Category: When Customers Rule!

Over the last couple of weeks, a business trip too me across 4 time zones / 10 flights / 9 cities in a period of 2 weeks. I have to mention to you an air hostess experience on one of these flights –

A passenger seated next to me was asleep when the air hostess made the “beginning decent – buckle up” announcement. In a few minutes, an air hostess walks up, wakes up my neighbour & tells to buckle up as already announced. Just as he was buckling up, he is curtly told that the announcement also asked passengers to straighten the seats.

A couple of days later, I was on the same airline & came across another similar incident.

This time an air hostess walks up, apologetically wakes up the passenger. Requests him to buckle up & straighten the seat. When the passenger forgot to straighten the seat, the same air hostess returns to courteously requests him to straighten the seat again. She quickly adds that some of the seats have a problem of tilting on their own at times.

Which customer experience do you think will result in the customer having a positive feeling about the airline?
Factually, the air hostess in the first case might be correct. But does anyone want to be reminded about it? How many of us are purely rational?

BW Customer Service Champs

Business Week has recently released its annual list of customer service champions.

Some of my notes & observations –
  • The list is dominated by car manufacturers & hotels.
  • When anyone mentions car rentals – Hertz is the first name that comes to most people’s minds. But Enterprise seems to be ahead in quite a few lists – including this one.
  • Some adopted tips & tricks – 24 hour service chat on the web; freebies – especially car servicing; happy employees leading to superior service; focus on customer’s overall experience; involvement of the top execs; etc.

Even Goliath embraces customer centricity

In this CNET article, Tom Krazit explains how Intel is turning a new page (a page out of its competitors strategy book) & becoming more customer centric. Even the behemoth recognizes the need to be customer centric.

You would think Intel with its market share & clout can push its way through. Pushing did work for a while, but then things changed – competitively & in their customers’ markets. Intel is now going out of its way to understand how it can help its customers win by differentiating themselves.

It becomes interesting when you realize that the PC manufacturers are all trying to differentiate themselves using the same chip maker – Intel. What a position to be in – partneirng with all players in the PC market & helping them all compete against one another – whichever PC maker wins, Intel always wins.

Is being customer centric altruistic?

Often qualities of altruism, sacrifice and benevolance are associated with customer centricity. The common perception is that being customer centric is tantamount to accepting a win-loose (the customer centric organization loosing to the customer) strategy. Best left to the realms of business idealism?

Being customer centric means that the supplier organization is sensitized to the world of its customers. What are their business challenges? What does it take to succeed in that world? What is my customer’s strategy? What adds value to my customer or their customers? Basically – the abiliy to get into our customers shoes.
Isn’t this something we see in a ot of successful people around us.