Customer focus at one level appears to be something
that no business should be able to do without. Yet there are countless examples
of businesses that would rather focus on unending analysis and countless
(mostly unproductive) meetings to discuss balance targets and team performance
than on understanding the voice of the customer or acting on it.
One common syndrome that afflicts many of these
organisations is the belief that they are customer centric. I am yet to meet a
CEO who says that his organisation isn’t customer centric. After-all their
sales went up last year, they conduct research once in a way and have set up a
customer service department as well. If that isn’t being customer centric, then
what is ?
To my mind, irrespective of the industry the
organisation is a part of, or its business model, an organisation that equates
customer focus and customer centricity with having a customer service cell or
infrequent research that it conducts – is in some ways like a frog in the well,
unaware and oblivious of what lies ahead and most likely to fail when the
business environment gets tough. An uptick in sales is therefore more likely to
be temporary.
To me the answer about the customer focus of an
organisation lies not in whether it has a customer service department or the
frequency with which it conducts research. It lies in focusing on the
customer at the expense of everything else. It lies in the attitude
of management when they would rather give preference to resolving customer
issues than attending to the demands of their superiors. it also depends on the
linkages of the customer insights or service teams with the rest of the
organisation and the integration of consumer feedback into the processes that
this organisation runs on. In this context, an organisation that responds,
attends to and closes customer queries, concerns or feedback in 24 hours vs 4
days would definitely be more customer focused and customer centric in its
approach.
Customer-centricity rests on 2 core pillars and a
bedrock
1. The first
pillar : Consistent and ongoing understanding of customer needs,
desires, motives and actual demonstrated behaviours including feedback on
products and services;
2. The second
pillar : Processes that collate and convert this information into insights
that become the raw material for new or altered propositions, programs and
products
3. The bedrock :
The firm belief that the organisation needs to err on side of
delivering superior customer experience even in situations where
there could be a conflict between company need and customer need.
The first pillar is all about actively and
proactively listening to customers. Informally at stores and markets etc as
well as formally through periodic research as well as through solicited and
unsolicited feedback on company’s websites, social media platforms, etc.
The second pillar is about the routing of
information gathered through above processes and to appropriate departments at
pre-defined intervals and discussions about how the insights gained can be used
to refine processes or introduce new products and services and defining both
timelines as well as process owners for the same.
The bedrock is perhaps the most critical. It is the
belief system that makes the organisation design its products and
services; it is what makes leaders and teams design processes that
continuously captures and it is what helps inculcate and percolate this value
into rest of the team members.
It therefore becomes critical for the head of the
organisation to demonstrate the same value system on a day to day basis for it
to percolate down to his team. A leader can easily get away into zillions of
other priorities on a day to day basis, but one who is customer focused would
not hesitate to roll up his sleeves to daily look at or help resolve actual
customer issues (a) from a view that the problem that caused the customer some
grief should be looked at not as an isolated incident but as a systemic issue
that must be addressed and relevant corrections made to prevent recurrence of
similar issues (b) the value of sending the right signals to the rest of the
organisation.
In this context, several corporate leaders like Mr
Anand Mahindra, are seen as trend setters. They are available to anyone who
cares to reach out to them on social media and actively address these issues.
It is not just a great practice of a leader demonstrating consumer centricity
but also a great PR tool and even better for converting aggrieved customers
into firm believers and brand advocates.
For those of you wanting to start the journey – the
chart below captures the broad points.
To make matters clear – let me explain through a
real life situation faced at one of our businesses. Through ongoing consumer
tracking in our gourmet retail business, we figured that one of the pain points
for customers was time taken to transact at the cash
tills. At one level it was a relatively minor issue that could have been
neglected as business was continuously delivering high double digit same store
growth. However, we chose to accept and address this feedback from existing
customers seriously.
The entire cashiering process was mapped to
understand that the time taken at cash tills was a function of several things
including placement of the bar code reader on the cash till, the space
available on the till for the cashier to scan products & bag them simultaneously,
updated inventory in the system, number of redundant & duplicate SKUs
carrying the same bar code as the product being scanned and training of
the new cashiers in the system (given the high attrition rates) etc. So
addressing the billing speed issue needed to actually tackle all of these for a
really meaningful impact on the customer.
Programs and action plans were made for each of the
identified issues and key responsibilities and timelines defined. For each of
the Process owners, it was ensured that relevant KPIs are modified and actions
that impacted billing speed, incorporated. Stake holders identified and Clear
targets set.
We modified our reports dashboard to have a monthly
update on billing speed for each store that could be further drilled down to
the level of each cashier and then into every transaction. Simultaneously, we
closely monitored customer feedback and as performance on billing speed
improved, we actually saw a fall in the level of complaints related to billing
speed.
The journey of capturing what is important to the
customer and actions and ownership to address the issues, is however continuous
and relentless. It is critical as well. For, customers are smart and their
observation and perception that the company creates products and services that
resonate with them or responds to their concerns and feedback in meaningful
ways, goes a long way in building their sense of overall satisfaction and
delight with the business. It also directly impacts the way they talk about the
business and recommend it to their peers et al. This perception of a company
that cares can seldom be created through a single action. It is something that
is built over time into the fabric (and the processes) of the entire
organisation through consistent effort and belief that it is the customer that
is their raison d’etre. Mere lip service to customer focus can obviously never
be enough.
