Connor BrookeHow would you answer this question that was posed to me about a blog post I wrote recently?
I’ve been sharing a lot of customer experience lessons from a variety of different events, people, and angles in my “Customer Experience Lessons from…” series. A couple of weeks ago, after posting Customer Experience Lessons from the Great Food Truck Race, I got a question from the team at Angel: “Which of your CX tips from the Great Food Truck Race is the most important?”
That’s a fair question. And, honestly, it’s a tough one to answer with just one “most important” item. I’m not sure that there is just one lesson or aspect from that post that is most important. At the very least, I could have answered with two, and at the most, I’d need to give my top three tips. I chose to go with three. I believe the lessons I’ve chosen cover the main criteria to ensure the organization is focused on the customer experience.
My 3-Legged Stool of Customer-Centric Organizations
As I mentioned, I chose the three most important lessons from that post to answer Angel’s question. The three I chose (text straight from that post) were:
Know your brand. Know your purpose. Be true to who you are. Make sure everyone in the organization understands who you are and lives and breathes it every day.
Hire the right people. It’s so important that you hire people who are friendly, passionate about what they/you do, want the business to succeed, and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Know your customers. You can’t meet their needs until you understand who they are and what their needs are. Be aware of the fact that customers in different locations, geographies, cultures, etc. have different needs. Be prepared to address them.
That’s it. Purpose, employees, and customers.
I supposed if you forced me to choose just one, it would be to know your purpose. Your purpose is your guiding light, your North Star. Your people are focused and driven by that guiding light. Your culture, your hiring practices, your customer experience design, your customers, your leadership, everything is aligned to that purpose.
What do you think? Which one – or three – would you have chosen?
For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base. -John Mackey
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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Hi, Annette. I would have chosen customers. I find that if you START with customers, and understand their real needs, in a deep, meaningful way, your purpose takes care of itself – you see, quite clearly, what the problems are and how you can solve them. Then, because you understand that, you can guide your employees. They will be energized by the purpose, because it will be real – real issues faced by real customers who can use the real value that your firm provides. I know of nothing more invigorating to a company’s management or staff.
If, on the other hand, the managers try to create their purpose from an “us” perspective, it is subjective (therefore easily argued with) and not based on real needs (which means it won’t do well in the real-world marketplace).
Thanks for a great article.
kz
Thanks for your comment, Kristin. I appreciate you reading my post! And I understand your viewpoint. The brand’s purpose outlines why we do what we’re doing… which gives employees clarity and guides them in their decisions and actions… for the customer. And it helps customers understand why we do what we do. What we stand for. However, I agree that you can’t have a purpose without a customer. A brand, a company, is in business to fulfill a need. And whose need is that? The customer’s. :-)