Service culture starts with leadership.

Providing clear direction is a core part of a leader's job. Customer-focused leaders do this with a customer experience (CX) vision.

A CX vision is a shared definition of an outstanding customer experience that gets everyone on the same page. It’s unique to your company and brand.

Think of it like a North Star that always guides you in the right direction. The best leaders use the CX vision to guide their growth strategy.

Here are three mini-case studies.

Case Study: Transparent BPO

Transparent BPO is a contact center solutions provider. It's landed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies for eight consecutive years.

CX Vision

Our passion is the success of your brand.

Transparent handles customer contacts for its clients. The CX vision, which is also the company's mission, reflects the company's aim to help those brands succeed.

CX Strategy

Transparent’s mission statement is central to the company’s strategy. "It's everything about my decision-making," said Scott Newman, Transparent's CEO.

One example is client acquisition.

"It's sort of a two-way selection process," said Newman. "We want to make sure that we're the right fit for them, but also the client's the right fit for us so we are able to continue to live our culture."

Transparent only partners with brands it feels they can truly help. Less than 50 percent of prospective clients are a good fit.

This strategy has paid off. Annual client attrition ranges from low-single digits to nonexistent.

Learn more about Newman's service culture leadership from this interview.

Case Study: GreatAmerica Financial Services

GreatAmerica provides equipment financing solutions to businesses. It's the largest family-owned equipment financing company in the United States.

CX Vision

We help our customers achieve greater success

GreatAmerica uses its mission statement as the CX vision. Its primary customers are businesses that sell office, medical, or other types of equipment to their customers.

CX Strategy

The company provides financing solutions to help its customers sell more.

Account teams work hard to understand each customer's unique needs, and then craft a financing solution to help that customer improve sales.

"Our employees care a lot about whether customers win," said Joe Terfler, GreatAmerica's chief financial officer. "We try to say 'yes' to our customers as much as we can."

For example, GreatAmerica helped one office equipment supplier combine billing for multiple product lines into a simplified monthly invoice. The simplified invoicing made it easier to sell more services, which led to a 20 percent revenue increase.

GreatAmerica’s customer focused strategy has helped it become the envy of the competition.

One rival executive told me GreatAmerica was hands-down their top competitor. He was frustrated because his company consistently lost business to GreatAmerica because of their superior customer experience.

GreatAmerica is featured in Chapter Four of The Guaranteed Customer Experience, How to Win Customers by Keeping Your Promises.

Case Study: Waterton

Waterton is a real estate investment and management company that focuses on multifamily and hospitality properties. It manages approximately 30,000 apartment units.

CX Vision

Resitality®

Resitality is Waterton’s brand promise. It’s a combination of the words "residential" and "hospitality." It reflects Waterton's commitment to managing its properties in a way that residents feel welcome and at home.

"Hospitality is meeting a stranger, and embracing that stranger as a neighbor," said Stephanie Brock, Managing Director of Property Management.

CX Strategy

Waterton is a value-add investor. It invests in apartment communities and increase their value by making improvements to the property and the resident experience.

Improving properties makes it easier to attract new residents and retain existing ones. Brock also stresses the importance of building community.

"Providing those opportunities where they can come together and get to know each other, they want to stay where they're known, and where they know their neighbor," said Brock.

Properties host a wide range of community activities, such as wellness talks, community service projects, and even parties with food trucks.

These events attract as many as 50 percent of a community's residents, and help residents build stronger connections between themselves and the community.

Waterton's community-focused, value-add approach has contributed to steady growth. It now has more than $10 billion in assets under management, a more than 60 percent increase in the past three years.

Learn more about Brock's customer-focused leadership from this interview.

Conclusion

Customer-focused leaders use a CX vision to guide strategy.

It creates better consistency and execution. That helps companies win more customers and retain them longer. Customer retention is the fuel that helps companies grow faster.

I've assembled some resources to help you.