In a recent Peer to Peer discussion with some CEO’s, most were defensive on the topic of how to deliver an outstanding customer experience. They mostly felt that their employees were always focused on the customer. One CEO said his company has data showing their consistent delivery of full customer satisfaction through customer surveys reflecting on time deliveries, rapid response rates on corrective actions, on time billing, and so forth.
Most companies today think they are focused on the customer. They know that because they train all employees to be focused on the customer, to try harder every day to satisfy their customers, meeting customer needs, answering calls and rapidly solving customer problems within the framework of existing job duties and work processes. But they fail to improve their value on a sustainable long term basis.
Today, it would be wrong to think that these outdated work processes and historical indicators of ‘full customer satisfaction’ come close to understanding what it means to deliver an outstanding world class customer experience. Companies focused on ‘full customer satisfaction’ are not creating value, but simply maintaining status quo.
Delivering an outstanding world class customer experience requires a process re-engineering of everything the company does. EVERY PROCESS needs to have the customer as the primary target, including operations that traditionally were considered outside the customer domain, such as maintenance, janitorial, purchasing, and accounting.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
