Putring our Celebration in a Customer Context

Sixteen years ago this week I left the comfort and security of a great corporate job at Chevron Corporation to begin my company, the company that is now known as the Kevin Eikenberry Group. A few weeks ago, when I shared the fact that it was about to be 16 years, someone commented, "16 years in business and married 23 years - and happy with both. Not everyone can say that."

I smiled.

I'm truly blessed.

I've been thinking about the 16 years, the challenges, the surprises, the mistakes, the wins and the lessons. And as a result of that I will be writing blog posts for the next 16 days - posts of lessons learned that can be applied to all of our lives. Those 16 posts are just one of the ways we will be celbrating - but I'll tell you more abou thtat tomorrow.

I grew up on a family farm. We raised crops and hogs, did custom fieldwork and a fertilizer business. While the lessons from all of that experience are many, one of the most important things I learned from a very young age was about how to relate to, treat and revere Customers.

That Customer mindset served me very well during my Chevron career, and has served me even better as an entrepreneur. The first name of my company - Performance Partners - defined that perspective. My goal then, and now, was to become Partners with our Customers to solve their Performance problems.

While we say it differently today - we want to be Your Leadership Help Button - the point is the same. We are here to serve you - our Customers. Any of the success we have had to this point rests firmly on this founding principle.

My challenge for you today, as an individual performer and a leader is to
think about how you think about your Customers - to carefully consider how those thoughts translate into actions - and how successfully you are meeting or
exceeding the needs of those most important people.

Because without our Customers, past and present, I wouldn't be celebrating 16 years in business next month, we are going to make our celebration all about YOU. Tomorrow I will announcing some very cool, very fun, and very valuable activities that will be a part of our month-long anniversary celebration - and all of it is about helping, encouraging, inspiring and thanking you.

Stay tuned for the announcement. . .

and in the meantime, thank one of your Customers today.

The Six Cancers of Customer Care

Want to keep your organization out of recession? Consider these thoughts about the Six Cancers of Customer Care and how to overcome them.

Rental Car Customer Service and The Remarkable Leader

Diane Brady, in a recent Business Week blog post commented on a Customer Service horror story. She recounts how on trying to return a rental car 10 hours early, they (Avis) attempt to charge her an almost 50% premium on her rates!

While she did negotiate those rates back down, it leaves me thinking about what I would do if I was the leader at Avis and at the counter at that location. Maybe more to the point,

What would a remarkable leader do?

Before we answer that question, read the post for yourself.

There are issues at at least three levels here:

Policy level
Empowerment level
Customer Mindset level

These levels are intermingled, but let me unpack a couple of thoughts for you.

Perhaps there is a policy in place to handle these situations (however inane it sounds). If so, a Remarkable, proactive leader would be working to change, abolish or remove this policy. Yes, even if that leader is the night counter manager in Newark - a policy that makes no sense and is detrimental to customers requires change!

Since in this case, the charges were changed, it is clear that even if it was a policy, the person at the desk had the ability to use their judgement and change it. This is an empowerment issue. While Diane had to wait too long and work too hard to make this happen, some "justice" was done. As a remarkable leader it is your job to empower people to make those decisions, based on organizational goals and values. As importantly, to make those decisions quickly when working with Customers, which leads to the third level . . .

Remarkable leaders set the pace in creating a mindset that is focused on Customers and meeting/exceeding their needs. If leadership had created the right mindset, Diane wouldn't have had a blog post to write, and neither would I. What is the mindset in your organization in relationship to Customers. Is the end of Diane's story ("hey, she got the rate changed") good enough?

All of us have these Customer service horror stories. The question is, as a leader what are you learning from them?