There’s not a business leader I know that hasn’t said, “We listen to our customers.” And back in the “old days” it was really fairly easy to listen because, so often, we couldn’t hear them talk. Sure, every once in awhile the hearty consumer would sit through the phone tree or send a letter, but in general, there weren’t all that many voices that could be heard. This made for interaction with that customer a slower process.
That has now changed. In our “always on, always connected” world our customer’s love or hate for our product can be shared for all the world to see quickly and easily form their mobile device. While this does make it easier for us to respond, it requires us to do so at nearly light speed. I don’t know about your company, but from what I can see many are not set up to move that quickly. Images of turning a battleship in a bathtub come to mind as I think about how those response processes work for major brands.
I sat down for an interview with Andrew Eklund, founder of Ciceron, a digital agency here in the Twin Cites, to talk about his upcoming session at the Enterprise Mobile Summit slated for February 16th. I asked him about this very thing: Are most companies ready to respond to customers at light speed? What holds them back?*
It seems clear that if we are to truly step up and facilitate a solid customer experience we’ll need to loosen the front office grip and give our frontline workers more ability…and authority…to respond on our behalf.
What is your company doing to facilitate this quick response time?
See the entire interview here. The Enterprise Mobile Summit is scheduled for February 16th, 2012. It’s an invitation only event so please see your Magenic representative for more information.