Browse: Home /
Customer Closeness
By Bill Self on August 25, 2010
When the core value of an organization rests on what is best for the customer, a culture is created in which employees are part of a group that has “clicked” by being customer-centered.
Read the full story...
Posted in Organizational Purpose | Tagged Company Culture, Customer Closeness, Employee Motivation, Organizational Purpose
By Bill Self on June 30, 2010
Formulaic lists about how to succeed in business are too prescriptive. Instead, go back to the basic needs that your customers are asking to be filled and work forward from that point. Produce intelligence that leads to meaningful answers about how the customer will prosper.
Read the full story...
Posted in Design Thinking | Tagged Creativity, Customer Closeness, Design Thinking, Differentiation
By Bill Self on June 23, 2010
Most supplier-centric organizations rationalize that they know what customers need. What these companies perceive to be needs fall far short of what customers want. Customer-centric organizations look for new opportunities to offer to their customers, rather than waiting for them to be asked for.
Read the full story...
Posted in Great Performances | Tagged Competitive Advantage, Customer Closeness, Innovation, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on May 12, 2010
Customer-centricity has a benefit that most organizations don’t fully understand and don’t fully utilize. It is understanding, at a deep level, what your ideal customers do, how they behave, and the personality traits that you want to encourage in them.
Read the full story...
Posted in Customer Education | Tagged Customer Closeness, Customer Loyalty, Inspiring Customers
By Bill Self on May 5, 2010
All companies have functional support activities which should be rules-driven and designed to reduce variation. Connecting with customers at the more advanced Levels 2 and 3 must be humanistic, designed to create fresh ideas for customers, and consequently requires more art.
Read the full story...
Posted in Great Performances | Tagged Customer Closeness, Customer Delight, Customer-Centricity
By Bill Self on March 24, 2010
The Customer-Centric Index™ measures closeness with external customers and strength of relationships with internal customers. It’s geared to focus on silo-busting. It’s systematic and consists of highly-specific measures of the behaviors that experience has shown will make organizations more customer-centric.
Read the full story...
Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer Closeness, Customer Loyalty, Leading Change
By Bill Self on March 17, 2010
Why should any supplier-centric organization switch to being customer-centric? It’s not difficult to imagine the arguments against the change: “Customer-centricity is an abstract idea. It involves a culture change. We prefer pragmatic results to ideology. Show us the benefits.”
Here’s a look at the “Why” of customer-centricity.
Read the full story...
Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer Closeness, Differentiation, Leading Change
By Bill Self on March 10, 2010
There should be a process to regularly review performances for “good customers” rather than waiting for them to call in frustration, or, even worse, to leave without calling.
Read the full story...
Posted in Customer Education | Tagged Brand Loyalty, Customer Closeness, Differentiation
By Bill Self on March 3, 2010
Make sure that your organization is prepared for change by putting some customer-centered monitors in place that will condition everyone to look for new ways by questioning the old ways. Set up a process to evaluate change on customers’ terms, not yours. It will be a great platform to start discussions of ways to strengthen your organization by consistently looking for ways to outperform.
Read the full story...
Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer Closeness, Differentiation, Innovation, Leading Change
By Bill Self on February 24, 2010
Customer-centricity will not happen unless your organization is curious about customers and what they will need in the future. Create a culture that is continuously looking for ways to learn more about customers. Don’t become complacent. Be an explorer.
Read the full story...
Posted in Leading Change, Uncategorized | Tagged Change Management, Customer Closeness, Innovation
He is a member of the National Speakers Association and delivers dynamic presentations on the transformative power of genuine customer-centric behavior at conferences or in settings for individual companies. Visit Bill's speaking page to learn more.
