Transformers - Colloquy

I N B R I E F discuss the fundamental differences the door, they feel that four or five
in the DNA of companies that ombudsmen are there to take them
achieved a level of “belovedness” through the experience. You can
with their customers as well as their establish that comfortable persona
employees. I wanted to show what when you decide the standards
drives the decision-making in you’re hiring to, and won’t settle
these companies. I did two years for anything less.
Becoming Beloved
A C O L L O Q U Y Q & A
Conversation with Jeanne Bliss, author of
“I Love You More Than My Dog”
Jeanne Bliss, Author and Managing Partner of
Customer Bliss
Jeanne Bliss has been passionate about
customers since her start in 1983 at
Lands’ End, Inc., where she served as
head of customer experience. Today,
she is the managing partner of coaching
company Customer Bliss and the author
of Chief Customer Officer. Bliss’s
latest book, “I Love You More Than
My Dog”: Five Decisions that Drive
Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good
Times and Bad, released in October
2009, has become a BusinessWeek
bestseller and Inc. named it one of its
top books of 2009 for business leaders.
COLLOQUY sat down with Bliss to find
out more about the essential decisions
companies like Apple, Trader Joe’s,
Zappos and Southwest Airlines make
that inspire customer love and devotion.
COLLOQUY: How did the book come
about?
BLISS: This book is actually the
prequel to Chief Customer Officer,
which talked about the mechanics
of operationalizing customer
experience. But that book didn’t
of research and came up with five
essential decisions that differentiate
beloved organizations, including
deciding to believe in delivering
on a higher purpose—believing in
their employees and their customers.
Beloved companies have a humanity
about them, a personality that
establishes true connection with their
customers. They decide to give their
employees permission to bring the
best versions of themselves to work.
They operationalize from the
customer’s point of view. And they
’fess up on those occasions when
they make mistakes.
. What empowers such decisions?
A. Each of these decisions is a
corporate-held belief, which then
becomes owned at the individual
level. I wrote the book not just for the
key leaders in the company, but for
every employee. You have the power
to believe and to be believed in your
individual transactions. You have the
power to deliver on memory that
customers will take away and cherish.
It starts with how you select the people
who are part of your company.
Being clear about the personality,
characteristics and values of the
people you want to bring on board
plays a huge part in enabling them to
bring the best version of themselves
to work. Customers connect with
people they feel they could talk with
on the street, delivering a feeling of
trust. The Container Store is a great
example. Their mantra for employees
is, “Are you being Gumby?”,
communicating that the Store
requires employee flexibility on the
floor. When customers walk in
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“The biggest challenge is enabling consistency and
repetition, reinforced not by the top leaders but the middle.
It’s always about the middle.”
. What’s the biggest obstacle to
getting those important decisions to
have an impact on the company?
A. The biggest challenge is enabling
consistency and repetition, reinforced
not by the top leaders but the middle.
It’s always about the middle. The top
may have a commitment, but the
middle translates that commitment.
And these decisions aren’t layered on
like a campaign. The commitment
to customers and to these decisions
is woven into the fiber of how beloved
companies operate. For example,
IKEA designs for the price first
because they have such clarity about
their place on the planet in terms of
retail. They know clearly how much
somebody just starting out will spend
on a chair. Once you believe in your
customers and your employees, once
you have clarity in what you deliver,
and once you establish a personality
and a humanity that connects with
customers, then you create an
operating plan.
. What’s the one thing that would
make you proudest for readers to
take away from your book?
A. The understanding that they can
do this, that they can make the five
decisions that beloved companies
make—to believe, to exercise clarity
of purpose, to be real, to “be there,”
and to say “sorry” when it’s
appropriate. I would be proudest
if readers come away inspired,
believing they can do it because
anyone can do it.
To read the first chapter of “I Love
You More Than My Dog,” visit
www.colloquy.com/customerbliss
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