Best in Class at What Matters

The final program that I attended at Harvard Business School was on How to Transform Customer Experiences.

Over the last couple of months while traveling and reading, I have focused heavily on identifying things that can be done that will transform how our customers see doing business with our company. I have created this list and explanations of such.

1. Recognize that excellence is in the eye of the customer – You only truly excel in customer service if that is how the customer sees you. You can think you are great, but unless they do, then you really aren’t living up to the level of excellence that they need.
2. Create a culture of employee loyalty –The best way to create excellence for customers is to have employees that believe in putting the company first. To be able to deliver for the customer, you have to have a team that enables the company to perform at an optimal level.
3. Know what creates a “Wow Experience” – This can be the smallest thing or the biggest thing, but be a creator of WOW. Something as simple as answering an email late at night or over the weekend, or simply doing something outside of your job description can make someone say WOW.
4. Create a learning environment – Mistakes will happen, but your key to success is how fast you recover from them and what you learn. Realize that you would rather get a speeding ticket than a parking ticket in a fast-moving company, and learn from every mistake that you make.
5. Focus on the LVC – Lifetime Value of a Customer – Every customer journey you embark on will have its good days and its bad days. Budgets will get added and will get evaporated. Don’t focus on today, but focus on the lifetime value of working with that customer.
6. Become an “owner of the business” – Just as one of our core values states. We are all owners of the business. Having mental ownership over an account and a process will make it matter more to you and you will deliver a better level of service for that customer.
7. Be a provider of service excellence – While we are a merchandising company, we are still in the service industry. Make it a top priority to deliver service excellence to the customer in everything you do. It’s not the will to win that makes winners, it’s the will to prepare to win that creates winners. And when you are winning, you are creating excellence.
8. Build a talent management system – Nobody can learn or be effective without training. Nobody likes to take time to train. But it is the most necessary piece to continuous improvement that exists. You have to take time to train on areas that you want to be better at, and this will develop your talent as a deliverer of great customer service.
9. Give employees license – Empowerment to do what’s right for the customer. We can get very tied up on deadlines, rules and procedures as a company, and in no way is this a license to go break all the rules. But have a mindset that the customer is first and we need to view things as what is most effective for them above all other rules.
10. Be best in class at what matters – We do one thing, and our only mission in the universe is to do it better than anyone else: be the best in class for our customers at what matters.