Focus on Mission, Deliver Customer Experience

The Customer Perspective

Zappo's the online shoe retailer (now part of Amazon.com) became a reference for good customer experience. It understood that it is not in the shoe business (they don't design or make them, their shoes are the same you can find in other stores).  Zappo's business is to create an environment where I can choose and buy shoes and then have them delivered to me, in a stress-free shopping experience.

So tell me, What is new?

I can see the rolling eyes, we have heard all the above before. Why do we need to keep talking about it?

The reason: most businesses, including successful ones, fail that test.

We grew accustomed to decomposing the mission and assigning partial goals to people in our organization. We went too far on segmentation and specialization. A front-line agent who doesn't know or worries about internal metrics cannot stay focused on the customer experience.

The broad adoption of Social Media by consumers and business in the next years will bring a world where new customers are acquired through indirect (mediated by social media venues) or direct (like in the old times) word-of-mouth and referrals from happy customers instead of traditional broadcasting marketing methods.

The Customer Experience (and perspective) will matter more

So to survive, companies will need to focus on their essential mission (from the perspective of their customers) and empower their employees to deliver it well. Happy customers bring their friends. You need to know who they are and what they want to keep them happy.

Does everyone in your organization know what it is that customers want from your company? Are employees emotionally involved in delivering on the mission?

They better be. The world is changing.