Don’t give the Customer what they think they want

It is pretty much accepted wisdom these days that companies should be customer focused. It is however unfortunate that most companies go the wrong way about this by asking their customers what they want. Customers describe their requirements in terms of products and services and then when the company builds and delivers they are not desired or bought. Henry Ford put it very well…. {more}

The Evolution of Business Process Management (updated)

A theme of recent global conferences has been the mix of different approaches to improving business performance. This quest for business performance improvement as measured by reducing costs, improving revenues and enhanced service (also known as ‘the triple crown’) is a worldwide phenomena brought on by increasing competition, greater customer promiscuity, chaotic business cycles and more generally ‘globalization’. The pressure continues to increase and companies are seeking to extract every last opportunity out of their various initiatives and approaches. So what works best then?

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The Causes of Work

Every Customer Interaction is a Moment of Truth (MOT). Whether it’s person to person, person to system, system to person, system to system or person to product they are all Causes of Work.

That work in dealing with MOT’s creates internal handoffs, these are Breakpoints. Places where things can and do go wrong and we see them happening between people, systems and services all the time.

All our internal communications are in fact Breakpoints. For instance how many emails do you receive from colleagues and business partners daily? How many calls do you have to make to get the job done? How many ‘systems’ do you work with?

According to US research firm The Radi… [more]

Let’s talk Successsful Customer Outcomes (SCO) then…

How do Disney weave their magic?

The recent article ‘The World of Magic’ resulted in a series of questions around ‘what is the SCO?¨. Well as it is so often said it isn’t rocket science. In fact it has to be one of the simplest concepts available in business today – and yet so often missed. It is often so simple it is elegant, so let’s review what Disneys SCO might just be…

Most of us have been there. A car full of screaming kids eager to start their Disney vacation however trouble is you’ve driven six hours (or flown ten) and frankly the last thing you want to do is fight the car lot. Much better find that quiet hotel room and bar and chill until tomorrow? Not so. This is the kids vacation and they’re going to squeeze every minute out of the long awaited trip to the Magic Kingdom. So what say Disney in this situation? Do they leave you to fight the crowds, get incredibly irritated and leave you with a pile of now prickly family? Well no – they have been there too after all and it is real easy to see it from the customers point of view. {more}

Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO’s) and the world of magic

For many of us talking and acting the SCO way has become second nature.That means if you are eating and breathing the alignment of your processes towards SCO’s then progressively the original focus begins to shift and in fact we refine and sharpen our ability both to meet and subsequently exceed customer expectations. That’s precisely what is happening in the magic kingdom [more]

Put on Your Running Shoes – the launch of the Nipple?

Achieving Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO’s) is not just an internal exercise. Powerful SCO’s may be created through partnerships with otherwise completely different industries. Look at your services and products through the customers eyes and powerful market winning solutions emerge. Such is the tie up between Nike and Apple recently. A combination of products – the Apple [more]