Reading a blog the other day by Seth Godin made me think about customer centricity and how the word 'customer' appears in so many corporate mission statements.
As many companies have found to their cost - making wonderful statements in their annual reports, investing tons of cash in CRM system/IT and deploying new business processes will not automatically get the results wanted. Corporate culture, attitude and behaviour has to be aligned too.
Having read Seth's blog ask yourself three questions about your own company.
- Would our employees have done that?
- Would our management 100% support such action without reservation?
- Would we repay all employee expenses without question?
Do you score a 'no' in any? If you do - and you state you are customer focussed - you need to look again at your culture, behaviour and processes.
I have seen too many companies invest in systems and fail to address 'softskills' development. It is a balance. Get it wrong and the damage to the business could be considerable.