The Covid-19 pandemic significantly changed customer brand preferences and consumers are looking for brands that can provide digital solutions. According to a recent report by McKinsey, 73 percent of American customers tried new shopping behaviors as a result of the pandemic.
What remains to be seen as vaccination rates increase is whether these buying behaviors will become permanent. As society starts to return to “normal”, what will keep customers around and what will drive them back to the previous brands they worked with?
The pandemic was about survival, but the coming years will focus on retention. You can continue to win over new customers while keeping the ones you have through operational excellence and customer experience (CX).
Understand that excellence starts with core values from the top down
The first thing to know about operational excellence is that it starts from the top. Corporate culture originates from leadership and also impacts all aspects of operations, which then affects customer experience. Executives and senior leaders cannot expect high-quality performance from their team unless they model it themselves.
Alice Calin, author on Hubgets’s blog, confirms this by explaining that “leaders have a great influence on company culture and their behavior is observed and often replicated by those who are looking up to them”.
However, being a value-driven leader is not an easy task. According to iHire’s 2020 survey, 75 percent of employees think their employer only somewhat reflects their company’s values and nearly 16 percent of employees say their bosses do not uphold their core values.
As a leader, you need to be a living, breathing example of your company’s core values as well as instilling them into your management style. They help guide employee behavior and engagement which translates to their interactions with customers. Ensure your team understands them and represents them.
Develop a team of infinite thinkers
Simon Sinek, author of The Infinite Game book, proposes a theory as to why some businesses fail while others succeed. He explains failure often occurs when your organization concentrates on short-term results such as quarterly sales goals and weekly KPIs, rather than balancing long-term value creation with short-term gains. This type of mindset can lead to burnout within your employees, which also causes performance issues evident in their customer interactions. Leads and prospects do not want to deal with a tired and resentful representative who is not worried about their future relationship.
Conversely, the infinite thinking model encourages teams to consistently improve and grow. While they may have a good quarter, they should also focus on the big picture and understand the value of long-term performance.
Leaders should help employees become infinite thinkers by challenging them to always set overarching goals for improvement. Yes, they need to meet benchmarks, but how can they concurrently strive to grow in their role or strengthen existing customer relationships? Highlight their contribution to the company and how that impacts the organization’s overall mission to give them a zoomed-out perspective.
Additionally, remind your team that operations and processes serve as the foundation to customer confidence. Infinite thinking equates to better product/service offerings, more effective customer service and next-gen business plans. In other words, guide your team to excellence by helping them focus on the forest rather than a single tree.
Communicate transparency about your operations
In an economy with infinite companies offering similar products and services, customers can be selective about the brands they chose to support. Buyers prioritize a streamlined CX along with brand values and trust.
According to the 2020 Consumer Culture Report by 5W, 83 percent of millennials (aged 18-34 years old), and 60 percent of 55 year old and older consumers think it is important to buy from companies that align with their values.
Optimizing operational excellence via encouraging employee development can be a differentiator from your competition, so promote it to your audience. Additionally, your customers want to know about your values, so practice transparency around those as well.
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To meet these rising customer expectations, shout about your improved processes, company mission and employee experience. Moreover, when both your brand messaging and employee communications highlight your evolving performance, customers will understand that you are driving progress and innovation.
A perfect example of a company shouting about its values is Wegman’s, a Northeastern grocery chain. Even before they expanded down the east coast, this value-driven organization was voted as one of Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” (23 years in a row). If you look at their careers page, they are vocal about their mission, values, and providing the best possible experience for their team. This is only further echoed on their social media channels, where they highlight company updates and employee accomplishments.
Avoid virtue signaling
To commit to operational excellence as a leader, you need to roll up your sleeves and be ready for hard work. Your employees and management team also need to be prepared to put in the time it takes for improvement. Otherwise, you are simply virtual signaling, expressing values without actually taking steps to live by them.
Augie Ray, an analyst covering customer experience at Gartner, explains: “The problem with marketing messages that merely signal your brand’s virtue without doing anything further is that they waste customers’ time and do little to impact your relationship. In fact, messages like that do more to hurt brands because of what’s missing – anything meaningful for customers.”
Operational excellence is a commitment and requires meaningful change. You cannot simply publicize shifts to your employees and audience and not follow through with necessary actions. If you do not invest time and resources, build, assess, pivot and build some more, you will not see results.
Focus on excellence and your customers will follow
Operational excellence does not happen overnight, but rather by ingraining principles into every aspect of your organization and reinforcing necessary performance. Use the above strategies to avoid roadblocks during integration and adaptation.
The good news is that operational excellence means your organization evolves with industry and consumer shifts, so you can better meet customer needs.
Learn what true operational excellence is and how to achieve it by implementing the right methodologies and technologies by reading PEX Guide: What is operational excellence?