, increased customer loyalty, new insights on customer-focused solutions and much more.

It pays to show a little customer focused leadership when you're in rough waters.


Patrick Gibbons
Principal, SVP