A business has a big problem when the majority of its employees are not customer centric. It has a dangerous problem, when the majority of its leadership team members, are not. As a matter of fact, the latter situation typically leads to the former situation.
When a business is led by leaders who are not customer centric, that business will experience many false starts and failures on the road to getting customer experience right. Depending on the number of misses, the business may not ever hit the jackpot.
In other words, many businesses will start their customer experience (CX) journey, but few will finish the journey to service maturity. Now, while, as we know, this journey does not have an ultimate finish line, the overarching intention is to get to a point of customer experience maturity.
Customer experience maturity is that coveted space that a business occupies, when all elements of the customer experience journey have been orchestrated so well, that customers give the business superlative experience ratings, consistently.
When a business is led by leaders who are not customer centric, that business will experience many false starts and failures on the road to getting customer experience right.
Getting to this point of consistently superlative ratings, is no mean feat and businesses that attain this status, are few and far between. To a large extent, the cause of this paucity has to do with the lack of customer centricity as a guiding principle at the leadership level.
The big question is, “Why do so many leaders lack a customer centric mindset and fail to champion customer centricity?” Well, let me count the ways.
Many business leaders are driven by sales targets, not necessarily by customer relationship targets. Hence the frenzy to sell, sell, sell. One reason for this this sales-driven mentality, is because leaders’ bonuses are tied to the achievement of sales targets. A generalized rule of thumb in the area of performance management, is that what gets measured, gets attention.
If greater weight is ascribed to sales, then the customer relationship effort will suffer and will not be embraced as a legitimate and significant contributor to revenue generation. When the customer focus is not prioritized in a business, over time, the risk to revenue, is guaranteed to escalate.
When the customer focus is not prioritized in a business, over time, the risk to revenue, is guaranteed to escalate.
Another reason for this mindset gap, is that in many businesses, quite often, the majority of leaders are distracted or overwhelmed by the weight of operational minutiae. While the importance of customer centricity to the revenue value chain is not lost on them, their bandwidth to orchestrate the multiple demands of their roles, may be just too narrow.
Additionally, if customer centricity expertise is not respected as a worthy contributor to business success, leadership investment in upskilling will be forfeited in favour of other areas deemed more critical.
Comfort addiction is another reason why leaders become apathetic about customer centricity. Apathetic leaders have an affinity for an average effort level. Average becomes the normal point of business reference and there is no motivation to push beyond that comfort setting. The application of continuous improvement, constructive disruption and customer experience transformation initiatives, will not see the light of day in a business where average is its true north setting.
Leaders who are not customer centric, underestimate the sheer effort that is required to create a customer centric business
When the majority of leaders in a business are not customer centric in their orientation, the business may start its customer experience journey, but may not make it to the endgame of customer experience maturity. I have encountered many businesses leaders who espouse customer centricity, because it is fashionable to do so, but have zero interest in scaling the follow through effort.
Leaders who are not customer centric, underestimate the sheer effort that is required to create a customer centric business. Typically, that’s partly attributable to their insufficiency of subject matter intelligence and their reluctance to correct this imbalance.
Customer centric leaders, on the other hand, accept that business success is inextricably linked to their subject matter expertise in customer success practices. They embrace the required learning and as a bonus, cultivate business cultures that are intentional in their dedication to being in lock step with their purpose of serving customers with distinction.
Starting a journey takes little effort, anyone and any business can begin. It’s sustaining the momentum that requires staying power.
As a service transformation consultant, my great joy lies in interacting with executives and business leaders whose commitment to customer experience, happiness and success, goes beyond the “talk,” of customer centricity, to the enabling of a “lived experience” for customers.
Starting a journey takes little effort, anyone and any business can begin. It’s sustaining the momentum that requires staying power.
The journey awaits any business whose leaders wish to be ranked amongst the “doers” and not just the “talkers.