Gain Reliability with Accountability

Managing accountability for what you’ll deliver to customers is not rocket science, but it is overwhelming.  An important element of driving accountability for customer profitability is how strategic the organization is about determining and executing customer accountability targets.

Many companies that say they focus on the customer don’t take the time to wire customer priorities into annual planning. The resources and prioritization of what to do in the next year do not include targets for incoming and outgoing customers. There are no specific plans to eliminate the issues. Executives don’t ask how the operating areas will connect the improvement of the operation to critical customer interactions.

There are four accountability targets:

1. Customers as Assets

Customers gained and lost as a result of your actions.

2. Service Performance

Ability to serve customers and rescue customers at risk

3. Customer Listening Metrics

Targeting and resolving issues driving customers away

4. Operational Metrics

Consistently defining the customer experience in stages, moments of truth and silo connectivity for optimum experience delivery. This is by far the most complex part of managing customer accountability. Without measuring the interaction points and operational execution of them, you will continue to look only at the disparate activities by silo.  That’s not to say you are going to focus on every contact. You need to know and prioritize the contacts that are most meaningful to customers.  Begin by focusing on the top 10-15 contacts.

Identifying the Priority Contacts

Once you have the moments of truth, identify priority contacts. One helpful way to classify customer contacts is to identify four categories which they fall into:

• Rescuing a customer in distress
• Revenue building to increase the sale of goods or services
• Responding to a customer request
• Relationship-building to strengthen the customer bond

Take Action: Download the 26-page Reality Check Audit.

The Reality Check Audit covers the seven dimensions of building customer relationships and managing customer profitability:

1. Customer Leadership

2. Customer Listening

3. Metrics

4. Accountability and Taking Action

5. Unified Experience

6. Enabling Service Delivery

7. Motivation and Recognition