Creating Customer Culture

What do I need to do to ensure that I get the right people in the right roles?

Attempts to improve manufacturing quality consistently demonstrate that sustained success – the kind that leads to a real competitive advantage – requires employees who have internalized the appropriate attitudes and behaviors. It is through the creation of “a culture of quality” that the new strategies, processes, tools and measures work. The customer side of the business is no different. Numerous well conceived CRM, sales effectiveness, and marketing effectiveness initiatives have failed for the single reason that not enough attention was given to the specific behaviors and attitudes required for particular customer segments and go-to-market approaches.

One way to think about culture is “the acceptable behavior in order to succeed”. Do your organization’s measures of success align with your customer side strategy? Are the acceptable behaviors required to be deemed successful the behaviors required to create lasting value for your best customers? What are the necessary behaviors needed to drive customer loyalty? Do different customer segments or go-to-market processes required different behaviors? Do different sales approaches require different behaviors? Do your top executives model the appropriate behaviors for the customer-side culture you need to create? Even more than on the production side of the business, to be effective customer side processes demand that the tools, processes, measures and behaviors all align. And they must be become the culture and thus become “self managed” behaviors.

Role Definition Concepts
- Hire Slowly. Fire Quickly.

It is critical to always slow down and define your direction before embarking on a new hiring cycle. This is the ideal time to determine how to improve the caliber of the team and the organization as a whole. If, each time you fill a position, you hire someone who is “not quite as good as the last person”, over time you will have taken significant steps backward. On the other hand, if you look to make small incremental improvements each time you fill a position, you will, over time make significant leaps forward in the caliber of the people in the organization.

Now we know that when a position opens up, all the forces of nature will converge upon you to fill the position quickly. It is natural to want to grab the last ad or the last set of recruiting material and use it again, just to get things started quickly. However, we cannot stress enough the importance of hiring slowly. Get the team together, conduct a Role Definition Workshop, and define all the key elements of the position. Download a PDF article on this subject

Behavioral Profiling in the Recruiting Process

“Hire them for what they know. Fire them for who they are.” This statement is an accurate reflection of what happens in most organizations. Let me explain. There are three factors that go into every hiring decision. They are

1. Talent or Behaviors,
2. Experience and Education
3. Chemistry.

The chemistry component includes how well an individual will “fit” with the team, their boss and the organizational culture overall. Whether an organization is disciplined about these three areas or not, they are the factors considered when making a hiring decision. Let’s consider some potential hiring mistakes you may have made.

Use of behavioral profiling will allow you to determine before you hire a candidate, whether or not they will be successful on the job. While no assessment process is guaranteed, this method has proven to deliver the best results. Over 60% of turnover results from people not “fitting” in the culture. And the cost associated with turnover is significant, usually up to three times an individual's annual salary. Using the Cost of Turnover Estimator you can plug in a recent turnover situation and see how much it likely cost your organization. The harsh fact is that a poor performer will remain in the organization two years, when you probably knew in the interview that this wasn’t a good fit. But because the forces of nature had converged upon you, you justified the candidate's shortcomings to get the position filled quickly.

In centers where this process has been implemented, turnover rates which typically run upwards of 50% have decreased to less than 10%. And as a result, greater employee satisfaction and loyalty has led to greater customer satisfaction and loyalty. Download a PDF article on this subject

Performance and Talent Management

“You get what you reward, every time.” The Performance Management Process must be developed to drive and reward the right behavior and align with organizational goals and objectives. The Performance Management Process is so much more than an annual appraisal or “completed form”. This is only one component of a successful Performance Management System. A successful system is based on regular dialog, honest and straightforward feedback using performance standards, development planning, incentives and a formal coaching process.

Developing job descriptions and defining performance standards to include both qualitative and quantitative components are essential. Quantitative standards are specific, measurable elements, which allow you to focus on output, productivity or results. Equally important are the qualitative elements which are more subjective in nature and allow you place emphasis on quality. Our system provides a comprehensive process for performance management and the necessary tools and procedures for effective results. Download a PDF article on this subject

Employee Satisfaction and Loyalty

• Do you struggle to attract talented individuals to your organization?
• Do you struggle to keep your teams motivated and engaged?
• Do you struggle with employee satisfaction and loyalty to the organization?

To quote from the Service Profit Chain (Harvard Business School), research has shown that there is a direct link between profitability, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity. So how do you create employee loyalty? Employees no longer seem to believe in long-term commitments to their employer, yet many companies have not adjusted their mindset around this. The Service Profit Chain makes clear what elements you need to focus on in order to increase employee loyalty. Download a PDF article on this subject

Change Management

Like a broken link in a chain, if you are missing even one step in your Change Management process, the entire initiative will be weak. While there are many change management models available to businesses today, the core elements are very similar.

So, do you have any broken links in your change management process? How are your change management initiatives really working? Try responding to the following questions adapted from John Kotter’s book, Leading Change.

• Are you allowing too much complacency?
• Have you created a powerful guiding coalition?
• Have you provided a powerful vision?
• Have you cleared away all the obstacles blocking the new vision?
• Have you created short-term wins?
• Have you firmly anchored changes in the corporate culture?

It is important to understand why employees fight change. Kotter defines a multi-stage process that leadership can use to drive change in a healthy way.

Example 1: Download a PDF article on this subject
Example 2: Download a PDF article on this subject