Staff photo by Kevin Jacobus

Craig Bailey of Hudson is the president of Customer Centricity, a consulting company that helps businesses better serve their customers.

Teaching to serve

Tuesday, August 20, 2002
By BRAD LEIGHTON, Telegraph Staff , leightonb@telegraph-nh.com

HUDSON – Ask Craig Bailey how a business can best get through hard economic times and his answer is simple – keep your customers and get new ones.

Easier said than done? True, but Bailey’s new business, Customer Centricity, helps businesses get better at servicing and keeping customers.

“If you can improve your customer relationships and improve service, then you are going to increase efficiency and increase revenues,” Bailey said. “Companies need to learn to treat their customers as people, not numbers.”

By improving employees’ relationships with customers, the employees themselves become happier and more productive, Bailey said.

Bailey is a self-professed customer service “evangelist,” he said. “The idea is to teach companies how to change and also inspire them to do so. Sometimes the inspiration is more important.”

But employees must be trained, especially those who face customers, he added. “Each employee must present a unified message to the customer.”

Customer Centricity provides people training, improves the process by which a company serves customers and reviews technology to determine what business processes should be automated to better serve customers, and what should be left in employee hands.

“Unfortunately, many companies invest in technology to address their customer relationship goals, without addressing the people and process elements. Effectively improving customer relationships requires a balance,” Bailey said.

Customer Centricity emphasizes the people skills needed to improve customer relationships. For example, businesses need to be in tune with their customers and flexible enough to respond to the customer’s changing needs, Bailey said.

The business also has to keep its eyes open for other opportunities, such as selling products that complement an already sold product line – the hot dog and bun idea.

“Loyal customers are five times more likely to repurchase from you and generate over 25 percent more profits,” Bailey said.

Customer Centricity has formed a team of seven seasoned executives to advise businesses on the best way to serve their customers. The team includes expertise in customer service, finance, technology, human resources and business organizations and processes.

Bailey was vice president of customer care for Genuity, the director of information services for GTE Internetworking and held customer relations and technology positions at EDS, Holland Mark Martin, GTE Mobile Communications and the Great Northern Paper Co.

Other team members have experience with companies such as Northrop Grumman, Fidelity Investments, Ziff Communications.

Brad Leighton can be reached at 594-6446.


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