Three Actions to Drive Customer Profitability

Driving the customer agenda and customer profitability must always be at the top of the agenda.

1. Keep customers top of mind and take ownership for making customers a priority of the business.

• If proposals are lacking in customer perspective or customer considerations, send everyone back to the drawing board.

2. Make the leap to change the way people think about the business.

• A leader reinforces that a trucking company does more than move things from point A to point B: it is a service provider. Questions on the state of business performance are as much about service and service delivery as financial performance.
• A spa company impassions the front line’s sense of purpose by expanding the scope and title of their job, changing it from “spa technician” to “customer escape artist.” Driving the business from the perspective of delivering a pleasurable escape for a customer inspires the organization to move beyond tactics to the delivery of a memorable experience that will make customers want to return.

3. Hold people accountable for their performance with customers.

• Will you force the tides of change to make customer metrics your company metrics? This means that what’s important transcends the traditional metrics of operational performance.
• Push the company to figure out a way to know which customers are being affected and how, and identify the outcome on customer profitability. People will come to expect questions. They’ll need to prepare for them and in doing so will begin to develop their own sensitivity to what this effort is all about. This may be rocky at first, but with clear questions come clearer metrics.