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Thinking Like a Customer
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.
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Posted in Great Performances | Tagged Competitive Advantage, Customer Closeness, Innovation, Thinking Like a Customer
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 October 21, 2009
Why are there organizations with customers that are “off the charts” in their loyalty? Customer-centricity creates a symbiotic relationship with customers. Hyper-loyal customers have a passion for converting others to become members of their “club” so that others can have the same great experiences.
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Posted in Customer Loyalty | Tagged Brand Loyalty, Customer Loyalty, Customer-Centered, Differentiation, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on October 14, 2009
Research which we do for our clients indicates time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction than the ones who never experienced a problem at all. Why would any company simply want to break-even with these opportunities? Service recovery should energize the organization to become more customer-centered.
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Posted in Differentiation | Tagged Customer-Centered, Customer-Centricity, Differentiation, Great Performances, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on October 7, 2009
“There’s no such thing as good news or bad news. There’s only fast news and slow news.” Fast knowledge happens within organizations that are connected and proactively communicating with their customers. Every organization should have an early warning system. The best one is built around closeness with your customers.
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer Closeness, Customer-Centered, Differentiation, Great Performances, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on September 30, 2009
The new approach to customer-centricity embodies being a caretaker for the customer ecology in every interaction between external customers and your organization.
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Abundance Gaps, Competitive Advantage, Customer Commitment, Customer-Centricity, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on September 23, 2009
Success requires collaboration so that the entire organization is “speaking the customer’s language.” Communication is inevitably poor when it’s one-sided. Focusing on customers is the most important dimension of your culture; delivery must be as fluent as possible.
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer-Centered, Great Performances, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on September 16, 2009
If you are constantly looking at what your competitors are doing, you will simply end up imitating each other. Being customer-centered brings better clarity to organizations because it focuses them on thinking like a customer, instead of a competitor.
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Posted in Differentiation | Tagged Brand Loyalty, Customer-Centered, Customer-Centricity, Differentiation, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on September 9, 2009
Amazon.com continues to be a successful, strong brand because it always answers its business questions—strategic and day-to-day—with a solution that includes “the customer.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, has given the world insight into how he leads the Amazon organization through a series of interviews over the years. I believe the best is “The Institutional Yes” (Harvard
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Posted in Customer-Centricity | Tagged Customer-Centered, Customer-Centricity, Differentiation, Great Performances, Thinking Like a Customer
By Bill Self on September 2, 2009
The organizations that will survive and thrive five years from now are the ones that have educated customers. That’s because smart customers will remain loyal to suppliers that deliver high value. This value goes far beyond a generic product or service. It educates its customers as part of the relationship. Customer-centered suppliers understand this as
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Posted in Differentiation | Tagged Customer Loyalty, Customer-Centered, Differentiation, Thinking Like a Customer
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.
