Developing a Customer-Centric Graphic Arts Organization

Published in: IPA Bulletin, May/June 2006

Our mission is to spoil our customers so much they would never want to leave, and no one else would ever want them.

-As reported from a chain of reprographic stores in Southern California.

Relentless information gathering. Clarity of purpose. Clarity of communications. And setting the example. As leaders in our organizations, we may privately say to ourselves that the customer can't always be right, but the facts are the customer is still the customer. It's customers we are in business to serve — beyond their expectations. And it's customers who ultimately determine who is allowed to stay in business — and prosper.

Customers we select to pursue and personally commit to serving have a profound effect on:

• What culture we build,
• What reputation we develop in the marketplace,
• Whom we attract, and
• How our executive leadership is perceived.

Similarly, whatever directions, personal follow-up, values, and commitments emanate from the top executive office of our organization sends reverberating ripples to the farthest corners of our organization.

Thus, what an organization receives back as customer, employee, and supplier feedback — no matter how it is expressed and experienced — reflect those executive directions, values, and communications.

I once asked a CEO Peer Group to divide a sheet of paper down the middle. On the left side, I asked them to list their corporate priorities, not to exceed 10, in descending order. On the right side, I asked them to list where they invested their time, not to exceed 10, in descending order. For at least half of the CEOs, "developing customers and business" was number one. However, "developing customers and business" too often didn't make the list of how they invested their time.

In other words, like it or not, we are receiving back from the marketplace — our customers and employees and suppliers — what we are sowing.

If there is a central key to how we navigate and develop business prosperity, it is wrapped around:

• Relentless communications (i.e., researching, processing, and broadcasting customer-related information), and
• Integrity of action to the mission.

Here are but a few of the opportunities for top executives to "stay in-tune" with the market and influence their primary constituencies, including employees, customers, suppliers, and friends.

 

 

Spoil customers so much that they would never want to leave because it's customers who ultimately determine who is allowed to stay in business — and prosper.

 

 

 

Creating a Customer-Centric Organization

Select any of the following, and then perform to the maximum, not the minimum.

Twice a year, offer a list of your top priorities to your organization. In too many organizations, most employees do not have clarity of where their organization is going or what it is to accomplish beyond performing the job at hand. As a result, most employees are reduced to performing in a reactive manner throughout their day. Recommendation: twice a year outline your top three or top six or top 10 priorities, and then share them with your personnel, explaining the whys. This exercise can make a profound difference in supporting initiatives that only the individual — often at a key, fragile moment — can engage.

Personally visit at least one of your top 20 customers every week, and report to the organization what you learned, and what needs to be different. Leaders go frequently to the front line — and that's your customer. There's no better way to really know what's needed, or expected, whether it's a Periodic Business Review, or a planned business development appointment. Such initiatives inspire your customer contact and production teams; elevate your sense understanding, integrity and accountability; and ensure you make more correct, proactive decisions.

Take a key production person with you to visit target accounts. It's my bias that such an activity tends to win on many fronts. People tend to understand better what they personally experience. When a key production person visits a target account, there's first-hand knowledge gained about the customer's needs, expectations, and frustrations. Ownership of the customer's expectations is at least partially transferred to your production person — and not just for their department's part of a project. Chadwick's rule of thumb: Every key production manager should invest at least one-half day a month onsite with a target account. If this is done, many other objectives and opportunities become possible.

Issue a monthly or bimonthly (written) report to employees regarding your organization's achievements, challenges, and changing market conditions. If you put this in writing, you may be assured that folks will read and reread its content. Whatever time you invest in this communication can be counted on to have a payback of at least 100 times for improving organizational understanding, focus, and initiatives. Note: you should expect your most loyal and committed suppliers and customers to find a way to bootleg a copy.

Personally visit a top performing company — at least twice a year — and take a key manager with you. All of us need to be inspired. All of us need to experience live examples that can lift our organization's performance. And most top performing organizations allow a confidential exchange of visits if there's not a direct competitive threat. My experience and bias is that most top performing organizations have several areas we can learn from; but we must make the challenging effort to pursue the "hidden performance secrets," and then follow-up with a plan of implementation.

Develop systems to gather and systematically review top customers' performance. Few organizations perform an in-depth quarterly review of customers' performances. The drill too often is similar to, "if the top line and bottom line are acceptable, then let's go on to something more productive." Yet, customer attrition leaves a trail and usually contains a preventable story. Business development activities, purchases, and an outline of services used — for a period of time that may go back as far as three years — need to be reviewed for your top customers and prospects. Inevitably, questions are raised from this type of review that deserve to be investigated. Predictably, remedial action opportunities are uncovered.

Develop systems to gather and systematically review customer feedback. Too many of us do not systematically review feedback from customers, which is usually rich with opportunity. For instance, do we capture and review all customer complaints? (To test this, go talk to your bookkeeper, prepress specialist, CSRs, delivery person, or receptionist.) Do we capture and review requests our organization could not respond positively to? (To test this, go talk to your estimator.)

Write a Quarterly President's Report. We now have five clients who are writing Quarterly President's Reports that are forwarded to customers and target prospects' "enlarged buying centers," their employees, suppliers, and friends. The CEOs personality inevitably comes through and is priceless. Format is generally kept to two pages. Content includes what's been accomplished (or almost accomplished), what's new, what's heard from key suppliers, and what to expect.

Create a relentless education and performance improvement program for your customers, employees, and suppliers. In other words, give folks another reason to prefer your organization. I believe that purposeful sharing of information and collaboration create opportunities for performance improvement. Generally speaking, organizations that implement employee, customer, and supplier education programs receive a payback that's easily 1,000 times the investment. Do problems and errors still occur? Of course. But in the final analysis, how would your customers vote on your creating and committing to such offerings.

Writing Your Future

Please note that none of these customer-centric options are limited to company size, capitalization, location, or capabilities. My experience is that those organizations who have taken up these challenges recognize more than anyone what opportunities are not yet successfully engaged.

We write our future prosperity every day — not by , being the lowest cost producer, but rather by developing and delivering to target customers more for their money and what they need.

Inspired leaders understand that we are experiencing a period of change like perhaps no other. And through all this, certain inspired organizations continue to change, reconfigure, implement, and prosper.

To successfully create and sustain a customer-centric organization requires a focused sense of purpose to perform, with relentless communications to that end. And this process starts at the top.