Alan Webber: Let's shift from the technology to the organization. If the goal for a company today is to become customer-centric, what are the obstacles? And acknowledging the obstacles, what are the first steps to getting started?
Paul Cole: In most companies, the chief obstacle to becoming customer-centric is political friction -- political friction between different entities within the organization. Knowledge is power. Measurement drives behavior. And when you say one thing and measure another, you don't get internal cooperation. As a step toward remedying that situation, you have to bring those elements together in a collaborative way, starting with the customer by asking him to help you define the experience. And you need someone to own it internally: a chief customer-officer position, for example. Just as the chief information-officer position was created to act as the steward of the information assets, we need a chief customer officer to be the steward of the customer asset.
Jeet Singh: To me, the chief information officer is that person today. In fact, the C in CIO is starting to mean "customer." The CIO is in a unique position inside the company. In many organizations, the CIO is the only person who sees the connection between the call center, the Web site, and the supply-chain management system -- the one who sees how well all of these areas are working together.
George F. Colony: I don't think that most CIOs know very much about customers at all. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes that large companies are making right now is giving the CIO more power. It's Return of the Jedi -- it's an extremely bad move. The CIO is a big player in all of this, but typically the CIO screws up the customer.
Patricia Seybold: The title is less important than the measure. Forward-thinking companies always base their measurements on customer outcomes. Are you lining up your reward and compensation structure around customer outcomes? That's what matters in the end.
Kelly Mahoney: We have a series of 30 to 50 customer-specific metrics that we track every day -- in some cases every hour. Things like the average speed of answer in the call center, the number of people using live chat -- things that matter to customers. The goal is to have a customer-centric focus permeate every level of the organization. Because if you have a great Web site, and you're doing great branding and great marketing, but at the end of the day, the package doesn't get delivered because the truck driver had a great big disconnect, the customer still hasn't had a great experience.
Steve Elterich: The only way to succeed at this is to drive the customer-centric mentality down into the organization. I'll give you an example of what we do. We have a usability lab. Any capability that goes onto our Web site goes into the usability lab. We bring in real customers to view it and use it. The developers are behind a one-way mirror -- they get to see the raw reality of what they just delivered to the customer, and they get immediate feedback. That way, the developers come into contact with the customers. They're talking to the customer face-to-face.
George F. Colony: The lesson there, I think, is the importance of relentless adjustment. Steve Ballmer always does the same thing: He says, "You're never going to get it right." At Microsoft, they never get it right, but they're constantly, relentlessly adjusting. And somehow, through constant readjustment practiced over time, they gradually weave their way to the right place.
Paul Cole: One point on the voice of the customer: We're putting too much pressure on the customer to tell us how to build our businesses. They can't tell us. The minivan didn't come from the customer, the Walkman didn't come from the customer. But customers can tell you whether they like something when you show it to them. The fact is, too many people tend to go to one extreme or the other. They either don't listen to the customer at all, or they think that the customer will create their product for them.
Kelly Mahoney: Another key to success: You have to reinvent yourself every day. You anticipate where your customers are going, and then you get there first. We added 60 services for our customers, even though online adoption was very early. How big is the market today? Not as big as it will be in five years. But you have to have the confidence to take that next step. You may not get it right the first time, but eventually you'll get there.
Alan Webber: We've heard about the state of customer service, the role of technology, and the importance of the customer. Now, what do I do on Monday morning? How do I go from thinking about being customer-centric to being customer-centric?
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