In case the above title is too oblique, let me follow up by explaining that I’ll be focusing on a book I recently read. It’s all about being customer-led and proposes that businesses undertake a Copernican shift to be inside-out, putting the customer at the center of all that they do, rather than assuming that everything revolves around the business. No one would dispute that being customer-centric is a good thing and it sounds obvious, but is it?
Well, according to this book, it clearly isn’t that easy. We get to hear stories of companies whose ability to stay ‘in orbit’ ebbs and flows, sometimes totally zoned in on customers and reaping the rewards that come from doing so well and at other times, losing that focus, getting too concerned about their own success measures and looking inwards.
Being customer-centric seems to involve decisions big and small, bold and simple.
How about Tesco deciding to invest £60m on its ‘One in Front’ programme in 1994, a year when it had reported pre-tax profits of £528m? Tesco’s promise was that if any till had more than two customers -waiting, then an extra check-out would be opened and they would keep on opening checkouts until the queue subsided or until every till was manned. This decision, together with other initiatives, led to Tesco going from a struggling number 3 in the 1980s to the undisputed leader two decades later.
Or what about something much smaller scale? When Carolyn McCall joined Easyjet in 2010 as CEO, the airline was no longer the plucky start-up pioneering cheap air travel but ‘making good profits from unpleasant customer experiences’. McCall wanted the company to see things again from the passenger perspective and my example of a small thing was her request was for the business to stop referring to delayed aircraft or flights and to start talking about ‘180 delayed customers’ – not just a few words but fundamental to helping change the discourse at Easyjet.
And then there’s the challenge of knowing how to balance commitments to do the best for the customer and commitments not to blow budgets. Well, I rather like the direction given by AO to its front line teams: ‘Treat the customer as if she was your Gran, but then after the call, you need to explain what you did to your Mum.’ Nice, eh?
And I haven’t even mentioned Amazon!
