Championing a customer-intimate philosophy – so that business strategies are aligned with customers, individually and collectively – is a laudable goal. But customer intimacy is enhanced when companies take steps to ensure that their people don’t just ‘talk the talk’ but also ‘walk the walk’.
In markets characterized by personalization, even the largest global customers with impersonal corporate images want to feel important enough to merit special attention. If board directors fail to lavish appropriate attention on their best customers, they risk being unable to identify when to switch resources to or from different accounts. But getting close to customers isn’t enough – senior managers must cascade what they learn (good or bad) back down through the ranks, with a steer on action that needs to be taken as a result.
The ‘human touch’ needs to be considered – buying behavior is often influenced by the degree to which a customer’s representatives (whether purchasers or users) are made to feel valued, for instance:
Top management may themselves be amongst the few members of staff in a company aiming for customer intimacy, to have enjoyed being on the receiving end of such a high standard of service. This makes it even more of an imperative that customer intimacy is led from the top. If senior managers are in touch with customers, they’ll be better able to communicate the key themes within which their people must tweak their modus operandi, and to recognize when additional resources need to be made available, and in what quantities. The good news is that frontline staff members will usually be keen to follow top managers who lead by example. But be warned: they’ll be quick to spot fakes. Those who don’t follow words with actions may lose good people.
Published on 25/05/2011
