I have never come across any Business Owner or Leader who decided their business should become Customer Obsessed because they heard some positive statistics about why it will change their company...no one. What did cause them to change was what they heard (or didn’t hear) from their customers.
Statistics can do whatever you want
Statistics are a tricky thing when it comes to making decisions. You can use them to support or reject any business decision. They are universal in being able to do both. Anyone can find statistics to support their claim…especially now that we have the internet and can find virtually any number we need online. So, when someone says they read some great statistics about why they should or shouldn’t do something, it’s usually because they want to simply support their position for a decision they have already made.
They are also great to use when you want to use when you want to confirm your “gut feeling” about something you want to do or don’t want to do. Most business owners will tell you they have a “Good Gut Feel” about what they should or shouldn’t do in their business. No data, just a gut feel. Who am I to challenge this…I have seen too many of them turn out to be right and a great decision for the business.
What WILL change your decision or “gut feel”
There is only one thing I have seen that will consistently trump a leader’s decision or gut feel about something…their customers. When their customers give them feedback on either their experience, a product/service, an employee, or a variety of other areas of the business, leader’s will change their decisions. And rightfully so. If their customers are expressing discontent in some way something usually happens if the company cares at all about their customers.
Or if their customers are raving about something they are doing, they will pick up on this and want to do it either more often or throughout more of their company. Capitalizing on some of the awesome things happening inside your company is just smart business.
Ask your leadership team these questions
Here are a few simple questions that would make for some great conversations at your next leadership meeting…
Your Opportunity…
The (honest) responses to these questions will help you assess whether or not you are more of a “commodity” or you are “differentiated” in the eyes of your customers. No statistics, no gut feel, just the facts. If you are truly honest with yourself you will realize you are probably closer to a commodity than you are a unique, completely differentiated organization IN THE EYES OF YOUR CUSTOMER. It really doesn’t matter what you and I think…it only matters what the people who write us checks think.
The opportunity always starts with “self-assessment” before change can happen. I can guarantee you there will be NO CHANGE until you have openly discovered (and admitted) where you are today. But once you do, amazing things can happen. You can actually start to move along the path to market domination and true differentiation in the eyes of your customer.
If you honestly answer these questions, you won’t need any statistics to support or reject your position…you will know EXACTLY where you stand. I get to do this for clients and it is eye-opening. We discover things that the leadership team would never know by what they were currently doing. This first step is an amazing opportunity to take the first step to becoming more CUSTOMER OBSESSED.
What to do next…
You can start collecting this information TODAY. It’s right in front of you if you choose to take advantage of it. Put a plan together that will allow you to accurately and consistently capture this feedback right now. Whether you use me or someone else to help you get it, it will be the most valuable information you can have about your customer today.
If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed or how you can set up a process to capture this type of information, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand how to do this in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. Hopefully you found this helpful…if so, I think it’s our responsibility as fellow business owners (and leaders) to share this with others we think could benefit from it…please help them out and share this with them.
I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and you make a strategic decision this year to become Customer Obsessed. It will put you on a completely differentiated path so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, someone who delivers an unbelievable customer experience, and someone who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!!
