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Executive Interviews: Interview with Subir Ghosh on Customer-centric Organizations
December 2010
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By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
How to make organizations
customer-centric in every sense? Of
course, companies like P&G, IKEA,
etc., have pioneered the concept of
Co-Creation as propounded by
C K Prahalad and Venkata
Ramaswamy (Future of Competition).
Yet what is needed is an overhaul of
approach from 'Inside-Out' approach
to 'Outside-In' approach? How do
you think companies should go about
making their organizational DNA
customer-centric?
Well, it starts with hiring of
customer-centric employees who
display the key customer-centric
attributes like customer first
mindset, people orientation,
common courtesy, professional
acumen, resourcefulness and a 'cando'
attitude.
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These attributes are
measurable and every single member
of the organization must possess
these attributes to the threshold
degree as the will to serve is critical
in an organization, whether it be
serving your colleagues or customers
as I mentioned earlier that the level of
external customer-centricity can
never exceed the level of internal
customer-centricity.
The firm must then be willing to
invert the classical organization
pyramid by putting the customer at
the top followed by those who
directly serve them with everybody else engaged in enabling the previous
level.
It must walk the talk by adopting
practices that seek to either recognize
or punish customer-centric behavior
by linking compensation of every
single member to the meeting of
customer satisfaction scores. It must
also encourage practices where every
person in mandated to spend a
minimum amount of time on a
periodic basis in a customer facing
position to understand the voice of
customer and also how the role he
plays in the organization is either
enabling or detracting from meeting
the customers expectations. Such
firms are characterized by a market
orientation, i.e., customer and
competitor focus, very low functional
silo orientation and a willingness to
experiment and innovate. They also
follow the principles of inclusive
purpose and shared rewards.
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It is argued by some that customer
experience management is required
only in services sector or servicesoriented
industries such as retail,
banking, insurance, telecom, airlines,
and ITES, etc. Do you concur with
this argument or do you think that the
customer experience management
concept can be extended equally well
to the manufacturing sector as well?
The logic in the argument is
fallacious if one remembers that all of
us don't buy products, we just seek
solutions to a problem or a challenge
are facing at a point in our lives and
believe that a product will help solve
that challenge. Brand traction for
products are not built around the
products price or features which in
that the traditional sense characterize
the products, these are attributes we
react to in a very rational manner. It's
the aspect of emotions like trust
faith, affability.
Reliability status, etc., generate the
emotions that create the bonding.
These aspects invariably flow from
the processes and situations that go
with the acquisition, consumption
and post purchase challenges that
consumers experience and largely
tend to be people and processoriented.
It is interesting to note that
behavorial science tells us that only
people are responsible for anything
that goes right or wrong in their lives
and nothing else. So if a product
makes you happy you are grateful to
the guy who sold it and conversely
the opposite is also true.
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Is there any relationship between
companies ranked highly in different
customer satisfaction indices and
customer-centricity? Customer
satisfaction being the effect, what
could have been the traditional
causes of satisfaction and how can
customer experience management be
the new cause of customer
satisfaction?
Firms that believe in the science of
customer experience define their
goal as customer experience by
design and not by default. To them
consistently meeting and exceeding
on customer expectations which
they themselves create is the key. It is
not a one off thing that happens
occasionally when some employee is
in a mood to be nice to a customer. In
most organizations that are not
customer-oriented, customer
satisfaction is more accidental than
intended. Adopting and practicing
the science of customer experience
can move them towards becoming
customer-centric, thereby enabling
them to deliver the expected
experience on a consistent basis to
win the trust and goodwill of their
customers and we all know the
commercial outcome of achieving
this. Nobody in India embodies this
more than the Tata group.
1.
The Multi-Branding Strategy Case Study
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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