Raving Fan Customers: Creating Customer Focused Teams

Customer Focus, Feedback and Service Strategy

To create customer-focused teams, employees must understand that they win when the customers win; there is more to this positioning than meets the eye. The customer win has to be defined so that the company also wins. If you ask customers what they want they will tell you I want the service and product for nothing. Typically companies cannot stay in business by doing this. So the raving fan service strategy needs to be designed so that the company and its employees can deliver. Back to Apple, their products are easy to use and their informed employees can teach consumers how to use their products. All this conspires to make many raving fan Apple customers. Every service strategy needs to be designed so that this concept is constantly reinforced. 

The front line (people who directly impact the customer) has to get feedback so that they can:

• Know what it is doing right in creating raving fan customers
• Know what it is doing that is not working 
• Coordinate and fix problems with other departments that impact the delivery of raving fan customer service
• Ensure that the customer consistently perceives great value from the product and service that they are getting.

Two challenges exist in creating successful, high performance, customer focused teams. The first challenge is getting the voice of the customer clearly delivered to the front line regarding the service or product. Therefore, it is important to create forums and opportunities for the front line to listen to the customer. The other challenge is to make sure everyone understands the standards by which customer service is measured.

For more about creating customer focused teams click here.