YOUR ORGANIZATION TYPE:

LEVEL 1

LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION'S JOURNEY

Level 1 is the first stage of three on our customer-centricity scale. Based on your responses, your organization is just getting started on it's journey towards becoming customer centric, and you've got a long way to go. Keep reading to see some potential obstacles your organization is likely facing and learn what you can do to improve.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A RESPONSIVE ORGANIZATION

Your organization is early in it’s journey to become customer-centric. A few people in the organization may understand the importance of the customer. Senior leaders may even make statements about valuing the customers. In a responsive organization, customers may be one of many priorities, but they are not the top priority.

STARTS WITH MINDSET

In a Level 1 organization, the biggest shift can come with alignment. Usually, employees are not completely aligned with senior leadership. Senior leaders may make decisions that impact the customers, but are disconnected from the front lines to feel the emotions from customers. Changes are likely reactionary, and may be made based on loud customers, not from comprehensive data collection. Decisions may be based primarily on financial goals, return to shareholders, or even based on playing catch-up with competitors.

Here are five business areas where customer-centric organizations excel. Below, we've provided a likely look into your organization's current state, paired with high level strategies to help you take the next step to improve.

Customer Insights

Understanding of your customers is rudimentary.

“Listening posts” exist, but they are likely informal and inconsistent.
Your organization may react and make future decisions based on a handful of vocal or influential customers, not the entire customer base.
While data may exist in the organization about your customers, it’s primarily buying history and demographics, and is not leveraged past the sales team.

Culture

"Privilege to work here" mentality

Past generations traditionally viewed have a full-time paying job with benefits as a privilege. It’s not uncommon for senior leaders in a Level 1 organization to maintain this belief
Unfortunately, your customer experience will only be as good as the people delivering it.
If you don’t focus on caring for your employees, the good ones will leave and the ones who remain will be looking for their next job.

Operations

Missing the right tools or organizational structure to deliver

Your employees may truly desire to deliver the best possible experiences for customers, but they don’t have the necessary tools to do so.
It could be there is a lack of processes or documentation that allow for consistent delivery. Or it could be that those processes are outdated.
It may be that due to the organizational structure or lack of collaboration tools, there is a lack of clarity in roles.
Communication between key parts of the organization is likely disjointed.

Experiences

Innovation is largely based on competitors or tweaking what you've always done.

To innovate, Level 1 organizations look across their industry and see how they can tweak what someone else has already done.
Without a deep understanding of who your customers are, experiences based on the unique needs, wants, stereotypes and emotions of your customers cannot be created.
The channels in which you create content and experiences are likely more traditional. Level 1 organizations tend to be laggards in experimenting with new channels and platforms to reach their customers.

Monetization

Financial acumen is lacking.

While senior leaders in a Level 1 organization may understand how they are managing money, others in the organization may not.
Revenue streams tend to be traditional, with no new significant revenue streams in the last ten years.
While gross revenue may be up, profits may be stagnant. Gross revenue increases in a Level 1 organization are usually due to an increase in demand for your product / service, not necessarily because of smarter business decisions.

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on your quiz results, here are some next steps we might recommend for you and your organization.

GET YOUR SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM ALIGNED

To truly see behaviors and future decisions change in your organizations, it may take an experience transformation. And for sustained change, it won’t come overnight. It’s certainly possible, but not easy.

Many organizations have pulled off these types transformations before -- with the right processes and commitment. We’ve led these types of successful transformations before, with organizations just like yours.

The first step in any experience transformation is to get senior leadership aligned on what success looks like. Click the icon to learn our most effective tactics for getting leadership on the same page.

Resources to Get Started

START SMALL, ONE PROJECT AT A TIME

Is your leadership team typically skeptical of outside help? Is there a project you need to complete quickly that needs a customer-centric approach?

You may need a quick-win, but not just any quick-win. A quick-win with lasting positive impact. Luckily for you, we’ve combined best-practices we used at the Walt Disney Company with best-practices from Google and other customer-centric leaders to create a way for you to quickly build new ideas and validate them with your customers.

Sounds interesting? Click the icon to see if the project you’re working on now can benefit from a new approach.

Have a Project in Mind?

IMPROVE YOUR OWN SKILLS IN THE MEANTIME

One of the best ways to help your organization become more customer-centric is to become a leader and improve your own skills.

You can set the example for those around you by upping your own game, learning from leaders in other industries and bringing new insights into your organization.

Ready to kickstart your own personal learning journey? Click the icon to learn from the best in business

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