From Leader Centric to Customer Centric

By Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson

We detest Jack Welch!! Now, before you get the wrong idea, we don’t actually know Jack. And, it’s not the person we deplore; it is the publicity of the persona.

Put GE and leadership in the same sentence and it is all about Jack, his legacy, and his giant shoes CEO Jeff Immelt now fills. When organizations are led by sizably charismatic, sharply demanding, even memorable leaders, the focus can turn to compliance, obedience, even obsession with “Jack’s” way, “Jack’s” style, and “Jack’s” vision. Whether the last name is Eisner, Gates or Smith, the issue is the same. When a visitor asks, “Who runs this place” and the answer is the person in the corner office, the organization is fated to be leader centered.

Organizations do not exist, thrive or grow for the “Jack’s” on mahogany row. They exist, thrive and grow because of customers. And, centering the organization around the customer takes courageous leaders more interested in excellence than ego. Transitioning from leader to customer takes a total alteration in agenda, attitude and action. Those who make the shift employ three strategies.

Customers in the Boardroom

“Customers in the boardroom” is a euphemism for making the customer‘s presence come alive in the daily workings of the organization. It means customers in fact attending meetings normally reserved for employees only. It means customers participating in the design of products and services from the outset. It means getting real-time feedback from customers on internal processes that determine their experience.

It includes leaders modeling great customer listening. At MBNA, for instance, every senior executive spends four hours a month on the phones in the call center monitoring customer calls. It is not just about what they learn; it is about what they signal as the top priority. Modeling also means leaders paying attention to what customers see and feel. When hotel managers pick up trash in the lobby or a bank managers come out of the office to assist customers during a busy time they are communicating customer-centric.

eBay is an ardent practitioner of “customers in the boardroom.” Started by CEO Meg Whitman, eBay invites twelve eBay users every sixty days to journey to the company headquarters to participate in the company’s “Voice of the Customer” program. These select people visit almost every department to talk about ways to improve service. Then, every month thereafter for six months these same users are reassembled to explore emerging issues. The byproduct of these customer conversations with senior leaders has been important service enhancements for eBay.

Duke Energy has used a “Boards of Customers” program in the regions they serve. Started by then SVP Sharon Decker, “experienced” customers volunteer time each quarter to act as sounding boards for new products and services. They also became a key neighborhood conduit for feedback and ideas on service improvement.

Leaders in the Customer’s World

Customer centric leaders hunt for genuine encounters with customers. They spend time in the field and on the floor where the action is lively, not in carefully contrived meetings where the action is limp. It is one thing to read static customer satisfaction reports and quite another to spend time in the field gathering first-hand research. The latter can have a far greater impact on leaders’ perception of service quality.

When John Longstreet was GM of the Harvey Hotel in Plano, Texas, he occasionally invited frequent guests to come to his office after check-in for “secret” assignments. John’s secret customer missions included such instructions as “call housekeeping at 3 a.m. and request 20 towels,” “ask room service for something not on the menu,” or “break a glass in the restaurant and let me know what happens.” The guest-investigator always received a room rate discount for his research and John got first hand invaluable information on how his service processes really worked.

Roberto Herencia, president of Chicago-based Banco Popular North America, invited his key leaders to join him for a day of shopping the bank’s competition. Each senior leader was given a collection of bank branches to visit – including some Banco Popular branches. Not only were these “mystery shoppers” directed to make specific requests, they were encouraged to assume the personality of various customers—irate, uninformed, demanding, etc. The field research proved to be a powerful source of insight for leaders about ways to boost service quality.

Customers on the Dashboard

Dashboards are vital tools for direction, alteration, maintenance and early warning in the setting in which the organization operates. As such, they provide an essential part of the guidance system needed to traverse the marketplace. Like the odometer of vehicles alerts the owner to change the oil or the speedometer warns to slow down, various components of the organization’s dashboard provide a myriad of information key to progress and success.

Whatever is on the organization’s dashboard proclaims that organization’s priority. While “what gets measured gets done” is not completely accurate (we all do things never measured), it is generally true that the discussion of metrics is typically coupled with concern. If the dashboard is silent regarding customers (or only contains results of the annual customer satisfaction survey), employees rightly question its significance.

Part of the dashboard lies in the actions of leaders when tough decisions are required. When the leaders of a large construction company opted to take a shortcut that temporarily improved the bottom line but resulted in deteriorated service quality, employees learned what really mattered. When a hospital stated “Patient first” in their mission statement but then made decisions that communicated “Physicians first,” employees accurately read the truth. Customer-centric leaders are not just advocates for customers; they are aggressive stewards of a culture that relentlessly pursues positive experiences for customers. Stewardship means staying the course until new behaviors are imbedded as a way of life. It also means remaining vigilant for anything that imperils a focus on customers.

More than any generation, today’s customers not only have more choices and higher expectations, they are armed with up-to-the-minute information on who’s who in service providers. When they spot organizations that operate on their behalf, they reward them with their loyalty and funds. Earning that reward takes leaders willing to keep the spotlight off rank and position so can shine on customers. In the words of the late Sam Walton, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson are customer loyalty consultants. Their newest book is Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers (NY: Wiley, May, 2009). They can be reached through http://www.taketheirbreathaway.com/.