It’s an everyday charge up the hill to be there for customers in ways that are important to them. Beloved companies gladly decide to do the hard work. They’re in the scrimmage every day to earn the right for their customers to return.
Being there for customers fuels the prosperity engine of beloved companies. Beloved companies think and rethink how to conduct themselves, so they earn the right to their customers’ continued business. The “experience” is far more than the execution of an operating plan. Beloved companies leave customers thinking, “Who else would have done this?” “Where else could I get this?” “I want to do this again.” By creating reliability in the way they do business, and fusing that with moments of contact delivered from the customer’s point of view, beloved companies earn the right to grow.
Amazon Earned the Right to Grow
Amazon.com sold its first book in July 1995. The success of that experience earned the company the right to add a music store in 1998, and consumer electronics and toys and games in 1999. Since then, the addition of nearly every category has been met with customer acceptance: a kitchen store, a camera and photo store, office products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet foods, even health and personal are and high-end jewelry.
If Amazon.com had not executed the delivery of books well during its foundational years, its expansion into these other lines could not have occurred. Amazon.com continues to operate with the understanding that customer loyalty is a right that must be earned—it is not an entitlement. Giving customers peace of mind for what to expect fueled their business growth.
Companies that earn customers’ trust and peace of mind often create the emotion of desire for their experience. Customers look forward to repeating their experience. While buying books over the Internet is old hat to us now, when Amazon.com was first introduced to us, our lives changed. They delivered the joy of receiving books in the comfort of our living rooms. And not just with their operational finesse, but also with the thoughtfulness with which they delivered what was in our shopping carts. We wanted to repeat the experience again and again.
Take Action: Evaluate Your Reliability and Collaboration Across the Company
1. Unite the Operation from the Customer Experience Perspective
2. Identify Cross-Silo Dependencies
3. Evaluate the Silo Impact Across the Customer Experience
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