​Is the Pendulum starting to swing in the other direction?

​Have we hit the end of the arc of the pendulum toward more automation and it is beginning it's opposite course to more human interaction? I feel we are...and so do a lot of other people.

We have not only become frustrated with the lack of personal interaction to explain our situation and get a resolution, we are actually starting to see the opposite effect of how all this was supposed to help us.

​The MOST IMPORTANT ASSET for everyone is TIME!

​The most important "asset" to any person today is TIME (according to a Forrester Research study a few years back). So when we hear this, everyone scrambles to the conclusion that automation and AI will be the savior of us all and save us the Holy Grail of Time. And it has...to a certain degree...but is it now backfiring on us and actually COSTING US MORE TIME?

"Thank you for calling XYZ company, please listen closely as we have changed our menu options. Press 1 for A, 2 for B, 3 for C, 4 for D, 5 for E, 6 for F, 7 for G, 8 for H, 9 for all other options, or # if you need to hear these options over again." But wait, once you hit one of these numbers, you get the next wave, "Press 1 for J, Press 2 for K, Press 3 for L, Press 4 for M, Press 5 for N, Press 6 for O, Press 7 for P, Press 8 for Q, or Press 9 for all other options or # if you need to hear these options over again." We have almost gone through the entire alphabet and most likely we still aren't where we want to be or any closer to getting our answers.

TIME SAVING??? Really? I don't think so...because after we go through this a few times we still end up wanting to find the one sacred option...the number that will connect us to a PERSON.

It seems like the pendulum has started to swing...we want to talk to people. We still want to save time, but it is becoming easier to save time when speaking with someone rather than going through a litany of automated options...and most likely not getting our answer...so we still end up wanting to talk with someone...which costs us more time than if we had just started out by talking to someone.

​It is now a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

​And from a competitive advantage, it has now become "unusual" to have the phone answered by a person...we have come to expect the automation. Think about this from your own business...do you want to stand out among your competitors? Of course you do, every business does. Today, having a person answer your phone is a way to stand out. And if they are efficient enough to help you get your answers, even if you have to be transferred, you look more favorably on this organization.

You like the organizations that show they "care" and are willing to invest in having a person answer your call, not a machine. They have become a little more differentiated in our mind today. They stand out.

And if you're telling yourself you can't do this because it might cost more, think again. Add up the cost of the technology, support, ensuring that it has the proper updates, updating the options and scripts, and having someone manage this isn't cheap. Oh, and don't forget to factor in the cost of unhappy customers along the way that you are creating with the automation...what is that cost worth to you if they leave?

​What do CUSTOMER OBSESSED organizations do?

​If you are wanting to become a Customer Obsessed organization you will be asking the question, "What will give our customers the best experience and also help them see us as caring and helpful...not to mention different?" When you answer this question, you will rethink the automation vs. human question.

Decide for yourself and your own organization...where are you with the pendulum? Has it swung too far in your industry, with your competitors? What are your customers wanting...do you even know?

Customer Obsessed organizations know the answers to these questions and change the way they interact with their customers...because it's what their customers truly want. And they still save them TIME! And even more importantly, they built TRUST along the way...the ultimate competitive advantage.

Maybe it's time to rethink the issue of automation vs. human interaction in your own organization.

​What to do next...

You can start ​thinking about your own organization and how your customer experience feels when they interact ​with you. Whether you use me to help you figure this out, do the exercises and identify what is going on inside your own company with your own experiences…it’s a great starting point.

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed or how you can do this type of analysis, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand how to do this in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. Hopefully you found this helpful…if so, I think it’s our responsibility as fellow business owners (and leaders) to share this with others we think could benefit from it…please help them out and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and you make a strategic decision this year to become Customer Obsessed. It will put you on a completely differentiated path so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, someone who delivers an unbelievable customer experience, and someone who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!

Why is this happening?

There is one simple word we use every day in many of our conversations that is the culprit of all this change and why things aren’t working. Actually, there are two, but for now, I want to focus on just one of them. That word is TIME. Time is now the most important asset any of us have…and it’s been backed up by lots of research. Forrester studied this and came up with numbers that might shock you. They found that over 70% of the people they surveyed said “time was their most valuable asset” today. TIME.

Think about the conversations you might have throughout the day. They might include comments such as…

And the last thing we need to hear from someone is, “We all have the same number of hours in the day to get things done…blah, blah, blah.” If I hear that one more time…well you probably feel the same way. This doesn’t help solve any of the above issues…I’m as guilty of saying these as much as you might be as well. Problem not solved.

​Your Customers Feel the Same Way!

Bring this back to my primary focus, Customer Obsession, and you will be able to determine if you are helping your customers SAVE time or if you are COSTING your customers more time. This is a critical distinction that often goes unnoticed by many companies. When I do some quick analysis of the interactions a company has with their customers, invariably we find that they are doing things that COST THEIR CUSTOMERS TIME.

When you cost your customers time, this is demonstrating you really don’t care about them as much as you say you do because you are wasting their number one asset, TIME. Your customers feel exactly the same way you do and they have a list very similar to the one above with respect to time. They don’t have enough of it and are trying to figure out ways to save it and not waste it. Here’s the question every leader should be asking his team…

“Are we doing things that cost our customers valuable time? And what are we doing that helps our customers save time?”

Answer these two questions (honestly)…you might be very surprised by your answers. This is a great discussion point to have with any leader in your business…regardless of their department.

TIME represents a MASSIVE Opportunity

Hopefully you have figured out by now that if you put a focus on TIME, you can create some differentiation with your customers because everyone else most likely isn’t helping them save (or at least not waste) more of their time by working with you. Figure this one out and you will be a differentiated HERO in the eyes of your customer. They will definitely feel you care much more about them when you help them get back more of their most valuable asset of TIME.

When I help companies develop their “totally awesome customer experience” this is a paramount factor in creating a Customer Experience Map. If the new “map” doesn’t end up helping their customers save or not waste more time with us then it isn’t achieving what it needs to accomplish. TIME is a critical component to “creating and delivering a totally awesome customer experience.”

Here’s an easy exercise you can start to do in your leadership team meetings. Pick one part of your customer experience interaction with your customer. Maybe it’s as simple as an “incoming phone call” or an “initial meeting” or some other interaction. Once you have one identified, start by asking yourself, “Does the way we deliver this specific experience help save our customers time or is it costing them more time when they are interacting with us?”

Next, create a list of the parts of the experience you feel are costing your customers time by interacting with you. Create a second list of those things you are doing as part of the experience that are helping save your customers time. Compare the two lists. The goal should be to look at ways to eliminate the first column and add more things to the second column. It’s harder than you think to move things from one column to the next.

While this might be a “spot fix” for you, it is a healthy place to start. The ultimate fix would be to completely redefine your customer experiences (do the mapping) so that the entire experience is focused not just on making them feel incredible but it also helps them feel like you are doing everything you can to save them time, or make better use of their time. This is the desired state for your customers.

What to do next…

You can start doing some of this analysis today on your customer experiences where you interact wit hour customers. Whether you use me to help you figure this out, do the exercises and identify what is going on inside your own company with your own experiences…it’s a great starting point.

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed or how you can do this type of analysis, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand how to do this in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. Hopefully you found this helpful…if so, I think it’s our responsibility as fellow business owners (and leaders) to share this with others we think could benefit from it…please help them out and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and you make a strategic decision this year to become Customer Obsessed. It will put you on a completely differentiated path so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, someone who delivers an unbelievable customer experience, and someone who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!

Statistics can do whatever you want

Statistics are a tricky thing when it comes to making decisions. You can use them to support or reject any business decision. They are universal in being able to do both. Anyone can find statistics to support their claim…especially now that we have the internet and can find virtually any number we need online. So, when someone says they read some great statistics about why they should or shouldn’t do something, it’s usually because they want to simply support their position for a decision they have already made.

They are also great to use when you want to use when you want to confirm your “gut feeling” about something you want to do or don’t want to do. Most business owners will tell you they have a “Good Gut Feel” about what they should or shouldn’t do in their business. No data, just a gut feel. Who am I to challenge this…I have seen too many of them turn out to be right and a great decision for the business.

What WILL change your decision or “gut feel”

There is only one thing I have seen that will consistently trump a leader’s decision or gut feel about something…their customers. When their customers give them feedback on either their experience, a product/service, an employee, or a variety of other areas of the business, leader’s will change their decisions. And rightfully so. If their customers are expressing discontent in some way something usually happens if the company cares at all about their customers.

Or if their customers are raving about something they are doing, they will pick up on this and want to do it either more often or throughout more of their company. Capitalizing on some of the awesome things happening inside your company is just smart business.

Ask your leadership team these questions

Here are a few simple questions that would make for some great conversations at your next leadership meeting…

Your Opportunity…

The (honest) responses to these questions will help you assess whether or not you are more of a “commodity” or you are “differentiated” in the eyes of your customers. No statistics, no gut feel, just the facts. If you are truly honest with yourself you will realize you are probably closer to a commodity than you are a unique, completely differentiated organization IN THE EYES OF YOUR CUSTOMER. It really doesn’t matter what you and I think…it only matters what the people who write us checks think.

The opportunity always starts with “self-assessment” before change can happen. I can guarantee you there will be NO CHANGE until you have openly discovered (and admitted) where you are today. But once you do, amazing things can happen. You can actually start to move along the path to market domination and true differentiation in the eyes of your customer.

If you honestly answer these questions, you won’t need any statistics to support or reject your position…you will know EXACTLY where you stand. I get to do this for clients and it is eye-opening. We discover things that the leadership team would never know by what they were currently doing. This first step is an amazing opportunity to take the first step to becoming more CUSTOMER OBSESSED.

What to do next…

You can start collecting this information TODAY. It’s right in front of you if you choose to take advantage of it. Put a plan together that will allow you to accurately and consistently capture this feedback right now. Whether you use me or someone else to help you get it, it will be the most valuable information you can have about your customer today.

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed or how you can set up a process to capture this type of information, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand how to do this in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. Hopefully you found this helpful…if so, I think it’s our responsibility as fellow business owners (and leaders) to share this with others we think could benefit from it…please help them out and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and you make a strategic decision this year to become Customer Obsessed. It will put you on a completely differentiated path so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, someone who delivers an unbelievable customer experience, and someone who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!!

Customer Feedback isn’t Always in Response to a Question

Most of us are duped into believing we have to ask our customers everything we want to know. And we actually believe they will respond and tell us the answers we need to know. Doesn’t happen. This hasn’t worked in decades…yet most businesses still pursue this as a viable channel for feedback and answers. It isn’t and it doesn’t (hasn’t) worked in a very long time. Think about this for a moment…

There are lots of issues with asking customers questions…here are just a few to consider. See if any of these ring a bell for you…experiences you have had with collecting valid customer data.

Asking Does (and can) work

Despite all the reasons why asking your customers for feedback doesn’t work, there are definitely ways to get answers from your customers that will work for you. However, this is a much deeper topic…one for another blog post…sorry. Stay tuned…it will be coming out in the next few weeks.

How to get great Feedback DIDN’T ASK FOR

Here’s the real answer to my initial question of “what feedback are you getting that you aren’t asking for with your questions” …your CUSTOMERS’ EXPERIENCE. Every day your business has tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of interactions with your customers. These interactions contain incredibly valuable information and data. And the best part is that it is free! And it is coming to you with honesty and integrity. This is information being thrown at you and your people every minute of every day.

What are you doing with it? Are you even capturing it? Are you even aware of it?

The Opportunity…

For most businesses, they aren’t doing any of the above…they are just getting it thrown at them but not capturing it. What a waste. Here is an opportunity for you to get some of the most valuable input from your customers that isn’t being captured, analyzed, discussed, or improved upon with any formal plan or actions. From my perspective (and hopefully yours), this is missing the gold sitting right in front of you. This is one of the best opportunities any leader can have with their company.

What exactly is this information I am talking about that you are getting thrown at you every day? Let me break it down into a few key areas for you to think about with regard to your own company.

These are just of few of the ways you can start collecting this incredibly valuable information WITHOUT ASKING A SINGLE QUESTION of your customers.

What to do next…

You can start collecting this information TODAY. It’s right in front of you if you choose to take advantage of it. Put a plan together that will allow you to accurately and consistently capture information from these many sources sitting in front of you right now. This is not only free information, it is probably the most valuable information you can have about your customer today. Free and valuable…is there any reason why you wouldn’t want to capture this information?

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed or how you can set up a process to capture this type of information, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand how to do this in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. Hopefully you found this helpful…if so, I think it’s our responsibility as fellow business owners (and leaders) to share this with others we think could benefit from it…please help them out and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and you make a strategic decision this year to become Customer Obsessed. It will put you on a completely differentiated path so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, someone who delivers an unbelievable customer experience, and someone who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!!

​Analysis by The Atlantic of WHY they failed...

There was a good article written in the Atlantic about a year ago, “Who Bankrupted Toys R Us? Blame Private Equity and Millennial Parents,” that had some very specific and legitimate causes for their downfall. They first blamed the “online retailers” for taking their market share away with the boom in online shopping. It was much easier to sit at home in your pajamas and order your kids toys than to drive to the nearest store with kids in tow. And they would be right, it is easier…but is it a better experience for both the parents and the kids?

The second reason they blamed their demise on was “Private Equity” firms. Apparently, after their acquisition and taken private by KKR, Bain, and Vorando, they stacked up a lot of debt on top of the retailer. With this amount of debt (approximately $5B) and declining sales, the ability to repay this back and still keep the doors open started to collapse.

And the third reason they pointed out was the “Millennial Mindset” that has been established by kids and their parents. “Screens” are more prevalent and important than TV and other sources that Toys R Us used extensively for advertising and creating demand. As this dropped and they weren’t garnering the attention of the young audience, they weren’t top of mind for where to get toys.

​I believe there is another key reason they couldn’t survive…their CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

I had actually visited a couple of Toys R Us stores in my area during their last year in the brick and mortar business and I was appalled at the experience (or lack of) that they were delivering. There was nothing special about being in the store. The employees didn’t know where things were, and when they were telling you they didn’t, they weren’t friendly. They didn’t take time to find out or walk you over to an aisle, they just didn’t want to help. The experience sucked!

In both stores I visited I took the time to ask several people lots of questions to try and get someone that would help me and also treat me like a customer they were dying to have in their store. Instead, I felt like an annoyance to everyone, including the manager.

Given this was how they were treating me, a customer that took the time to drive in and actually shop in their store, is there any reason why I wouldn’t want to jump online and find the same (commodity) toy at the best price and have it delivered to my doorstep? Of course not. And after talking to several other people about their experience, mine was not an isolated case…they all felt this way.

​How they could ​have "beat the odds" and WON

Sure, there were all the other factors that caused them to go away…but even with all this, the primary “catalyst” was declining sales. Could they have turned around their declining sales so that they could have been more competitive with the online stores? Could they have stopped the declining sales enough to still cover their debt structure? Could they have captured the attention of the Millennials and driven them to the stores to spend their money there instead of all of it online?

My resounding answer is YES…they could have turned this around if they would have rocked the customers world by offering an incredible, highly desirable customer experience.

What if they had made going into a store so much fun for the kids and the parents that they would have actually wanted to go to a store? What if they could have made it more like a Disneyland with characters and games and little village areas where the kids could play and explore? What if they had made it fun for the Millennial parents to actually visit their store because of the way they treated them and their kids? What if…

I can think of at least 10 ways they could have changed the CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE so that all the people I talked to would have loved to go to a Toys R Us store. There are so many things they could have done if they had been CUSTOMER OBSESSED. They would have thought of some of my ideas and probably many more that would have made the experience awesome. And if the experience was awesome, people would not only want to come into the store to experience it, they would have told all their other Millennial friends to join them. Sales would have gone up, not declined.

​The Lessons Learned...

While there are several lessons to be learned here, the ones that jump off the page are all based around changing their mindset and strategy to being CUSTOMER OBSESSED. If they were thinking more about their customers and did some minimal brainstorming to create a strategy and specific plans to ROCK THE CUSTOMERS WORLD, they would have had a chance of survival.

​The Opportunity...

If you answered yes to one or more of the questions above, you have an incredible opportunity to capitalize on your market and become a leader…both in stature and revenue/profitability. Your competitors are most likely not thinking this way (yet) so you have a chance to be the leader in your space and take over. If you become Customer Obsessed, I can guarantee you will see a marked difference in the way you are viewed and treated in your market.

And your customers will actually look forward to interacting with you, regardless of your size and your industry. You can create such a unique experience that it will be coveted by your customers and the envy of all your competitors. When this happens, you win…you avoid the Toys R Us debacle and you are playing “offense” in your market instead of “defense” to survive. Think about it…your customers already are!

​What To Do Next...

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand it in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. And if you found this helpful ​and thinking of someone you know who could benefit from this post, please help them out as well and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and become Customer Obsessed so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, delivers and unbelievable customer experience, and who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!!

Why not focus on attracting fewer visitors…but attracting the right visitors to your site...the ones you truly care about, can speak directly to with your solutions, and you can honestly help improve their lives. Picture yourself at a business gathering where there are all kinds of businesses represented, different position levels, and different sizes. If you are really focused on one certain type of business and your value proposition speaks to a certain level in in the company, you would want to seek out these people. If you tell anyone else about how awesome you are they don't really listen because they really don't care...this isn't "relevant" to them. So you just wasted your time…or the sales pitch on your website.

But when you find the right level person in the right business and have a clearly differentiated and unique value proposition, your message is heard...and they most likely want to know more. So you can engage them in a “Two-way” conversation and "pull" them along through all the different areas because they actually do care and see why this is very "helpful" to them. Now you are in sync with your “right and desired” audience...they are listening because it is something they care about.

Your website and blog (video, audio, or written) should do the same thing. These sites should be so specific that it literally speaks to the right person in the right business with the issues you can address better than anyone else. And it should show them how you can help them as it "pulls" them through your site. If they don't go deeper in the site and they don't stick around for a while, your site isn't connecting to them. And if they are the right people you want to attract, you need to change the messaging on your site so that it supports this strategy of “helping” not “selling.”

This is being Customer Obsessed...understanding your customer in such a deep way that you can literally speak to them in a way that they want, need, and understand. And if you aren't offering a variety of ways to "help" them along this "discovery journey" on your site, they will leave because they think all you want to do is "sell" them, not "help" them. Selling and helping are not the same. Everyone on the planet can figure out what you do if it is on your website…there is no magic in this today. They don't need help with this any longer. What they do need is to see how you can "help" them with their needs, solve their problems, understand their situation, and make their life (or business) better.

Most I visit do a terrible job at this…they are all about selling and trying to get me to buy as soon as possible. They are all “asking” before they have “helped” me do anything. This is out of order…you need to “help first” and “sell after” they have seen how much you can help them. This is the right order in today’s Customer Driven Economy. Or as I affectionately put it, if you are "pimping" before they even know you can “help them” they will leave in the first 7 seconds (which is the average time they spend on your home page). But if they see right away you can help them, they will give you more “clicks” and more “time on site” than your competitors. If they did spend more time, how would that help you as a business?

This is where the opportunity lies for those leaders who want to be truly differentiated and build relationships with their audience and customers…they have made the move to becoming Customer Obsessed! These are the sites of Customer Obsessed companies…they are just different.

Take the time to do an honest assessment of your web presence. It is worth the investment to truly understand where you are today. Don’t believe your own internal hype from all your employees telling you how great they think your sites are…ask your customers. Better yet, get someone not a part of your company to ask your customers. I always get different answers when I interview customers for clients than they get when they talk to them about how they feel. Get the real story so you know how you stack up in these areas.

Invest the time to better understand why your customers don’t see (or do see) your sites as different, helpful, and memorable. Learn why they don’t think (or do think) you are helping them improve their lives or their businesses. I can guarantee you it will open your eyes to what you have either chosen to ignore or weren’t aware of with your web presence.

Once you understand, then, and only then, can you begin to put together a strategy to change your sites and start to take advantage of the opportunity that exists in everyone’s marketplace, in every industry. The opportunities are boundless today…but only those who have the foresight and vision will take advantage of them. Are you one of them?

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand it in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. And if you found this helpful ​and thinking of someone you know who could benefit from this post, please help them out as well and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and become Customer Obsessed so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, delivers and unbelievable customer experience, and who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!!

What would you do to survive, let alone thrive as a business? I would argue that we are there today.

You might still be using some or all of the tactics listed above to reach your audience. But if you’re like most companies today, you are finding their effectiveness may be so low (possibly nonexistent) that it’s almost like you’re not doing any marketing. One thing I hear a lot today is, “Our marketing just isn’t working very well any longer and very few, if anyone, are responding to our offers and solicitations.”

This is happening more and more and by all indications, this trend will continue getting worse going forward. The noise level of marketing is becoming deafening.

Is this happening to you? What can you do about it? What can you change or how can you turn this upside down so that your marketing efforts are paying off and you are getting your audience to respond to you and you can get more customers? There is an answer…one that has been around as long as time. Most businesses are just not using it to its full potential…nor are they leveraging the most powerful weapon they have in the war on marketing.

I know, right now you’re probably saying to yourself, “I already know about the power of word-of-mouth but it’s hard to get more word-of-mouth.” And you would be right…it isn’t easy to just decide you need more word-of-mouth and it appears. But one thing is for certain, the investment is worth it and it pays dividends for a very long time…it is a “long-tail” solution. And if you want more word-of-mouth in the future, you need to START NOW!

There are prescriptive ways you can start building more word-of-mouth and referrals over time…it just requires focus and persistence.

Once an organization commits to creating a business strategy around getting more word-of-mouth, they can literally stop worrying about the more traditional marketing approach. These aren’t “silver bullets” or “magic pills” you can just take today and life is better tomorrow, sorry, word-of-mouth doesn’t work that way. But like in everything we do, small improvements made consistently can lead to big changes.

There are several steps you can take to start getting more word-of-mouth…and you can start doing something in these areas TODAY! There are two critical cornerstones for creating massive and consistent word-of-mouth, regardless of your industry or competitive position.

I would encourage every business leader to do some introspection and give your company a grade on these two critical elements to building more word-of-mouth. Obviously we all want to have an A+ grade, but that’s not where most organization start. Start by assessing where you are today in these areas and then make a leadership decision that you want to significantly improve them and get them to a top, differentiating level. If you do, you will see the results through more word-of-mouth and more buzz in your market.

Ask yourself a very important question, “If we didn’t have use any of the current marketing tools, would we have people spreading word-of-mouth about us and be able to survive and grow?” After you implement some of these changes necessary to deliver an incredibly awesome Customer Experience and your audience knows they can Trust you, word-of-mouth will start to go up…and go up quickly. And once word-of-mouth starts to climb, it feeds on itself and you get more and more of it every day. Word-of-mouth feeds on word-of-mouth.

If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand it in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. And if you found this helpful happened to think of someone you know who could benefit from this post, please help them out as well and share this with them.

I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and become Customer Obsessed so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, delivers and unbelievable Customer Experience, and garners massive amounts of Trust. That would be awesome!!

Unfortunately, when it comes to delivering a differentiating, awesome, and mind blowing customer experience, the majority of companies are mediocre…at best. You may think you are above being mediocre, and you may very well be, but upon further analysis, most aren’t. How can you tell?

Let me back up and describe what customers view as “mediocre” when it comes how they are treated by most organizations. They summarize it in 3 main ways (or areas).

Back to the test…how do you stack up in each of these three areas? Not from your perspective…from your customers perspective. If I went out and talked to a mere 20 of your customers selected at random, what would they tell me about how you perform in each of these 3 areas?

If you don’t think you would get resounding applause from them in all 3, you’re mediocre. Sorry, but it’s the way your customers feel about you. And unfortunately, being mediocre is the same as being a commodity in today’s marketplace. Anyone can be mediocre…there isn’t any differentiation between mediocre companies…except price.

This is where the opportunity lies for those leaders who can see past living in a state of mediocrity and moving their company to a state of being memorable, differentiated, unique, in high demand, and being more profitable…they have made the move to becoming Customer Obsessed! All of these words describe Customer Obsessed companies…they are just different.

Take the time to do an honest assessment of your organization with your leadership team. It is worth the investment to truly understand where you are today. Don’t believe your own internal hype from all your employees telling you how great they think the company is…ask your customers. Better yet, get someone not a part of your company to ask your customers. I always get different answers when I interview customers for clients than they get when they talk to them about how they feel. Get the real story so you know how you stack up in these areas.

Invest the time to better understand why your customers don’t see you (or do see you) as memorable, or someone who doesn’t (or does) keep their promises, and why they don’t think (or do think) you are helping them improve their lives or their businesses. I can guarantee you it will open your eyes to what you have either chosen to ignore or are not aware is going on with your customers.

Once you understand, then, and only then, can you begin to put together a strategy to change your situation and start to take advantage of the opportunity that exists in everyone’s marketplace, in every industry. The opportunities are boundless today…but only those who have the foresight and vision will take advantage of them. Are you one of them?