What Farmers Can Teach Our Entrepreneurs ?

REAP WHAT YOU SOW , is a universal truth. 

If your organisation has systems , processes, targets , thinking and culture of MAKING MONEY at ANY cost. Your people are out there in the market will mis sell, over commit , indulge in unethical business practices, do all kinds of accounting jugglery , evade tax , do environmental harm, breaks laws. In the process your organisation will become anti social organisation though doing so called legal business.  You will attract and recruit people with similar culture and mindset. 

Fruits on the tree are the result of its seed, root, water , fertilizers & environmental support it consumes.

If you want Apple you need to sow seeds of Apple. This is the first and foremost requirements. Business culture percolates from the top is seed for the business. You cant expect your people to be honest when top management is indulging in all sorts of wrong doings. 

After the first step of sowing the seed, you need to nurture the tree with regular water, fertilizer and allow sun rays in right quality to get the best fruit. Even organic and inorganic fertilizers can impact the outcome. Likewise business processes, training and soft skills of the people, IT systems, leadership everything matters and impact the customer experience your company is offering to your customers. 

When you need to offer Kashmiri Apple roped with organic fertilizers , you need that kind of environment and nurturing.  You will not get the same Apple if you grow it in different environment and offers inorganic fertilizers like cosmetic culture. 

Therefore if you wish to attain SUSTAINABLE competitive advantage of offering delightful customer experience (CX), it starts with seed i.e. culture.  Only system, processes and training wont last much. Look at all companies known in CX space and you will  realise how their culture is and why they are leading in CX space.  Be it Virgin, Starbucks, Zappos or Apple. 

You can create delight factor for sometime or for some products/services or for some processes  but it wont be sustainable if it is not through culture change. Seed has to be right for delightful products or else delightful products are by chance and not by choice. 

Problem is top management expect best of the fruits - business performance but they turn blind eye on what it takes.  

Indian firms can lose 18 to 20% of the business due to lack of clear customer experience strategy.

The above report indicates possibility of loss of business internationally by Indian firms. However within India due to poor or not so delightful customer experience how much business local firms can lose to competing firms is yet not known. 

Bottom line is clear , if you want better bottom line , focus on CX and if you want better CX focus on seed i.e. culture at the top. 

Experienced can offer the Experience

One of the ways to create culture of superior customer experience is to let your employees experience superior customer experience themselves. You have to change the mindset and self experience is the best teacher. 

When you receive superior service you will be inclined to offer one in your role to your customers. No amount of training can teach and change the mindset what true real life experience can do to a person. 

When you receive respect you would like to give one. What you receive is what you can give. Therefore in order the change the employee mindset which is the biggest challenge, expose them to superior customer experiences.  

Unfortunately most companies neither offer superior employee experience to their employees nor expose them to superior customer experience elsewhere and yet expect employee to offer superior customer experience to their customers !!

Experience is the best teacher & that applies here to. Expose your employees to superior customer experience in some other industry /companies , make them delightful customer experienced to enable them to offer better experience to your customers.  

Incomplete Business Plans & Executions

Yes, How many business plans are discussing about the kind of experience they wish to create for their customers ?  

Business plans contain information on whole world of product differentiation and sales strategy ,  financial ratios and revenue models , market segmentation and team but I have not any seen business plan explaining in details about customer experience and kind of culture team wants to built. 

I read a comment in response to my earlier blog post , " don't spoil customers by offering finest experience. " But I would say some companies are spoiling their talent in order to retain them.  Once habituated to vibrant culture and decent pay , employees find themselves misfit and uncomfortable with other not so great culture. This is the way to retain them from moving away. 

Likewise spoil your customers to retain them. Give them unprecedented and unmatched experience and you get their lifetime loyalty. This requires thinking and creation of culture. This is a huge competitive advantage and MUST find its way into the business plans. 

Design and define customer experience in your business plan and that will set the ball rolling for the culture it will entail. 

Another WOW !!! from Flipkart.com

I ordered books on 10/1 at 18.19 and books delivered to me from Bangalore to Mumbai on 11/1 at 9.20 in the morning. 

Unexpected pleasant surprise. 

I am neither a preferred customer nor order was not an emergency , even I didn't pay for the shipping but then what went RIGHT??

I think its their style to WOW!! their customers. Its the culture supported by matching processes and motivated team. It is their way of saying  "This is HOW we do WHAT we do."

2nd Episode: Day 11/ Jan /12: Time 19.20

I ordered one book , 6 copies for gifting to different individuals. Since order were for 6 copies of the same book, I got a call from Flipkart.com today 12/Jan/12 at 9 AM confirming that I have placed these orders. Look at the customer thinking that might have gone into this process design. 

Disclosure:  I am no way even remotely connected with any one @ Flipkart.com

1,2,3,4,5,6,7 & 8 Reasons to  { must } WOW !!!!! [  Delight  ] Internal Customers 

I was thinking about what to write on my 100th Blog today. ( in 10 months , First Blog on 11th Oct 2010 & this one was planned for Independence Day i.e. 15th Aug ).

I had to sent one project report to someone who wud depend on the same and would work on the same further.  Therefore today morning I started working on the same. While working I thought I shud do the work in such a fashion that the other guy need not have to do anything better and just take the process further. That will make me feel happy , make me dependable and saves his time (i.e project execution time)

This made me thinking of Customer Experience of Internal Customers. Most of my 99 blogs were on customer  { external } experience and how to WOW!!!! our customers. Most people in the organisation thinks that I am not in direct touch with the final customer how can I WOW !!! my customer??? They think I am sitting at the corner of the office in  of accounts or purchase department. I even don't see my customers. WOW !!! is not for me. 

As an accountant if I make a mistake on tallying accounts or adjusting customer payment to his account I am impacting customer experience. As a purchase manager if I am not buying right quality products , right time I am impacting customer experience. Everyone therefore can influence ( is influencing ) customer {external} experience. 

However my point here is about impacting internal customers. Internal customers i.e person who is dependent on our work to take it forward.

- Auditors are dependent on Accountants work

- Production Team is dependent on Purchase Team

- Sales Team is dependent on Marketing Team

- Project Team is dependent on Finance Team

- Sales Team is dependent on Logistics Team

- Everyone dependent on IT Team & even Security 

   Personnel

- & PM is dependent on PMO !!! 

     { One can add many more dependencies }

Even within the department person is dependent on other person's work. If we wish to WOW !!! our customer, WOW!! person dependent on your work by giving not only best of you but more than what is expected. { going out of the way to make his work easier , faster and even beautiful }

Advantage:

1 -  You r happy { doing something great plus you also will get dependable work from colleague on whose work u r dependent }

2 - Fellow Employee is Happy

3 - Every one in the org Happy

4 - Customer { External } Happy

5 - Time of rework or recheck saved

6 - Culture of WOW !!!! percolates

7 - Everyone work to WOW !!! daily , on every assignments

Bottomline : 

Blue Ocean creation for the company. 

{ unbeatable competitive advantage }

4 KRAs of Chief Customer { xperience } Officer

Companies those who Want to focus on Customer. 

Step - 1 - Appoint Chief xperience Officer      ( Reporting to CEO )

Step - 2 - Assign Powers to C Ex O             ( he is a part of every senior management committees ) 

He is the Bucks Stops Here kind as far as customer experience is concerned.

H(er)is KRAs:

1) Making Customers FAN of the company brands

2) Focus on Customer Referral is the way to get substantial additional business

3)Improve company Net Promoter Scorecard

 

4)Making company culture customer focused      ( Tweaking/Re engineering business processes and making people more sensitive to customer needs  { internal & External })

He will not only make company customer centric & talk of the town but also substantially add to top and bottom line. 

Only way to handle - Return , Refund , Cancellation & Customer EXIT !!!

We remember LAST incidence. LAST incidence influences all future decisions. We observe how companies are behaving during unpleasant customer action i.e. discontinue, refund, return, exchange, exit, cancel, don't want etc etc. 

Unfortunately @ MOST companies , processes r written & culture is developed such that it can not face such incidences GRACEFULLY.  

For CUSTOMER its a brand experience, for companies and point of sale its a lost sales &  customer gone. They think customer experience happens only when the customer is consuming our product and services. 

However if BRAND wants to become known for their superior customer experience it is NOW at the occurance of unpleasant incidence HOW it behaves is what matters the most.  

Most retailers follow fix time for return which is mostly inconvenient, no cash refund, so many T & C. Once we become Ex Customer, we are treated differently. 

Zappos.com follows - 365-day return policy with free return shipping.

BRAND has longer life than people handling returns and whose incentives may be impacted with returns. Who will develop such Culture ?? It starts @ the TOP. 

GRACEFUL , Pleasant, WILLING to let go though expect to SERVE in FUTURE , Facilitating Smooth Exit, attitude ( MOST PROBABLY ) will win back the customers. Not only win back but will make repeat and most referring customer.