Culture.....is what makes companies great?

By: Rajeev Kakar

What makes companies great? A company is considered great if the customer who receives service when doing business with them, rates it as great. The companies that get it are customer-centric. A true customer-centric business puts the customer at the heart of decisions, ideas, marketing, system design and more. Such a proposition is definitely not limited to only the design of the product. A product, however useful and amazing and however much of a lifestyle changer, cannot help in making a company great in the eyes of its customer. A LOT MORE IS NEEDED.

A company’s culture makes a true difference between a company’s ultimate success or failure!

The more customer-focused and individual-centric it is, the more successful it will be and the higher it will be rated. Customer-centricity is an intangible asset which helps deliver increased value by creating loyal customers, who make repeated purchases from the company, and also recommend such a company or brand to others. They become ambassadors for the brand.

It is the power of this intangible that is longer lasting and delivers predictable and sustainable value, and customers value their relationship increasingly with their company and willfully pay for the increased value and care that it delivers to them.

In summary, customer-centric companies stand out. They are more desirable for consumers to do business with and more enjoyable places for employees to work. Customer-centric companies empower employees to make decisions that are for the benefit of the customer. It is well known that happy employees lead to happy customers, which leads to healthy, profitable, and sustainable businesses.

So, to be a truly successful customer-centric company, it must start by hiring people who share the passion, display the focus and energy to fit in to the culture, while aligning with the company’s core values, mission, and vision. In addition, such human capital should display the execution discipline to leverage their skills, knowledge, creativity and innovation to create unparalleled value for the customer, by delighting them at every stage, anticipating their needs, and astonishing them through their actions in line with customer aspirations (….and not just their needs).

Customer focus in companies is impossible unless it first learns to be employee-focused too

Customer-centric companies must display integrity to the process and invest a lot of time and money into soft skills training such as customer service and relationship building – as such companies know the importance of their EMPLOYEES, and take a ‘PEOPLE FIRST’ approach.

Training is not a one-time thing. It’s not something a company did. It’s something a company does….and keeps doing! Continuous reinforcement, ongoing training to improve performance and ongoing development to raise potential is a consistent theme. Only competent employees with a positive attitude, who are constantly enabled to raise their personal resource levels, can truly DELIGHT and WOW customers! Together with this, a culture of ongoing recognition of people and ‘celebration of their success’ is what motivates people to create and nurture a true customer-centric culture.

Customer service is a result of the impact delivered by virtually everyone in an organization.

Such a customer-focused approach and culture must begin at the top, with leadership being the catalyst and leaders serving as role-models for everyone in the organization to emulate and aspire to.

We must always remember.....Customer-centricity is a philosophy, or a theme, that every employee must be encouraged and nurtured to embrace, while empowering them to commit to delivering it consistently to both external and internal customers. It’s a myth to believe that only the front line participates in delivering value to the customer…..everyone plays a part!