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. 

WHY & HOW of Clients Experience at Professional Firms

CX = Customer Experience = Citizen Experience = Clients Experience 

Yes principles of Customer Experience equally apply to all the entities whether for profit, not for profit, Govt entities, professional firms, B2B & B2C. It is not just B2C phenomena.  

Every product or service recipient expects better experience. There is always expectation gaps and scope for improvements which varies in degree.

In case if some enterprise is in the monopoly business orGovt entities like municipal corporation or railways, it is all the more important as bad experience will have social repercussions. Longer queues, longer time for approvals or attending application , indifferent staff attitudes everything adds up to personal  & social stress & frustrations. 

Professional firms (doctors/lawyers/accountants & the likes) mostly enjoy relationship of trust and confidentiality with their clients. There is an approach of one-up man ship by these professionals with their clients. In no other case service recipient is so vulnerable. Here again like the one in monopoly business better clients experience counts. It not only is necessary for better social impact but also counts as new and better service providers are around. 

In the absence of advertising  professional consulting is the area where most business comes through clients’ referrals & word of mouth. Creating a culture of offering delightful clients' experience is the prerequisite for these firms to grow. One may take a clue from Extreme Customer Orientation by Norwegian Insurance Company Gjensidige. Those who are keen about ROI of CX Initiatives may read this ; What CEOs should know before they ask for ROI of CX Initiatives ?

Now the most prominent question is HOW? Here is a ten step process. 

- Map the entire clients’ journey 

- Identify at all touch points

- Identify critical & good to have experience

- Check/Measure what is kind of experience is doled out at each of the touch points

- Internally discuss scope of improvements

- If require brainstorm entire new service design

- Train & retrain front facing and support staff

- Prototype the new or redefined service

- Fine tune with initial clients’ feedback

- Roll out the service 

Make clients feedback an integral part of services like billing. 

Remember HAPPY customers will refer others and unhappy will look for every opportunity to get out. Both will use social media subsequently to share their experience. 

To sum up in the words of management guru of our times Peter Drucker “The purpose of the business (incl profession) is to create customers (incl clients).  ” If this is the purpose ; HOW any forms of entity can ignore CX what will retain customers , create more customers & offers more pocket share of customers?  

Are you in the business of selling obsolete products & services ?

Customer Experience  (CX) is more and more going to hurt companies offering bad customer experience. 

Forget offering WOW !! customer experience , even to survive better and better CX is critical. 

Those who think this is not applicable to their company soon will find themselves in Oasis, deserted by customers, no customer around the company. Company will be almost out of business.  

During last few days I came to know about two incidences where companies have left public sector banks with which they had long association. In one case it was more than 30 years of association and they left the PSU bank with whom they grew and become big. 

Reason in both cases, long indecisiveness & longer decision making process. Meeting the speed expectations and exceeding the same is great customer experience. Its delightful , its wow !!. 

Bad experience is bad even without cost like long waiting at hospital and restaurants however it becomes worse when it impacts customers' pocket. When indecisiveness costs , it not only painful but it impacts bottom-line. 

This is just about PSU banks but CX by private companies across the sectors is hardly any better. Unless the customer journeys are mapped, expectation gaps are mapped, silo-ed vision is converted into overall end to end vision, someone is put in charge of CX , company cannot comprehensively design customer experience which exceeds expectations and delight customers. 

Product & Services must have built in CX & service design elements in the first place to become viable business proposition. Products & Services without CX & service design elements are obsolete & just surviving on ventilator. 

Are you in the business of selling obsolete products & services ?