Earning the Right to Grow and Prosper:
Five decisions that create beloved companies and drive explosive business growth
Beloved companies create an indelible bond with customers. They become a part of their lives. Their devoted customers grow their business for them; telling everyone they know on twitter, facebook, chat rooms and hundreds of websites every day that these companies are worthy of their business.
What is behind achieving beloved status? Two years of research led me to this: these companies earn the right to grow and prosper because of the anguish, thought and purpose that they put into decision making. The actions that come from their decisions set them apart. Beloved companies weave their humanity into every decision they make, connecting who they are as a people with the decisions they make in how they run their business. As a result, they earn not just loyal buyers, but passionate, vocal fans.
Five decisions comprise the backbone of how these companies conduct themselves in business. At a fork in the road when decisions are made, what informs and motivates their conduct is that they…
- They Decide to believe
- They Decide with clarity of purpose
- They Decide to be real
- They Decide to be there
- These Decide to say sorry
These decisions create a seismic shift from mere business to beloved company.
Beloved Companies Decide to believe.
“We trust our customers. We trust those who serve them.”
Beloved companies make the decision to believe, both in their customers and their employees. They suspend cynicism in their relationships, and as a result, they are freed from the extra rules, polices and layers of bureaucracy that create a barrier between them and their customers. The belief demonstrates a company’s trust in their customers. Take Zane’s Cycles, a Connecticut-based bicycle shop with over $13 million in sales each year and a relationship rooted in customer trust. Zane’s Cycles allows current and prospective customers to test drive their bikes – including any of their $6,000 bikes – without asking for any form of collateral or identification. Why? Because Zane’s Cycles decides to believe in the integrity of their customers. Zane’s has valued every customer that walks in their door with a lifetime value of $12,500, and they don’t want to risk that long term relationship by starting out with questioning a customers’ integrity.
Zane’s trusts that the customers will do the right thing, and true to their belief, of the 4,000 bikes they sell each year, they lose less than five each year from a stolen bike during a test drive.
Equally as important is a company’s belief in its employees. It’s the belief that lets employees know they are trusted to make the right decisions, without being scrutinized or strictly monitored. Wegmans Food Markets, a grocery store chain with approximately $4.5 billion in revenue in 2007, decided to ditch the employee rule book and replace it with one single rule: no customer is allowed to leave unhappy. By getting rid of the rule the rule book, they enabled each of their 37,000 employees to do whatever was needed, regardless of the situation, to ensure each of their customers was satisfied. This belief in their employees led to decreased employee turnover (only 7 percent, while the average for grocery stores is 19 percent), an estimated operating margin of 7.5 percent, which is double that of its competitors, and 50 percent higher sales per square foot than the industry average.
Beloved companies understand that most people strive to do the right thing, and they decide to believe that this is so for their customers and employees.
Decide with clarity of purpose.
“We are clear about the purpose we serve in our customers’ lives.”
Beloved companies take the time to be clear about their unique promise for their customer’s lives. Beloved companies realize that clarity of purpose guides choices and unites the organization. It elevates people’s work from merely executing tasks to delivering experiences that customers will want to repeat and share with others.
Business for Zappos.com, an Internet clothing and shoe retailer known for its superior customer service and quirky company culture, exploded in 2008, reaching over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales. In the face of rapid growth and increased demand, Zappos decided that their customer service culture was essential to their success and must be preserved. To ensure their company culture would not be lost, they decided that only the most passionate employees should stick around, offering $2,000 for new-hires to leave the company if they didn’t feel like they could uphold and live by the core values of their business. Fewer than 1 percent of new-hires take Zappos up on their offer, meaning that those who stay are committed and passionate employees, ready to fully embrace Zappos culture.
Businesses across every industry prosper when they decide with clarity of purpose and spread that clarity across the entire organization.
Decide to be real.
“We are genuine, passionate and take the best version of ourselves to work.”
Beloved companies break down barriers between customer and company, creating a relationship between people and revel in one another’s foibles, quirks and spirit. It draws them to one another. Their humanity and authenticity is what sets beloved companies apart from all the others. They allow room for people to blend their personal instincts with their business decisions.
The Container Store encourages employees to be like “Gumby”, an animated clay figure made popular by stop motion animation. The connection is that folks at The Container Store should not create boundary lines between what each person does; that bending over backwards for customers and each other is a necessity for growth and prosperity. With this notion, founders Garrett Boone and Kip Tindell wanted to ensure they didn’t deliver forced customer service or teamwork. They simply want everyone to be flexible and find the right solution for each situation, without imposing a fake or forced reaction. This decision by The Container Store to ask employees to be like Gumby contributes to their achievement of only 15 percent employee turnover, compared to the average turnover of 50 percent or higher in retail. Creating an environment where people find joy in working with each other has also earned them nine years on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list.
Customers and employees gravitate to companies who decide to be real, who decide to drop the “corporate veneer” and to those that nurture the personality and spirit of their customers and employees.
Decide to be there.
“We are in the scrimmage every day to build our operation from our customers’ perspective.”
Beloved companies devote more resources and more plain old work to be there for their customers. They’re in it every day to earn the right to a continued relationship with their customers, and the first decision they make is to be there when the customer needs them, on the customer’s terms.
Aware of the frustration customers felt from waiting in long lines only to find out that the banker was unable to help them and that they had to move to the end of another line to get help, Portland-based Umpqua Bank decided to be there for customers by creating the position of Universal Associate; training every employee in every banking task. Umpqua Bank’s Associates can take a mortgage application and a loan officer is more than happy to help with a safety deposit box. Further, the bank made its mission to provide customizable banking, allowing the managers in each community bank to customize their offering based on their customers’ interests – from yoga classes in one store location to knitting classes in another. This advanced employee training and customized banking has allowed Umpqua Bank to be there for customers and has led to exponential growth.
Decide to say sorry.
“We are humble. We accept accountability. We will make it right.”
Grace and wisdom guide beloved companies to accept accountability when the chips are down, when things don’t go the way they planned. Toro Company, a lawn mower manufacturer says “I’m sorry” to customers who have been injured while using their products, regardless of who is at fault. After ensuring that the customer is okay and taken care of, Toro finds a shift in the conversation, transitioning from “wronged customer” to two people talking about what happened. In a highly litigious industry, 95 percent of Toro’s cases are settled on the day of mediation or shortly thereafter, all because of their willingness to be proactive and to say sorry. How a company reacts to mistakes reflects the humanity of the organization and shows its true colors more than almost any situation that might arrive. It is the intent and motivation guide a decision’s final outcome that sets people – and companies – apart.
How you steer your decisions and the actions that tumble from them will impact your ability to earn the right to grow and prosper. You can earn your customers’ business by deciding how you will run yours. With every order you ship, with every person you hire, with every product you develop you have the chance to tell your customers who you are and what you value. So make a choice. Decide what you want your story to be in the marketplace. What do you want customers and employees to tell others about who you are and what you value.
The decision is yours.
About the Author
Jeanne Bliss is the founder of CustomerBLISS (www.customerbliss.com ); a consulting and coaching company helping corporations connect their efforts to yield improved customer growth. She is a world-wide speaker on the subject. Jeanne spent twenty-five years at Lands’ End, Microsoft, Allstate, Coldwell Banker, and Mazda corporations as the leader for driving customer focus and customer growth. Her best-selling books are; Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action, and I Love You More than My Dog: Five Decisions for Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad. Go to www.customerbliss.com to get a reality check audit on your customer commitment and ability to make customers an asset of your business.
