Here’s the deal about this book. It’s about reality.
How to get the customer thing (you know, the public proclamation to focus on customers, followed by mass confusion on what to do) done beyond the lip service, t-shirts, kickoffs.
It’s about how to push the customer rock up the hill by turning the focus on the obvious: customer profits.
It’s about how to figure out how steep that hill is. And it’s about how to keep that rock from falling on your head . . . as little as possible. It’s about figuring out if you’ve got the leadership guts to take this effort on, and it’s about navigating the corporate machine to figure out how and where to best leverage this effort from. And, yes, this book is also about knowing when to pick up your marbles and go home.
So enough with the hand waving and chanting that this year really is about the customer! Enough with the crazy task forces, the meetings before the meetings, the meetings after the meetings, and the actual silly meetings that accomplish little more than pushing peas around on our plate. Let’s get something done.
There’s a lot of talk going on now about having a “Chief” to own the customer effort.
Sounds great, right? Well . . . maybe. Don’t put your money down until you know what you’re buying, how this role can fit in your organization and how hard you have to work to make it a success. This is expensive real estate in terms of commitment, time, people, and changing how people work. It will send some into a state of happy delirium and will annoy others. You need to know exactly what it will do to whom and why before you pull the trigger.
Does this chief give everyone the ability to wipe their hands of doing the customer thing? Does this chief person make it easier for the CEO to make a public commitment to the customer? And just what are they “chief” of? Surely to lead the customer thing, don’t they need to own the operations where the customer issues are created and resolved? Not necessarily. Who does this person report to? Is this an evangelist or a doer?
You’ll determine if a Chief Customer Officer is right for your organization.
You’ll examine your organization and determine if this is the right fit for you. Most important, this book will prod you into understanding what has stalled your efforts in the past. What are the deeply rooted things in the way your organization is wired that has gotten in the way, and what considerations are required before you step yet again into the customer commitment arena?
For twenty-five years I’ve been pushing the customer rock up the hill.
I’ve had the fifty-ton weight of “Just go fix it” strapped to my back regarding the customer thing. I’ve worked with enlightened leaders where we’ve been in lockstep every step of the way. Having had the good fortune to begin my customer zealotry career at Lands’ End, reporting to founder Gary Comer, I received the foundation to know when that path was right. But I’ve spent way too much time pounding on doors to get into meetings and onto the agenda and to have a seat in the room where the big decisions are made. These experiences gave me a living laboratory to figure out how to navigate in less friendly waters. My instincts for knowing which kind of water I’m in has become quite sharpened, as have the different approaches required to get the job done. Over the years, these survive-and-thrive tactics have amassed into a playbook, which I have assembled into this book.
It’s my goal to give you as many ways as possible to fight the gravity of that rock.
Along the way, you’ll also need to become a bit of a Tom Sawyer, getting people to come paint your fence. And I pass along how to do this too; because the real joy in this work comes when it’s not your own anymore but instead becomes the work of the organization. I hope you find real value in these methods behind the madness, passion, guts, and process to get a company to wrap itself around its customers. Keep pushing on that rock! Through this book, I’ve got my hand at the small of your back prodding you on.
-- Jeanne Bliss |
