Are You a Customer Centric Organization? Part II

When I was a young salesman visiting Bob Collins, CEO of GE Fanuc, he was made aware of some poorly manufactured product.

It was an honest mistake by the manufacturing group. Not all products were impacted, but Bob immediately halted all shipments and instructed his people to pull everything back out of inventory and retest it before shipment.

This all seemed to be the prudent thing to do. However, his people told him that they couldn't retest everything and still make shipments for the month.

Further, they would surely miss their quarterly, and perhaps yearly shipment goals.

Bob clearly understood his decision would negatively impact his financial results. In fact, revenue goals, employee bonuses, and profit would be affected. To me it seemed like a tough decision, but Bob made his decision without hesitation. He would retest everything. In a blink of an eye, people moved to implement his customer-oriented choice.

When I quizzed Bob on how fast he made this decision, he said, "My customers best interests always comes first". "If I serve their interests, they will reward me time and again with their business", he added. It may seem trite, but Bob meant it and more importantly, his organization knew he meant it. I believe this was part of Bob's CEO makeup and helped propel GE Fanuc to consistent double-digit growth with above industry profit returns.

So what's the message?

Understanding your customer and driving that customer orientation into every aspect of your organization pays dividends time and again. Successful organizations know that it's everyone's job to work for the customer. It doesn't matter if they are a first year accountant or a long-time maintenance person; each has a part in driving your organization to provide exceptional customer service.

Now the hard part. Moving your company to a level that routinely provides Customer Delight is a never-ending and on-going process, not an event. How often have your heard someone in your organization suggest that they could get more work done if they didn't get interrupted with telephone calls from customers. Or someone in order entry exclaims, " What a jerk that guys is, doesn't he understand we're doing our best". Get radical. In both cases I would fire the person or the individual responsible for training and supervising that area.

My final advice is to begin today. As Bob Collins would say, "Your customers will reward you time and again with their business".
 

About the Author

Frank Williams is a marketer. With many post graduate courses in management, leadership, marketing and technology to his credit, Williams is a widely respected speaker, author and technologist. He has significant knowledge in marketing strategies and is the founder and CEO of Global Marketing, Inc. - a leader in business, marketing and sales consulting. Other articles can be found at:
http://members.cox.net/glmarketing/glmarketing/index.htm.