3

“CUSTOMERIZATION”: THE AMAZON EFFECT

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

How Can You Adapt to a Growing Need for Customization?

Earlier, I introduced you to Kate Ross LeBlanc and Jean-Pierre LeBlanc, the founders of Saje Natural Wellness. Amidst their ambitious plans for growth, there were four areas Kate and Jean Pierre focused on as fundamental objectives of their strategy.

1. Create a consistently outrageous customer experience. When it comes to their customers’ experience, an “outrageous customer experience” isn’t just a slogan for Saje. In every retail store, team members greet you as you enter, invest time in getting to know you as an individual, provide natural wellness education, as well as make recommendations about which Saje products will best support your wellness and improve your life. What’s recognizable is that Saje team members truly want and are empowered to connect with community members and share the health benefits of using natural products. The focus is on providing incredible natural wellness education, not on making a sale. As Kate says, “Seeds that are planted don’t have to be harvested in a day.” Team members are empowered and encouraged to practice “outrageous” customer service. Regardless of whether the investment a customer makes is $5 or $50, how they are treated remains unchanged.
2. Build a community around the Saje brand. Kate and Jean-Pierre recognized early on that to build a strong and loyal following, they needed to cultivate a community of like-minded people. Building a community began with sharing their passion of natural wellness with the world through efficacious products offered in environments centered on education, hosting wellness experiences and seminars, and nurturing a growing digital community. Saje has captured the minds and hearts of their community members, making their brand a one-stop center for all things wellness.
3. Stand 100 percent behind the quality of your products. A product is only as valuable as the guarantee behind it. This is where Saje stands out amongst other retailers. Customer service is not something they provide; it’s part of who they are. Kate and Jean-Pierre have built a culture of empowerment over fear; team members can make decisions based on what’s best for the community member, and what would be considered “outrageous.” One way this shows up is in their return process. Community members can bring a product back if it’s not serving their wellness to replace it with something that will. In addition to customer service, product efficacy and a commitment to 100 percent natural ingredients is their other founding pillar, and something they passionately stand behind.
4. Empower team members to service customers’ needs. As we discussed in Chapter 2, with the increasing demands of customers, Kate and Jean-Pierre recognized that there was only one method of ensuring a consistent customer service experience, and that was championed through their team members. Whether you’re on the retail floor or a member of the CX (customer experience) team who answer phone calls, e-mails, and live chats, team members are empowered to make decisions that they feel support the company’s customer service pillar. Customer service guidelines are clear yet broad in scope, allowing team members freedom and autonomy which lay the groundwork for exceptional experiences and interactions with the brand. As a result, Saje lacks the restrictions and restraints that most company policies contain. To continue serving their community as it grew, Kate and Jean-Pierre realized that attracting the right, like-minded team members, nurturing their talents, and providing them with the freedom to make decisions were the keys to their long-term success and directly related to the scalability of outrageous customer service.

In speaking with Kate (and as proven through the significant growth of Saje), these founding pillars provide the cornerstone for Saje’s continued expansion plans. Although some of these fundamental elements might sound familiar to other organizational objectives you’ve heard in the past, the difference is in how the Saje team is completely and emphatically committed to living and breathing them. After working with Saje team members and speaking with Kate at length, it becomes readily apparent that the secret to Saje’s success is not so much a secret as it is common sense (and you know what they say about common sense—it isn’t always that common). Saje has achieved significant and sustained growth on account of becoming clear on and supporting objectives that are necessary to satisfy the growing needs and expectations of customers today. They recognize as owners and as an organization that having a dominant retail presence is only possible if their retail was supported by a strong online presence and community of customers. In turn, a strong online presence and community would only be successful if supported by an expansive retail presence. Growth for an organization today requires considering historically accepted practices (in this instance brick and mortar retail) in collaboration with new methods for satisfying customer needs, such as providing an online shopping experience that is complementary to the retail experience. One is not built or led in isolation of the other, but rather built and supported in unison as a way of providing an almost 360 degree shopping experience for their customers, both existing and potential. The drivers behind this collaboration of in-store and online retail includes:

Customers have virtually unlimited options when it comes to searching for and selecting products and services. Whatever is most convenient for them at the time is when the customer decides to shop.

Customers are highly influenced by online information, which can be accessed within seconds. Having an online community of information allows existing and potential customers a quick and easy means to access information and educate themselves on the benefits of wellness and the products Saje carries to support a better lifestyle.

Customers’ buying decisions are influenced through social proof that is broader in scope and nature. By building a community amongst their customers, Saje draws upon the natural compliments and outspoken benefits its customers are pleased to share, allowing the organization to obtain social proof for would-be customers who are considering making a purchase from Saje. This unsolicited social proof is the referral source of the 21st century.

Consider the last time you made a buying decision, and I’ll bet nine times out of 10 you did some research online. Booking travel plans likely included reviewing online what others had to say about the hotel or resort you considered staying at; purchasing a car included reviewing the price of the car, as well as online reports through sources such as consumer reports to determine the quality and durability of the car; eating at a new restaurant began with first checking out their menu and customer reviews on Websites such as Opentable.com or Zagot.com. Sustained growth of an organization cannot be achieved without considering how customers’ demands and needs can be best satisfied, which today is about building a community of followers who share your organization’s passion for its products or services. Saje is passionate about wellness and by creating both an online and in-store experience for its customers, allows existing and would-be customers who are passionate about wellness to share in the Saje experience.

When I share this type of information during a speech, it’s not unusual for a handful of the CEOs or executives in the audience to approach me after the talk and say something like, “But Shawn, we aren’t a retail business, so we can’t be online,” or, “This might make sense for someone selling direct to a consumer, Shawn, but we sell direct to other businesses, so this online stuff doesn’t make sense.”

I’m the first to admit that a retail-facing business requires more activity when it comes to being present online to connect with and nurture customers and prospects, but even in a business-to-business environment you are still dealing with people. That’s the common theme that most who are in a business-to-business environment and who downplay the role of blending both in-person and online experiences have, but I’ll tell you what I tell them. If you truly believe that having a solid online presence, supported by employees who are empowered to satisfy your customers needs, is only something that is relevant for a retail business, you are dead wrong.

Let me share something I presented in my first book, Operational Empowerment: Collaborate, Innovate, and Engage to Beat the Competition to prove this point. A client of mine from many years ago, Larsen and Shaw, are known as “The Hinge People.” In fact, they have been manufacturing hinges for commercial and residential application since 1919. Although predominantly supporting customers in a business-to-business environment, Mary Jane and the team at Larsen and Shaw realized that the considerable traffic they were experiencing on their Website was in fact an opportunity to connect with both existing and potential customers. This was despite not having any specific products for sale on their Website, only displays and product drawings. The question, then, is why wouldn’t Larsen and Shaw try to connect with some of the visitors to their Website through a chat module? Fast forward about 90 days later, and Larsen and Shaw had not only introduced the chat module on their Website, they had also aligned someone comfortable with the technology to engage in dialogue with visitors to their site, and had closed several sales as a result.

This simple example demonstrates my point that even in the business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, customers are still people and social media and various other online technologies are necessary to engage with customers. The lines between what a retail business focuses on to engage with customers and what a manufacturing or wholesale business engages in have blurred. Today, the online chat tool that Larsen and Shaw has is used in conjunction with other standard selling practices, allowing for engagement with prospective customers and defining and nurturing their needs before moving to e-mail, telephone, or in-person communication.

But it’s not just the addition of a chat module or an online customer acquisition tool that yields these new selling opportunities. It is the result of introducing the right employees, those who are versed in and comfortable with engaging in discussions online, possessing the knowledge of the company’s products and sales methodologies, who make this approach a success. When I spoke with Mary Jane Bushell, the president of Larsen and Shaw, she said that the growth of online selling for this predominantly B2B manufacturer has relied not only on technology, but also on having the right people who are willing and able to take ownership of and become empowered in selling in this new environment.

When we reflect on these examples from two very different organizations, one selling direct to consumers and the other selling direct to businesses, and both with a track record for sustained growth, a few things become clear as necessary components for growing an organization today:

1. Customer centricity is a business objective that is crucial for long-term success.
2. Multiple communication channels are necessary to satisfy broad customer preferences.
3. The lines between selling retail and selling to business are blurring as technology evolves recognizing that, in both instances, the sale is still to a person.
4. Empowering employees is a key strategy that is necessary to satisfying the needs of today’s customers.
5. Employee fit within a role and within an organization is primary to employee skills, which can be taught and learned.

To see these strategies in action in a more recognizable organization, we need look no further than the behemoth of Amazon, one of the most recognizable organizations in the world today.

The Amazon Influence

We’ve discussed how customer needs and demands have evolved, and it’s important to recognize that many of these demands have been through learned behaviors, driven by the growing ability of organizations to be and offer more to their customers. If Domino’s Pizza, for example, hadn’t created a brand promise that offered pizza “in 30 minutes or it’s free,” then it’s possible that the expectation we have that all pizza should arrive in 30 minutes would never have been adopted and expected. If banks would never have extended their hours to include evenings and Saturdays, we would still be willing to wait patiently in long line-ups at the bank between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. If automotive manufacturers had never extended their warranties beyond three years or 60,000 miles, we would likely be accepting a lower standard of quality and longevity in the cars we drive. You get the picture. In order to stand out from the competition, virtually every organization attempts to set itself apart by creating a unique promise to its customers. If successfully achieved, this promise often becomes the customer’s “new expected norm” as far as their expectations go. In today’s’ retail shopping environment, we need look no further than Amazon to see this in action.

If you’ve ever purchased something on Amazon (and AC BloomReach Inc. found that more than 55 percent of people go to Amazon first when searching for products¹), then you’ve likely become accustomed to the convenience and affordability they provide. You’ve likely also become accustomed to the convenience of one-click shopping, a feature whose technology was proprietary to Amazon. However, other online retailers such as Apple and Barnes & Noble are now also incorporating one-click buying for their online customers. As the popularity of one-click buying has grown, so too has demand for software that can achieve similar magic. Companies such as Stripe have built such software and are now offering it to the broader marketplace as a tool that can be incorporated into a Website or online shopping cart.² What was once a unique and proprietary benefit of shopping on Amazon is slowly evolving into a more broadly adopted and in-demand feature that, in turn, will influence online shoppers’ expectations for single-click buying features for all of their online needs.

McDonald’s has also recently introduced select-and-pay kiosks in many locations, offering customers the choice of individualized or personalized service. From a restaurant point of view this may seem new, but when you consider that many banks have a teller standing by in addition to a bank machine, the concept becomes another example of something that was once unique influencing customer buying preferences. When I met with an executive from McDonald’s following a talk I gave on generational differences, he said that this transition to kiosks reduced the necessity for having multiple employees behind the counter taking orders. Initially doubtful that this was anything more than a ploy to reduce the number of employees that McDonald’s had at each location, the executive said it was quite the contrary. What they realized in speaking with customers is that although the food was served quickly, there was little support in the seating area for customers who needed help. By introducing technology where orders were being taken, it provided customers the choice as to how they wanted to place their order (which satisfied a growing customer desire), but also allowed McDonald’s the option of redirecting employees into the seating area, another growing customer need. In both instances, this move helped to further set McDonald’s apart from their competition. This is a great example of making shifts in the organization that serve the changing desires of customers, while furthering the organization’s competitive advantage.

How did the likes of Amazon and McDonald’s come up with these unique features that set them apart from their competition? Here are some questions you can use with your team to uncover these opportunities for your organization:

1. What changes, improvements, or new features are your customers seeking that they can’t seem to find in a similar product or service to yours?
2. What are other industries or sectors (that serve the same customers, but with a different product or service) doing to satisfy the needs or desires of their customers? How might you incorporate similar practices? (Think about parallels such as how a drive-thru that works for fast food also works for banking customers.)
3. What is your competition not doing that you could do to further serve the needs of your customers? How could you make your customers’ experience even better than it is today?
4. What shifts can you predict will occur in the next five to 10 years in how your customers seek out or purchase your products or services? What might you do to introduce new features or options into your organization that will satisfy these shifts?

For bonus materials, make sure you visit www.unstoppableorganization.com.

In my experience, despite the impact of the Amazon influence on customer needs and expectations, most organizations are missing out on a tremendous opportunity to build a brand promise that even their greatest competition cannot challenge.

Customerizing: What it Means and Why You Need to Do It

When Jeff Sziklai originally purchased a little packaging company in a small town, they had wildly ambitious goals. The challenges that stood in their way were enormous, particularly for a small packaging company in a rural location. As the organization grew, Jeff never let go of one thing. The success of the organization would ultimately rely on the success of the people who worked for and supported it. From the early days of taking over the business, Jeff and his team set about creating a strong culture with a family atmosphere. When Jeff would arrive at work each day, he’d take a moment to walk the floor, saying good morning to everyone. He and his team introduced profit-sharing as a way to build employee ownership in the business and its future success. And every few months Jeff would walk out onto the production floor and speak with the employees, discussing challenges with customers new and old, changes in competition, and pressures and influences in the marketplace.

In the early stages of the business, Jeff knew that in order to compete, the company had to stand apart from their competition, both large and small. They needed to create “the Amazon effect” with their existing and future customers so as not to succumb to the ever-growing pressure from their competition. It became clear early on that in order to best satisfy their customers’ needs, Jeff and his team needed to dramatically reduce the lead-time for their product, something that their competition was unable and, in many instances, unwilling to do.

Through their efforts, and as momentum grew within the culture, Jeff and his team were slowly able to chip away at the time it took to build their product, often turning around small orders in only days, when it took their competition several weeks. As word spread about what this little manufacturing plant was achieving, more customers became interested in how they might serve a specific niche where small volumes and rapid turnover were needed.

Jeff and his team built a business (now with eight facilities around North America) on understanding and satisfying their customers’ needs in a way their competition couldn’t. They achieved this with and through their employees, who took pride of ownership in the roles and in the organization as a whole, helping to satisfy a customer niche in the market that has allowed the organization to flourish for well over 20 years now. Of course, their continued improvements have been complemented by investments in new equipment and technology, but as Jeff suggests, “As our company has grown, it has been critical to ensure that the culture and vision of employees and customers (in that order) continues. As we increase our management team, it’s critical that each manager must promote the culture that we worked so hard to create.”

An unstoppable organization is one that remains in tune with what their customers’ needs and desires are for both today and tomorrow. They empower their employees, placing them at the forefront of supporting and creating a unique promise that will in turn satisfy the evolution of customer demands. Your customers want customization, and it’s through your employees that you can actually define and meet this growing need.

I have helped dozens of organizations create and fulfill their unique customer promise by focusing first and foremost on their people. Although often completed through a series of collaborative discussions, I will share with you the process we take so that you can do the same within your organization.

Step One: Assess Your Current Ability to Satisfy Customer Demands

1. What is your unique brand promise that lets you stand apart from your competition?
2. What are all the ways you deliver this brand promise today?
3. How successful would your customers say you are at meeting this brand promise?
4. How do your employees support your brand promise?
5. What changes or improvements could your employees make that would elevate the consistent value of this promise?

At this point, you should have enough information to identify how you can further improve your brand promise. The solutions cannot be introduced or improved in isolation, but instead require a commitment from your people in order to be successful. Put differently, your ideas are just that—your ideas. To ensure your plan for improving your customer experience is sound and successful, you need input and buy-in from your people. As a result, the next step in achieving your unique brand promise is to introduce it to your employees for their feedback and ideas. Step two in this process is as follows.

Step Two: Employee Input

1. What do your employees believe is your unique brand promise (UBP)?
2. What ways do they believe exist today to deliver that UBP? Where are you strong as an organization? Where are you weak?
3. What changes should be made to further improve the delivery of the UBP?
4. What do they need in order to satisfy these changes?

Following step two, you will now have enough information to build out a plan to further clarify and improve your UBP. Information is only one part of the equation and is effective only if your people are engaged in actually delivering on your UBP.

Preparing Your Employees to Customerize

Engaging your employees in the process I just outlined is not a one-time initiative, but a long-term commitment. Jeff and his team have been working on building and delivering a consistently unique experience for their customers for nearly two decades now because as each day passes, customer expectations continue to grow. Where Jeff’s team was once able to turn around a small order in a matter of days, his team must now do so in less than 48 hours because as time would have it, their competition’s ability to turn around orders has also lessened. With this continuous pressure to identify and make improvements, you might think the road to becoming an unstoppable organization is unachievable. Fortunately, this is not the case, though it demonstrates that being unstoppable through the long-term requires a long-term commitment. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Satisfying shifting customer demands is something I like to call “customerization.” It’s important to recognize that there are some fundamental shifts necessary that are counter-intuitive to much of what we have come to know as organizational norms. Employees who are in a position of thinking and acting in a way that satisfies growing customer needs require a different way of thinking about their roles within the organization. Rather than start by describing what the environment is like for employees in companies like Jeff’s, however, I want to start by describing the environment for what it is not.

Employees in a customerized environment are not:

1. Stifled by an abundance of policy or process that directs their every move or reaction.
2. Limited in their ability to respond to customer demands.
3. Required to escalate every customer issue or concern that falls outside of existing norms to leadership.
4. Powerless to respond to customer needs when time is of the essence.
5. Isolated in their interactions with one another in an effort to “maximize productivity.”

Before I continue, take a long, hard look at these descriptions. Do any of them describe the working environment within your organization? If so, don’t panic. It is not unusual that at least two of these descriptors align with the culture and environment of an organization, though more than three means you’ve got some significant work to do.

You may wonder why I started with what a customerized environment is not, rather than what it is. Well, in my research from nearly 100 organizations globally, those that have mastered an environment that consistently satisfies growing customer demands have a foundation that is built upon a different philosophy than what we are accustomed to. Consider that in the Industrial Age, which took its origins from the military, structure, process, policy, and respect for authority ruled. There was little consideration for the individual differences of customers (Henry Ford made the Model A in any color a customer wanted, as long as it was black) or employees for that matter. Obviously, in the post-industrial era, we have become more in tune with what our customers and employees need. In my experience, the foundation that the company was built upon typically still relies heavily on what we know “used to be true.”

When Aviva Leebow Wolmer, CEO of Pacesetter Steel, took over for her father, she entered an industry that was built in the industrial era—steel. Historically, organizations in the steel industry, where the environment consisted of extreme conditions on account of the processes necessary for manufacturing steel, were operated on the premise that people were resources necessary to operate equipment. Aviva, having grown up in the industry, knew that in order to survive in today’s marketplace where talented and committed employees are often just as hard to find as great customers, she must set out to change the face of Pacesetter Steel. The results have demonstrated she is on the right path.

Aviva and her team created an environment where employees are encouraged to collaborate with one another, while leadership shifted away from the historically accepted command and control model to one of facilitating dialogue amongst employees. The entire environment hinges heavily on constant and open dialogue in the form of daily meetings and coaching sessions that occur in relaxed environments. It’s through these constant communications that Aviva and her team are able to stay at the forefront of ensuring customer needs are understood and proactively acted upon. Customerizing is the foundation for Aviva and the team at Pacesetter Steel.

As with Jeff and his team at Bellwyck Packaging, Aviva suggests there is no stopping the evolution of her team. As vision boards display employee ideas, recognition, and outstanding achievements both within the organization as well as with customers, Aviva strives to create an environment in which employees have the desire, motivation, and most importantly, the ability to consistently improve their customer’s experience.

Shifting from a culture of set policies and procedures in serving customers to one that allows for customerization requires a shift in how employees think and act as it pertains to their customer interactions. There are five steps you need to perform in order to prepare employees for this transition:

1. Hold frequent dialogue with employees, ensuring information flows both top-down and bottom-up.
2. Create environments that facilitate communications amongst employees, removing barriers such as walls and cubicles.
3. Shift decision-making from frontline leaders to employees.
4. Create boundaries instead of policies. Let employees know limitations in decisions and actions rather than specifics.
5. Create collaborative hubs, building team knowledge through sharing ideas and customer interactions.

With a clear understanding of the distinctions and practices that set unstoppable organizations apart, let’s shift gears a bit and discuss how the realities in today’s marketplace are influencing these unstoppable organizations in preparing for tomorrow.