Week #5 – MBA 6101 – Ascend Your Start-Up, Chapter 5: Acclimate to the Voice of the Customer Camp.

In Acclimate to the Voice of the Customer Camp, the fifth chapter of Ascend Your Start-Up, Helen Yu explains the importance of “acclimating to the voice of the customer” as a strategy to “drive growth” and “[differentiate] your brand.”  For Yu, this is an opportunity to view your start-up from the outside in, and an opportunity to revalidate and realign your strategy with your execution.

In this chapter, Yu offers four micro-decisions aimed at understanding your relationship with your customer and understanding and overcoming the “customer voice disconnect.”

Decision #13:  Is your company as customer-centric as your marketing content says it is?

Yu recommends five competencies for driving the customer experience and ensuring that your organization is truly “customer-centric.”  These competencies include treating customers as tangible,

valuable asset, aligning the organization towards driving the customer experience, actively listening to customers, providing a reliable and predictable customer experience, and fostering a “culture of accountability” around the customer experience. 

Decision #14: How will you get to know your customer? 

Yu advocates for planning out the “customer journey” in a way that provides insight into the expectations of the customer, ways to better engage your customer, how to address relationship short-comings, and how to ensure positive outcomes. She offers a six-step “customer journey framework” that parallels the stages that customers progress through that includes evaluating and investing (value discovery), deploying and adopting (value realization), and expanding and advocating (value optimization).  The ultimate goal of the framework is to develop a framework to help orient your organization’s strategy with the customer’s strategy thereby creating a “consistent, reliable customer experience.”

Yu also suggests developing “customer rooms,” a framework aimed at developing a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s expectations.  Like mapping the customer journey, the customer room is designed to drive customer engagement through the maturation of the organization/ customer relationship.  The customer room includes the implementation stage (onboarding), adoption maturity (adoption), opportunity to upsell (expansion), and customer references (advocacy). 
Included with developing a deep understanding of the customer’s expectations, the customer room also assists with bridging potential gaps between cross-functional teams and building a greater sense of accountability for the customer experience. 

Decision #15:  Are you willing to step back in order to move forward and acclimate to the voice of your customer?

Yu points out that a hurdle in building a successful customer experience is not taking time to “[pause, listening, learning, or reflect]” While this micro-decision requires taking a step back, the long-term benefits include a broader understanding of how to meet the customer’s needs and expectations.  For the entrepreneur, this step is a chance to adjust and dial-in the organization’s approach. 

Decision #16: How will you define your customer experience?

According to Yu, incorporating the customer experience should be the top “differentiator” between your organization and the competition and the top “driver“ for organizational growth.  As such, argues Yu, “customer experience is…[the] leading indicator for success.” 

Many organizations can make overtures asserting customer-centricity.  However, authentic commitment to the customer experience requires more than “lofty claims.” Instead, a truly customer-centric experience demands a thorough organizational commitment towards optimizing customer value and putting the customer first.