Strategy Focus on Customer Service
At Marriott Consulting, we often say that a CEO only has three essential duties: to go to meetings, read reports, and make decisions.
That's true. But when we talk about going to meetings, some of the most important ones will be customer meetings.
Think about it. Without customers, you don't have a business. So it makes sense not only to talk to customers, but also to listen to them, so you know first-hand what their needs and desires are. Then you can tailor your company strategy to meet those needs.
Your strategy needs to be focused on customer service throughout your organization as well, for the same reason. Here's part of an editorial from a high-tech magazine, Interactive Week (May 7), by Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, a Vice President of Ziff Davis Media, one of the largest high-tech publishers in the world.
"There may be no statistical support for this proposition. But methinks the longer a company spends talking to its customers face to face or on the line, the longer those customers will stick with the company … [and] the more loyal those customers will be. ….
"This is largely how I judge companies these days. The products must be good. But you stick with a company if it treats you well.
"That's why I find it hard to believe that a frequent benchmark of telephone support centers is call time. Call center operators constantly boast of their abilities to bring down "talk time," by minutes at first, tens of seconds later, and a second here and there, when there's almost no talk time left.
"This begs logic. This assumes that customers are wastes of time. That the only good customer interaction is no customer interaction. That you don't really want to hear from your sources of revenue. ….
"[When a customer calls with a problem or question], If your only thought is to fix the problem fast and get off the hook, you're sunk. Take your time. Show interest in the problem and in getting the right solution. Maybe when you are done, you can find out what they think of your products overall, or the company as a whole. Maybe you can sell some related products or services if the conversation goes well. Do you want a customer for life? Or just 10 seconds?"
A final thought: especially in a retail business, who are the people we depend on most to represent us to our customers — to be the essential, single point of contact with those we want to give us money? Mostly, it's the ones we pay and train the least. And too often, we reward them for speed more than for customer attention and service.
Something to think about, CEOs, in between going to meetings, reading reports, and making decisions.