This Venn diagram of the practice of ‘thanking customers’ focuses on the three ‘wins’ you must ultimately receive in order to maintain long-term customer focus:
1. Management – represents the interests of all stakeholders as well as most of the hard skills it takes to keep track of all programs, systems and resources.
2. Customers – simply those individuals and/or groups that will keep the organization in business the next year. This could extend to potential customers as well as markets the organization has targeted for its products and services.
3. Team – leaders and members who provide products and services to customers on a daily basis. For any team member using this practice, this is your team as it relates and its contributions to the overall organization or purpose for which it exists.
The other areas:
o Marketing/Relationships – The interface between Management and the Customer. This is more formal and represented by the “Marketing department” or long-term plan that management sees between the organization and its customers. Surveys, advertising, and long range planning would be examples of this “function”. It is best to communicate these results and plans to the Team in terms of Relationships as much as possible, to keep it simple and understandable for the greatest impact.
o Support/Relationships – Management provides Support to the Team by giving them wisdom and direction in helping to determine what needs the customer has and how best those needs can be met. With this practice, Management also provides Support by teaching teams to “ask” the right questions regarding the meeting of these customers’ needs.
o Feedback/Relationships – This interface is between Teams and the Customer and the principle focus of this ‘best practice’. Teams build Relationships with Customers using Feedback. The members learn to do this firsthand by “asking” and getting the “answers” to the all important questions letting them know as a team “How are we doing?” It is this learning to “ask” the questions of Customers that separates this practice from most all other feedback practices. It is also this aspect that creates and maintains long-term learning, involvement, and focus concerning Customers.
o Relationships – the one area that all three “wins” share in common. The medium for ‘soft’ skills, communications, understanding, learning, and teamwork. This is critical in the understanding of why this best practice becomes so effective, especially in the long-term, and becomes a catalyst in maintaining the three “wins”. The business needs of Management are proactively shared through Support with the Team who has the most direct and visible relationship with Customers on a daily basis. The Team then learns to “ask” for Feedback from Customers as to “How are they doing?” in meeting Customer needs. In turn, they learn how they are meeting the needs of the organization as well. It is the “asking” that makes this practice unique as this is usually a Marketing function or at least occurs within the Management/Customer interface with the answers being shared with the Team.
The difference I liken to an old Chinese proverb where the difference is in teaching a person to fish and feeding them for a lifetime as opposed to simply giving them a fish and feeding them for only a day! By teaching Team members how-to “ask” the questions, they learn how to get feedback/learning from Customers for a lifetime as opposed to giving them the answers and giving them feedback/learning for a day.