7 Steps to a Customer-First Culture

When your business has a true customer-first culture - versus one that is spoken about, but not ‘lived’ - every team member is focused on giving every customer a great experience - building trust and loyalty, and creating happy customers who not only stay with you, but also refer others.

In a competitive market, a customer-first culture unites the team, strengthens customer relationships  and gives your business a significant competitive advantage.  What’s not to love about that?

Follow these 7 steps to make your team culture ‘customer-first’:

1. Our bigger purpose

Put your customers front and centre when it comes to expressing the purpose of your business. Stress the impact/transformation /result you want to deliver for them, and how it’s on all of you as a team to achieve this.

2. Our team spirit

Hire the right people for your business and give them the training and support they need to take ownership for the consistent delivery of their role in service of your customers – and have fun with it!

3. Our way of doing things

Develop your simple and straightforward customer journey with the team, and agree the one right way to do every task along it. Make sure that everyone is trained to follow your One Right Way, and given feedback as a key part of the way you do things, to keep them on track.

4. The things we celebrate

Celebrate the sign up of every new client, every bit of repeat business, every testimonial or review received, every piece of feedback (even if it’s not glowing, it’s still a gift), every complaint recovered. Make a big thing of your team knowing more about your clients than what they bought – birthdays, children’s names, hobbies – and celebrate the building of great relationships.

5. The things we won't tolerate

Don’t allow any bad-mouthing or any disrespect of clients – even those clients who you know you should let go. Don’t allow excuses for not communicating proactively and positively with every client. Teach your team to put themselves in the shoes of your clients when they get frustrated, and never to meet anger with anger

6. Our language

Teach your team to use language that focuses on the needs and goals of your clients – it’s all about ‘you’ and ‘your’ needs, not about us and our challenges. Match your language to the attitude and values of your brand. Be confident and competent, particularly when suggesting solutions to problems, and always thank the customer for their business.

7. Our rituals & traditions

What customer-related rituals do you have in your business or could you introduce? Ring a bell when a new client comes onboard? Examine and discuss customer reviews/feedback at your weekly meeting? Have your operations team answer customer support calls one day per month?

Have a ‘customer journey ideas for improvement’ box, that you open at your monthly meeting?

Work on these 7 steps with your team, make them ‘the way we do things round here’, and you’ll not only win the trust and loyalty of your customers, but start taking advantage of that significant competitive advantage! Have fun!

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Author

Marianne Page

Marianne is the author of three books, and is currently working on her fourth, whilst regularly writing her blog, we hope you enjoy it :-)

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