Having effective leadership is absolutely critical for an organization to be successful and grow. No one disagrees with this. But the question I would propose is this, “Do you have as much emphasis on leadership for your customers as you do for your employees?” Tough question…let me share with you some different ways to think about leadership as it pertains to your customers as well as your employees.
Customers look for leadership from the companies they buy from…throughout the organization, including the person at the top. The best companies embrace this and own it…and customers love it.
Leadership over employees is a given in successful companies. Often there is a strong leader at the top. This permeates the organization in all areas and the organization continues to grow and build new leaders. While there may be “natural leaders” that surface, many are created by having great leaders as mentors and having some excellent training. We get this…it’s a necessary component for a successful business.
But what about “leadership for customers?” What does that even mean?
Customers want to be led. You may disagree with this but it’s true. We think the customer comes in demanding what they want and taking charge of the process for getting it. This generally isn’t the case…they just don’t know what else to do. While some may appear to be incredibly demanding, it may not be the real story of what is happening. Just as we train leaders on how to deal with employees and issues, are we training leaders how to lead our customers as well? Most of the time we aren’t. Most of the time we are in react mode with customers and proactive mode with employees. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) be this way. There is a better way.
The issue stems from how the money flows. When we pay an employee, we believe we have more control over this individual. When our customers pay us, we believe the customer has control over us. Both are false.
Leadership is about “leading” and doing things in a way where people “want to follow.” Leadership is not management. Management tells people “what to do” whereas leadership creates an environment where people “want to follow” them and be included in whatever they have going on. It makes perfect sense for employees…when leaders do things employees embrace they will follow the person doing these things. This works the same for customers.
Customers want to follow someone doing something great…unfortunately, they may not see this coming from the organization. It isn’t that customers don’t want to follow a leader, it’s that we don’t have leaders who know how to lead customers. Customers are dying to be led…we just have to show them we are the ones to do it.
Customers come to a business (or organization) with “Anxiety”…created because it is unknown what will happen.
The majority of businesses “create Anxiety” with their customers and don’t even know it. Think about the last business you purchased something from or took used the services they offered. Often times, you don’t know exactly what is going to happen throughout the interaction. When we don’t know what will happen next, we have anxiety. It may be somewhat insignificant or it could be massive depending on the situation. For example, you go to the coffee shop to get a specialty coffee. While you don’t know exactly what will happen, there is anxiety. But because it is so insignificant (getting your drink order messed up) your anxiety is probably on the low end of the scale. However, I have seen (more than once) someone demonstrating massive anxiety because they didn’t get the beverage they thought they were supposed to get.
But if you were going to purchase a new $50,000 automobile, I can almost guarantee your anxiety is significantly higher than when you are getting your specialty coffee. The unknown…it is looming out there in advance of most purchases, whether it is as a consumer or a business. The same thing applies to the personal level. If you were dating someone and you knew nothing about the person or what was going to happen throughout the date you would most likely have high anxiety. When the stakes are higher (personally or financially) our anxiety is also higher. Your customers feel this as well when they don’t know what is going to happen in the interaction.
It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have to be this way. We can intentionally reduce customer anxiety with “Customer Leadership.”
Let’s start by thinking about your employees for a minute. Employees are very anxious day one. They don’t know what to expect and so their anxiety is high. But once a good leader helps them understand what is going to happen (today and into the future), their anxiety drops like a rock. The best leaders are the ones who know how to relieve employee anxiety. And guess what happens when a leader relieves someone’s anxiety…they want to follow them because they make their life much more pleasant and easier.
Lower someone’s anxiety and you build trust, a relationship, loyalty, and even advocacy. Having employees who are “Advocates” is worth its weight in gold. This isn’t any different for customers. Lower your customers anxiety and you build their trust, a stronger relationship, their loyalty, and are well on your way to creating a new advocate in the market. They too are worth their weight in gold.
Being a leader for your customer doesn’t just happen…it is about “who you are” as an organization. When you have a strategy, processes, and experiences that consistently demonstrate your leadership for your customers, it becomes part of your DNA as an organization. It isn’t something you “do,” it is something that describes “who you are.” This is exactly the same for a strong employee leader. It doesn’t just happen…it is prescriptive. Leaders lead because of “who they are” and the way that they interact with their employees…it is part of their DNA as a leader.
Customers want to be led…most organizations (leaders and employees) just don’t know how to do it. But when you do lead them, their anxiety drops significantly and they love to work with you because you are helping them get what they want with little to no stress. Who doesn’t want this?
When you “lead your customers” and lower their anxiety and stress, they “talk about you all time” and spread “massive word-of-mouth” about how awesome you are. Knowing this, it is important to create a strategy with a specific plan for changing your organization so everyone is able to focus on this as a prime part of your culture, your organizational DNA. When the customer sees you “doing this on purpose” they are happy to let you lead. They look forward to letting you lead because it translates directly into giving them an awesome experience when they with you. They look forward to the interactions because they know their stress (and anxiety) levels will be lower with you than with your competitors.
If you want to truly differentiate yourself in the market, lead your customers. Start with a strategy to lead your customers and lower their stress and anxiety. Then deploy this strategy with every employee in your organization so your customers receive a consistent, awesome low stress experience.
If you truly know how you are going to lead your customers and reduce or eliminate their anxiety, it is much easier to know how you are going to lead your employees. It will also create a map for the processes (and experiences) you will need to change to make it happen. As we always say, “the experience always leads to the right processes.” Meaning, if you know the experience you want to deliver to your customers, you can build the processes you need to deliver it. Now your processes always support you in delivering a totally awesome customer experience. It doesn’t work the other way around. Experience always leads process…process never leads the experience.
And the same goes for leading your employees. If you know how you want to lead and treat your customers, it is much easier to lead and motivate your employees. Now your employees can rally around the customer. Now it becomes “who you are” and part of your DNA, not a one-off project or initiative.
What To Do Next...
Did this post cause you to sit back and rethink how you may be leading your employees and your company? Did it cause you to think about where your customer is in the process with how you are leading? Did you cause you to think a bit more about whether or not you are inherently creating stress and anxiety with your customers and didn’t even know it? If any of your answers caused you to think a bit differently about your customers, then you’ve started to make the transition into the world of Customer Obsession. My goal is to always help you think a bit differently in an attempt to help you and your organization be the best it can be.
Everything starts with understanding where you are, so you know what you need to do to get where you want. Making an honest assessment of where you are is always the start to change. I’ve given you some insight into how you can figure this out inside your own organization to better understand where you are today. This is the first (and most) critical step to getting a handle on building more trust and not taking it for granted.
Not sure you can do this as I described? I’m happy to help you out with this if you need a boost to get started. Lots of ways to do this so that you can run with it going forward. Or if you just want to talk through it a bit more, let’s grab coffee (or lunch) sometime. The coffee (or lunch) is on you…the education and information is on me. My goal is to help save you TIME in the process if you are interested in being Customer Obsessed and becoming “REMARK”able in the process...which is my passion and goal for every company on the planet. Big goal…but it starts with one.
The only question that remains is, “Are you ready to be Customer Obsessed and become “REMARK”able?”
