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Tell me if this sounds familiar.

The CEO announces a service culture initiative. Anxious to comply with the CEO's mandate, the executive team launches into a flurry of activity. Committees, surveys, and more committees produce slogans, banners, and more committees.

A year later, nothing substantial has been accomplished.

The CEO loses interest and announces a customer experience initiative. Never mind that nobody quite knows where service culture ends and customer experience begins.

It ends badly. Your organization can't be customer-focused if your leaders can't focus.

Not every organization is this way.

A few leaders broke the cycle and did it right. They got results and sustained them. The organization, or at least their individual team, became intensely customer-focused in a short time.

Their secret to moving fast is both obvious and counterintuitive.

How rushing hurts customer-focus

My neighbor was in a hurry to get to work one day. It was trash day, and his trash bins were lined up in front of his driveway. The trash truck was at the house next door, leaving just a narrow window for my neighbor to back his car out.

He raced to slip through the narrow space and promptly knocked over one of his bins.

Now he had to stop.

Get out of the car.

Right his trash bin for the approaching trash truck.

Wait as the trash truck blocked his driveway while it emptied his bins.

He could have saved time if he had just backed out of his driveway a little slower to avoid knocking over his bins.

Executives struggle with the same challenge. They’re impatient and don’t take time to set a clear direction or carefully chart a course to get there. Employees get confused and aren’t sure what to do.

There’s a rush of activity, but nothing gets done.

How going slow improves speed

The desert canyon had no clear path. There were several enticing side canyons, and I came to a fork several times. It would be easy to take the wrong turn and get lost.

I was in the wilderness with no cell reception, so getting lost would be bad.

Going slow kept me safe. I stopped each time I was unsure of the right direction. I checked my map, my compass, and the vague trail description I was following. Only when I was sure of the right direction did I begin to move forward again.

Each pause took extra time, but it saved a lot more because I stayed on course.

The executives who build fanatical, customer-focused cultures are methodical about staying on the trail, just like I was that day in the desert.

That's not to be confused with plodding. They still move fast. But these leaders maintain a laser focus on carefully doing what's most important while eliminating unnecessary activity.

One company I worked with, Clio, rapidly grew its service culture with a methodical approach. Their customer-focused culture is profiled in The Service Culture Handbook.

In 2014, I worked with Clio's then director of support, Catherine Hillier, to complete a customer service assessment. The assessment identified specific steps for continued culture growth. 

Rather than attempt to boil the ocean, Clio focused on completing one step at a time.

Some progress came quickly. For example, customer satisfaction jumped from 85 to 93 percent in two months, while increasing customer satisfaction survey responses by 600 percent. (Read more here.)

Other accomplishments came over time.

• In 2017, the support team won the best culture award from ICMI.

• In 2019, the company closed a $250 million Series D funding round.

• In 2020, CEO Jack Newton was named one of Canada's Most Admired CEOs.

• In 2021, Clio was named one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People.

What hasn't changed over the years is Clio continues its relentless customer-focus.

Take Action

The biggest step towards becoming customer-focused is to provide clear direction. You can't be focused if you don't know where you're going. Likewise, it’s far easier to chart a clear course if you have a destination in mind.

This is true for organizations, teams, or individual contributors.

If you're a business leader, start by creating a customer experience vision for your organization or the team you lead. You can use this step-by-step guide.

If you're an individual contributor, you can create your personal customer service vision by taking the Thank You Letter Challenge. It's a short, three-week exercise that can rapidly improve your customer service results.

You'll find more steps and answers in The Service Culture Handbook.

And if you get stuck along the way, you can always contact me for assistance. I'm happy to be your guide as you develop a customer-focused culture.