Listen. How can you say your are customer oriented if you are not. . . listening?
Listening to the Customer, a cornerstone to business growth.
By Kordell Norton
© Copyright 2007, All rights reserved
The press screams the news. A local organization is in the red and the trend is downward.
As I meet with the executives the symptoms are so classic and so familiar. Over and over I find very intelligent and bright people who are clearly in their position for their abilities in motivation, their work ethic, and their judgment.
Well almost.
As the subject about their top line growth surfaces and how they are handling the red ink, the same behavior emerges. “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” or, “you don’t understand our customers and market” or “people don’t give us credit for all the work we are doing and the things we have in the future.” Excuses? Valid comments? Probably. But it still doesn’t deal with the immovable “no matter how valid the excuse, it doesn’t change the performance.”
The unforgiving equation is that revenues minus expenses equal profits. And growing the revenue top line is a must. Excuses don’t fix the top line. The key is to change the status quo of the top line to status grow. In other words, you have to do something different.
“So, in your great wisdom, oh great author of this article, what is an organization to do?”
My answer is . . . . I don’t know! That is especially true when it comes to the specific actions to take. But I do know that the client’s customers know the answers. Ask them.
“But we talk to the customers all the time” comes the response.
But do you. . .
- Write it down?
- Actively ask, “based on this customer input and feedback, what should we be doing different?”
- Have concrete methods to implement changes to meet or raise the level of service and quality to bring happy customers?
- Go back to #1 and start over?
So let's briefly look at the first three steps above.
Write it down?
Do you have suggestion box? A white board where the customer can write ideas and feedback? A survey of customer needs that are gathered, and measured on a scheduled basis. How often do you have an Account Review Session with your client? Focus group? Feedback loops from your sales people? Do you even have anyone dedicated to gathering feedback? Marketing? Sales? Business Development?
Remember your school days when the teacher said, “this is important, you had better write it down.” When others, especially customers have ideas, suggestions, comments, insights, or just good plan old criticisms . . . WRITE THEM DOWN. Or, just wait and call a consultant who will write it down for you, and change you to put it in a report form with an invoice.
I am amazed when I meet with clients and how they respond when I take copious notes on their thoughts.
You have to be collecting customer feedback on an ongoing basis. You will know if you are because most of the time it can be found on some form of paper..
What should we be doing differently?
You cannot be a 100% better than your competition . . .but if you have 1,000 employees each doing one thing 1% better . . . your competition doesn’t stand a chance. If you don’t have a serious plan to listen to the customer, take their feedback and empower individual employees to change and morph the organization to a degree then you are living in the past. Why do you think creativity and innovation are the focus of so many progressive organizations?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results” (Albert Einstein)
Methods to implement change
If management has not looked at customer surveys or suggestions in the past month, are they disconnected from the real business? Yes. If there is not some sort of compensation or reward system in place to focus on, and raise the revenues and top line for all employees, will there be a culture that will push for growth? No. Note that I did say compensation OR reward system.
At the speed of change in business today, if your organization hasn’t done planning to raise the level of quality, customer satisfaction or proactively getting feedback from the customer then you might want to start making a list of excuses. Because it is just a matter of time before you will become a great newspaper story.
About Kordell Norton - The Top Line Growth Guy
Your organization has a strong interest in the "top line" for growth. As a consultant, speaker, author, Kordell Norton works with corporate, association, education and government organizations who want to focus on branding, sales, marketing, strategic planning/leadership, team building, and customer service.
Kordell was an executive with several multi-billion dollar corporations with executive suite positions in sales, HR, marketing and call centers. As a certified Graphic Facilitator, he uses highly visual processes, along with humor, and entertaining methods for powerful, high energy presentations.
Author of Throwing Gas on the Fire - creating drastic change in Sales and Marketing
He can be reached at (330) 405-1950 or at kordell@kordellnorton.com or at his website - www.KordellNorton.com
