Issue 5 - Customer Service Institute of Australia

Build customer value creation into the strategy3. and planning process.Start off by ensuring the organizations businessstrategy is going to be delivered by the customerstrategy and in turn that this is going to be supportedby the data strategy.Ensure you have a balance of customer4. based measures as key indicators to managethe business. Critically, these need to be givenequal prominence as the usual effi ciency metricsby managers (adding common, enterprise widecustomer based measures is probably the singleaction that has highest leverage in driving acustomer based agenda).Ensure that the businesses product/service5. proposition is translated into terms thatemployees understand and can articulate backto customers and each. Make clear to staff thekey practical things they can do to help reinforcethe customer proposition. Celebrate and sharestories where staff go “the extra mile” to reinforcethese messages and put in place mechanismsto systematically draw up from the front line whatcustomers are saying about your products andservices.Ensure that your people / HR team have6. translated the customer proposition andbrand values into a customer centered staff hiringspecifi cation so that new hires are already alignedto the customer centered message. Starting to builda new customer centered culture with new hires willover time start to infl uence the longer serving staff.Your organization needs to handle unsuccessfulapplicants extremely well so as they becomeadvocates of your business.Encourage all executives to start listening to7. customers. Mandate that EVERY managermust make at least 4 customer visits each year(consider making this a condition of receiving theannual performance bonus). Each visit is to endwith the question to the customer “what single thingdo you think I can do personally to help improve mycompany” each executive is then to take personalresponsibility for actioning these customer basedsuggestions.Encourage customers to help you listen better.8. Establish quarterly customer councils toask them how your organization can improve thebusiness for them. Each time, reporting back on theprogress of items raised at the last event.Encourage your staff to systematically9. purchase yours and competitors’ products andservices to gauge how well yours and competitor’sproducts and services compare and to inform whereyou need to improve and consolidate your offer, andto help educate staff on what they personally can doto improve the product/service.Comprehensively map the customer10. journey through your organization from thecustomer’s point of view. Then check this processfor pain points with both staff and customers. Makemanagers specifi cally responsible for each stage inthis process and for continuously improving it.Systematically benchmark best customer11. practice in other sectors to help stretch thebest performers in your organization and to keep itout in front of competitors in your sector.Source:Eric Fraterman is a Senior Consultant at MulberryHouse Consulting, an international fi rm offeringa range of robust benchmarked organizationalcapability assessments of Customer Managementand Customer Experience Management as strategicenabler and catalyst for Customer Centered Change.Eric can be reached atEric.Fraterman@MulberryHouseConsulting.comor visit www.MulberryHouseConsulting.com“what singlething do youthink I can dopersonally tohelp improve mycompany”