How Customer-Centric Is Your Culture

There's a great story that you may have seen on LinkedIn or other places on the internet that I think is an instructive allegory about company culture:

The story is about four people named, Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody, and it generally goes: There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

For me this story is about three things:

• A culture of ownership

• The role of communication

• Customer-centricity

Nobody took ownership of the important job to be done. Unfortunately, Nobody was picking up the pieces because Everybody assumed Somebody would do it. And we all know what happens when you “assume” . . .

Think about what happens in your company when there is an important job to be done. In a strong culture or process-driven organization, it’s clear who has accountability for the job, and this is communicated broadly. There is a project plan with dedicated resources, assigned roles, and a timeline. All of these are clearly defined and articulated and shared across the organization. There are clear swim lanes.

This story doesn’t mention that the important job was customer-related, but let’s add that lens to it. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club, once said: “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else.” And that is certainly true.

What does this mean for your company? It means that everyone in the company must be aware of and understand customer needs, wants, and expectations, and each employee must understand their role in delivering your company’s products and services against those expectations. Your insights teams, salespeople, account managers or customer success managers, customer service personnel, and other associates who handle your customers on a daily basis have to share what they are learning about these needs and expectations.

And everyone in the company must understand their role in delivering against these expectations. Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS, the Scandinavian airline, famously said, “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.”

That is a key difference for customer-centric companies. Too many companies think and are oriented around the hierarchy of the org chart with the C-level executives at the top and the front-line associates and customer care agents usually at or near the bottom. What if we tipped that org chart 90 or 180 degrees and recognized that those serving the customers are the ones who need the most information and best tools to be able to deliver the best experience to the customer?

As it relates to ownership culture, think about what happens when a customer has an issue. How do people in the company respond? Do they say, “It’s not my job or department's job?” Or do they help them get to the right person or department? Do we pass customers around assuming someone will take care of them? Or do we have processes in place and an ownership culture so that we know the problem will get taken care of? Do we have accountability and expectations in place that a customer issue is highest priority and will be resolved?

In my past multi-location CX roles, we trained all employees in our locations to “own customer issues.” That meant ensuring the customer got help and that the issue was resolved. If an associate personally could not help or did not know the answer, rather than passively pointing to the right person or to the door where the customer could get help, they were trained to actively walk customers to where they could get help and ensure that they communicated with their fellow associates about the issue so that it was a clean, well-understood hand-off and not just “passing the buck.”

The examples I’ve used are primarily from B2C businesses, but these questions and issues also apply to B2B companies.

As you evaluate how customer-centric your business is, consider:

• Is the customer at the center of everything you do and every decision you make?

• Do all employees understand your customers’ needs, wants, preferences, and expectations? And do they have the tools, skills, and training to deliver against them?

• Do you prioritize, own, and respond to customer issues, or do you pass it along to someone else?

• Do employees know where to get answers, or who to get involved if they don’t know how or can’t respond to or resolve an issue?

• Do you communicate ownership of issues, plans, and timing both internally and externally, and do you hold yourselves accountable for the resolution?

By seriously reflecting on the customer-centricity of your business, you may ultimately decide you need to adjust the way customers' information and feedback is captured and disseminated and with whom it is shared. These evaluations may also shed light on company hiring and training processes, employee expectations and accountability around communication, and employee ownership of customer issues.

In the most successful organizations, this kind of continuous self-reflection and action based on the goal of becoming more customer-centric is Everybody’s job and can have an extraordinarily positive impact on your culture and bottom line. The question is will Everybody actually do it? Will Somebody? Will Anybody? Will You?

This article was first published in my LinkedIn newsletter, Transformational CX. Subscribe to this newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericsmuda/

To discuss how I can help your company, please contact me at eric.smuda@outlook.com