Go Ahead and Succeed in Business
By Barry Farah, August 25, 2019
If you look around, the level of customer service isn’t all that good. Increasingly, the lack of formality between the customer and the one providing the service is denigrating the service delivery process. For example, the wait staff is leaning on your table and in your space to take your order, the landscaper isn’t completing your yard in time for your family anniversary, your financial planner is slow to respond to your request for a reallocation of assets before your parent enters hospice care. There is a deficiency of service. As a result, there is a real opening for your business to capture market share from your less customer success minded competitor.
One option is to develop and maintain a strong customer service delivery system based on rules and react to customer problems. A better option is to unleash a contagious customer success culture. It is proactive, fueled by purpose, sustains itself and provides an excellent experience for the customer that results in loyalty.
I’m told I coined the term, Customer Success, in 1998. Since then, as CEO in six different sectors I have found that the principles work. In fact, I delivered to my investors double and triple-digit returns on investment. And, even in the face of one of my greatest business challenges due to a sudden unforeseen dramatic drop in the price of a commodity, the project was awarded with a world class customer net promoter score.
I credit this success to wise capital allocation strategies and the principles outlined in my book, “Go Ahead!: Unleash a Contagious Customer Success Culture.” In this book, I detail how to deepen customer loyalty by creating an uplifting work environment that results in an innovative team. When your team makes great business decisions like an owner, the value your business increases.
I wrote this book for C-Suite leaders and business managers who are inspired to provide a transcendent purpose, based on values and a culture that is a magnet for top talent. The book is a quick read, with three sections:
1) “A Foundation for Customer Success”
2) “A Customer Success Mindset”
3) “The Customer Success Way”
A customer success culture resolves a number of issues concurrently. It helps with environmental, societal and governance issues. And traditional financial metrics improve.
Consider that recent polling on the post-millennial generation – the 9 to 22-year-olds – is that they are screaming for a human touch. This is the most technologically advanced generation in history and they don’t want a machine – they want a person with sentiments to talk to.
In the past, I published two other books on the topic that you can check out including: “The Magic Wand: Creating Exceptional Customer Experience: A Leadership Fable” and “Customer Success: The Spirit of Enterprise Throughout the Ranks.”
A customer success culture arms a business with a motived team that seeks to deepen the emotional connection between your service or product and the customer. Go Ahead!—set your people free to lead their domain, to be proactive, to deliver what your customers really want before they ask. Unleash the positive peer pressure that comes from a customer success culture. It is not based on rules—it is a mindset, and it is contagious. Both your team and your customers prefer an uplifting, energetic, problem-solving culture.
As a leader, I invite you to enjoy the benefits of a customer success culture. It is a lot of fun – and it is very profitable.
– Barry S. Farah