There is enough being written about how important it is to keep your customers happy and progressively raise the bar & find ways to delight them (like Zappos continues to do with such regularity)
However, whose job is it anyways?
Is it the job of
- the customer service team (as they own the customer experience)
- the sales team (as they own the customer relationship) or
- the service delivery team (as they own the delivery of the product/service to the customer) or
- the product development team (as they design/develop the products for the customer) or
- the finance/billing team (as they own the final transaction with the customer) or
- the production team (as they are responsible for the quality of the products) or
- the logistics team (as they own the responsibility to get the products to the customers on time) or
- the marketing team (as they own the responsibility to define the customers/markets) or
- the CEO (as he is responsible for the organization)
Ok. So i know that you get it where this is all getting to. If an organization truly wants to continuously raise their bar in keeping their customers happy and delighted, everyone must chip in and take responsibility of delighting the customer.
Today morning, I visited a mall near my place and parked my vehicle in the basement car park. The moment I entered the elevator to get inside the shopping area, the lift operator greeted us with a big smile and a Happy New year wish. We were pleasantly surprised. However, the surprise was exactly that – surprise, as everyone else in the mall was going about their work with no concern about their environment. The elevator operator created a great opportunity for the mall to leave a lasting impression on their customer (me) which was not capitalized on due to the fact that no one else contributed to this experience.
This again shows that in order to truly delight your customers, the entire organization needs to work as a team and not as individual departments or teams!
