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PMI
Mass
Bay Chapter Seminar
Join Craig Bailey,
President of Customer Centricity, who will be speaking on May 14th at the
PMI Mass Bay Chapter Seminar - Advancing the Project Management
Profession.
Are you seeking career advancement? Do you know what to expect at the next
level of management? Do you understand the executive challenges, the
organizational development needs and how your project management skills
can contribute to your success? Are you prepared to advance? This day-long
seminar is organized into three main components:
-
The Executive Perspective (Panel Discussion):
How to understand and navigate the organizational landscape to ensure
that projects are set-up to succeed.
-
The Organizational Development Perspective:
How to nurture a culture of Project Management in your organization.
-
The Project Manager Perspective:
How to develop your career as a Project Manager and Leader.
This event is open to PMI Mass Bay Chapter members as well as non-members.
If you are not presently a member of PMI (Project Management Institute)
and would like to become one, joining is easy; simply visit
www.pmi.org.
Additional information about this event is available at the following
link:
http://pmimassbay.org/newpage_nf3.cfm?pagename=APMP2005
Customer Advocacy - Why the Need?
by
Craig Bailey
Customer Centricity has recently received a number of inquiries from
clients and prospects regarding the topic of "Customer Advocacy."
Recognizing that this may reflect a need of our newsletter subscribers, we
will deliver a series of articles on this topic, covering the following 5
areas:
- Why the need?
- What it is / isn't
- How to get there
- Pitfalls to avoid
- How we can help to accelerate the process
Why the need?
The need for a Customer Advocacy function typically results from the
reality that a lot of people at a firm affect the customer experience and
the perception that a customer has of the firm. In these scenarios, the
"entire customer experience" is often not managed and the customer is
exposed to the organization's complexities, gaps and/or inefficiencies.
The customer is then required to apply extra effort to navigate the
organization to get things done or get issues resolved.
Not only does this impact the customer's experience with your firm, but it
also causes significant inefficiencies including:
-
Multiple people investing redundant efforts working on
the same customer issue
-
Sales people spending too much time fire-fighting and
not enough time selling
A
useful response and strategy to address this situation is to put in place
a function that considers the "entire customer experience" – the Customer
Advocate. This can be both a stop-gap and long-term measure to improve
customer satisfaction, retention and most importantly, profitability.
To determine if your firm could benefit from implementing a customer
advocacy function ask yourself:
-
Do we have a complex organizational structure that the
customer must navigate to get things done?
-
Do we have complex product/service offerings that
require multiple people to "touch" the customer?
-
Is our firm made up of stovepipe organizations that
were designed for departmental / product specific efficiencies and not
necessarily "customer success?"
-
Are our customers' experiences being managed
holistically?
-
Is our sales staff spending too much time
fire-fighting and not enough time selling?
-
Do I ever hear the following customer comments:
-
"Your firm is so
difficult to work with"
-
"Each time I call I
feel like I'm talking to a different company"
-
"I need to
re-explain the situation to each person I talk to"
If
any of the above are true for your firm, then implementing a Customer
Advocacy function may provide you significant benefits!
In the next edition we will provide an overview of what Customer Advocacy
is and what it isn't.
In the meantime, if you would like to receive an in-depth overview of this
topic and/or conduct a strategy discussion regarding your Customer
Advocacy initiative (or concept), feel free to give us a call.
Becoming Customer Centric - Communicate Back to the
Customer Base
by
Craig Bailey
This is the final
article in our Voice of the Customer (VoC) series. In the
previous edition, we discussed how to respond to the customer, based
on the results of your VoC input and analysis, by implementing account
strategies. We complete this topic by sharing approaches that you can take
to provide an overall update to the customer base (at large, or just those
that participated in your VoC activities).
Since it is not feasible to respond to all customers in the detailed
manner associated with implementing account strategies, it is important to
provide the overall customer base a separate response to their input. This
update could be performed in a number of ways:
-
Publishing a periodic newsletter (print or email)
-
Posting information on your web-site, alerting
customers via email to view the update
-
Formally instituting this update as a key component of
the firm's account management practices for all or various segments of
the customer base
-
Providing an overview during user-group and/or board
of advisor meetings
-
Providing a direct response to those that participated
in a particular VoC activity (survey, etc.)
In
summary, it is important to use the appropriate means possible to
communicate to the customer what was heard and learned, what has been
done, and what is planned to continuously improve the experience the
customer has with the firm.
This completes the series on leveraging a Voice of the Customer program in
your quest to transform your organization into a Customer Centric firm. If
you'd like assistance with your VoC program or would like to brainstorm on
how you can "get there" more quickly, feel free to contact us. We assist
firms in implementing these programs using time-proven approaches and
process templates. We can help you hit the ground running and quickly reap
the benefits of a VoC program.
View previous articles in this series. |
Contents
+ Becoming Customer Centric
+ Customer Advocacy - Why The Need?
+ Recommended Reading
+ Reader-Input Incentive Plan
If you have received this newsletter from a friend
and would like to subscribe:
Click
here to subscribe
View previous newsletters
Recommended Reading
"There never will be
any boss but the customer" states Earl Nightingale in his article
The Boss (current issue of AdvantEdge magazine). In his
article, Mr. Nightingale offers interesting insight into who your boss
really is - the customer - and translates this idea into a practical
approach to living daily life.
Reader-Input Incentive Program
Do you have opinions or
input on any of our articles? Send us feedback you think might be useful
to our readers. If we publish it, you'll get your pick of an item from the
Customer Centricity Online Store.
About Customer Centricity, Inc.
We strengthen overall company performance through
better service delivery and management.
We boost efficiencies in front-line customer service and technical support
teams, order processing, fulfillment, field service, logistics and other
key operations functions.
In short, we align the resources of your organization to exceed your
customers' expectations in the most effective and efficient manner
possible.
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