FAST GUIDE: 10
Success Factors of Customer Focus
By Eric Fraterman
(Eric is a friend and strategic partner.)
What is
Customer Focus?
Customer Focus is more than Customer Service. It is an aligned
whole-organization approach to customer satisfaction and service,
leading to customer loyalty and advocacy. The result is sustainable
profitability.
In a
Customer Focused organization, Leadership, Processes and People are
customer-aligned. In broad strokes this means that:
-
Every
action is shaped by a relentless commitment to meeting and
exceeding customer expectations regarding product and service
quality.
-
Customer
touching
and supporting internal processes
are
constantly evaluated
and improved
to meet or exceed those expectations.
-
Employees
are aware of their role in maintaining a valued relationship
with their external and internal customers.
My experience based 10 Success Factors
-
Use a piloting approach. Learn, adjust and then roll out, while
using managers involved as internal change agents and catalysts.
-
Allocate role of Senior Sponsor for the initiative.
-
Create a balanced set of customer-based measures as key
indicators to manage the business and enable real accountability
for them.
-
Design Customer Focus from the outside in (driven by the Voice
of the Customer) and deliver it from the inside out (using the
Voice of the Customer to drive internal deployment, culture
change and alignment).
-
Conduct external measurements and surveys first and act on them
with clear priority setting and assigning accountability for
outcomes.
-
Do not conduct internal climate or employee satisfaction until
the Customer Focus initiative is well underway, organized,
structured, resourced and communicated.
-
Ensure that your People/HR team translates the customer needs
into Customer Focused hiring specifications.
-
Ensure that the performance management system is aligned to the
Customer Focus initiative, and measures and rewards to desired
Customer Focused behaviors and skills.
-
Ensure that middle managers and senior leaders lead by example
and do what is said; avoid the Say-Do gap trap.
-
Make communications into a forethought and harness it to support
the required cultural transformation.
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