By Bill Self on January 13, 2010
No organization can afford to stand still. The best way to avoid inertia is to think like a customer. Because innovation is on a continuum, companies must constantly evaluate where they are.
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer Closeness, Differentiation, Leading Change
By Bill Self on December 16, 2009
Instilling customer-centricity into your organization’s culture is not impossible, of course. But questioning works better than telling when you have a challenge to overcome. It creates buy-in when the team with whom you are working figures out how to approach the goal more realistically.
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer-Centered, Leading Change
By Bill Self on December 9, 2009
Earning the trust of your customers is easier with a well-designed, customer centric plan and inspired leadership.
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer Education, Leading Change
By Bill Self on November 25, 2009
Treat customers and non-customers with a spirit of generosity.
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Differentiation, Leading Change
By Bill Self on October 28, 2009
A few passionate managers can change the culture in an organization by leading their team toward customer-centricity. Executive leadership must set the tone and direction for customer-centricity. But middle managers are in the best position to know when to take off the training wheels and make change happen.
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer Closeness, Customer-Centricity, Great Performances, Leading Change, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on July 29, 2009
It’s amazing how organizations believe they can become great while ignoring their customers.
Jim Collins’ How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In builds off of his Good to Great and Built to Last tenets to analyze how successful companies get better, or conversely, how they decline. He describes how companies can under-perform by forgetting
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Posted in Great Performances | Tagged Customer Loyalty, Customer-Centric, Great Performances, Leading Change, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on June 24, 2009
Alan Webber’s Rules of Thumb is an absolute must-read. It is quintessential to leading your organization through the next day, week, year and beyond. It is game-changing, but simple. It is practical and inspiring at the same time. And it weighs in solidly on thinking like a customer.
For example, Webber’s Rule #3 is ‘Ask the last
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Posted in Leading Change | Tagged Customer Closeness, Great Performances, Leading Change, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on March 18, 2009
Becoming customer-centric is transformational and it requires a change in culture as well as in process design. It demands a long-term commitment that involves everyone in your organization. However, there is one proven method to jump-start the process in a way that will accelerate the company-wide commitment to the journey.
The graphic with this article shows
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer Commitment, Customer-Centric, Customer-Centricity, Employee Motivation, Leading Change, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on November 5, 2008
Sometimes you need to invent a word to describe something that has not actually been well-defined before. Sometimes you need to invent a word to describe something that you really care about.
I had the great fortune to meet a team leader in the service industry recently at her job. She was the perfect combination of
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer-Centricity, Differentiation, Great Performances, 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.
