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Differentiation
By Bill Self on July 14, 2010
Companies should be asking: What things are our customers missing that we could give them (which will make us really different)? Being customer-centered is the essence of differentiation.
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Posted in Differentiation | Tagged Customer Focus, Differentiation, Innovation
By Bill Self on July 7, 2010
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that buildings (like customer-centric companies) should fit into their environments, rather than the other way around. Wright said, “No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill–belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.”
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Posted in Design Thinking | Tagged Creativity, Customer Culture, Designfulness, Differentiation
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.
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Posted in Design Thinking | Tagged Creativity, Customer Closeness, Design Thinking, Differentiation
By Bill Self on June 16, 2010
Design thinking is purposeful. It is the optimistic way of the future, focused on discovering and implementing new ideas for customers. In fact, design thinking can only be successful when it approached with a positive bias for customers.
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Posted in Design Thinking | Tagged Design Thinking, Differentiation, Innovation
By Bill Self on April 7, 2010
The efforts of customer-centered organizations to move to the upside for customers inspires confidence—for customers and for employees. What’s missing in supplier-centric organizations is a system to design and deliver creative ideas that will improve the experiences of customers.
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Posted in Great Performances | Tagged Customer Experience, Customer Focus, Differentiation
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.
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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.
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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.
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer Closeness, Differentiation, Innovation, Leading Change
By Bill Self on February 17, 2010
Our success in generating innovative customer-centered thinking becomes stronger when our “ability to make new combinations is heightened by our ability to see relationships.” As in a kaleidoscope. new patterns develop and create exciting combinations when the variety of experiences that our teams bring to the search lead to fresher ideas within our organizations.
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Creativity, Design Thinking, Differentiation
By Bill Self on February 10, 2010
The word “engagement” with customers is used too casually. In a customer-centered view, you would not “win” and “keep” customers, but rather, cooperate with them as partners for a single purpose.
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Posted in Customer Loyalty | Tagged Customer Closeness, Differentiation, Leading Change
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.
