Know your customers for success in uncertain times.

Change is a constant in today's business world. Instead of seeing uncertainty as a problem, see it as a chance to serve your customers better, excel, and stand out from your competition. Knowing your customers well helps you serve them confidently and stay relevant in chaotic times. 

Consumers today feel vulnerable and pressured. Serving them requires more corporate responsibility, sustainability, and social purpose. Research shows the future will favor an "integrity economy." This means consumers will judge an organization based on its ethics as much as its services and products. They expect businesses to be purpose-driven, not just profit-driven, and to demonstrate that purpose at every step of the customer journey.

Assess targeted consumers and their networks with five key factors.
The "5 Mys" can help you understand your customers' needs, motivations, and economic drivers:

1. My motivation: Use technology to predict customer behavior and segment them based on circumstances. For example, people buy more fast food milkshakes before noon than after.

2. œMy attention: Millennials have a 12-second attention span, while Gen Z's is only 8 seconds. Stay connected between purchases by addressing important events in customers' lives and offering solutions to their needs.

3. œMy connections: Think of customers as connected networks and target your communication to engage with these networks based on common interests or beliefs.

4. œMy watch: People's perception of time affects their buying choices. Customers experiencing "time poverty" prioritize convenience.

5. œMy wallet: Research customer income, spending habits, and wealth accumulation to understand their willingness to spend on essentials, œpostpones, expendables, and treats.

Employee and customer experiences are interconnected.

View your customers and employees as a unified group. Your company's culture shapes an interconnected experience for both. Successful businesses thrive by creating meaningful human connections. However, if your culture is negative and reflects outdated or "antihuman" views”for example, seeking to manipulate rather than empower employees”it will harm your workforce. This, in turn, leads to customer dissatisfaction with their interactions with your company.

To encourage compassionate treatment of customers by your employees, support them throughout their journey. Provide mental health care and well-being services when possible. Offer educational and training resources to help them improve their skills and stay updated on industry standards.

Empower employees to advance in their careers by offering mentoring and recognition. Positive employee experiences shouldn't solely rely on your HR team. Integrate creating a positive experience for both employees and customers into every part of your organization.

Improve flexibility, reject old structures “ or lose.

Fortune 500 companies do not last as long as they used to. In the 1950s, they typically lasted 60 years, but now they only last about 16 years on average. Many modern companies fail because they can™t keep up with fast-changing technology or handle today™s complex world. Successful organizations are agile, flexible, and responsive. They have leaders who embody their shared purpose.

Workers in client-facing roles, like account managers or contact center employees, should be given more freedom. Old-fashioned hierarchical structures can™t deal with today™s uncertainty. Try using agile problem-solving methods, like sprints. Consider using matrix structures and working with teams that focus on serving your customer journey.

Ensure everyone on your team truly gets why you're all here together. Keep hammering home our mission to serve our customers by plastering it all over our workspace with our logos and symbols. Always put œpeople first”pick employees who share our values and our customers' values too.

Create brand success with six guiding œpillars.

Craft your brand experience and guide your organization's processes, behaviors, and priorities with the "Six Pillars of Experience":

1. Integrity_Consumers trust growth-oriented organizations. Trust should be present at all levels of your organization. Employees should trust each other and their leaders. Build trust by maintaining integrity, keeping commitments, demonstrating expertise, connecting your brand to a higher purpose, and always serving customers' best interests.
2. Resolution_Solve customer problems by giving them the benefit of the doubt, providing multiple solutions, going beyond expectations, and fixing issues to pleasantly surprise customers.
3. Expectations_ Customers have beliefs about products or services they haven't bought yet. Manage their expectations by guiding them, responding promptly, speaking clearly, and agreeing on deliverables and requirements beforehand.
4. Provide Clarity_Customers want quick and easy service. Improve their experience by making interactions enjoyable, keeping steps simple (ideally three or fewer), giving clear instructions, offering advice, and keeping wait times short (under two minutes).
5. Personalization_When you personalize experiences, you show customers they're important, which builds loyalty. Greet them warmly, remember them, share useful information or gifts, and show you understand their needs.

Empathy_ Empathy is crucial. Encourage staff to ask questions and listen, hire emotionally intelligent people, urge employees to take personal ownership of customer issues, and let staff share appropriate personal information to build connections.

Adopt servant leadership; rethink power dynamics.

Adopt the mindset of servant leadership. When you prioritize serving your employees, you inspire them to better serve your customers. Instead of micromanaging and giving orders, focus on empowering your team to excel. Treat them with dignity and respect.

Nordstrom follows this approach with an inverted pyramid model, where leaders' needs are at the bottom and employees' needs are at the top. Servant leaders listen to stakeholders, customers, and employees. They handle conflicts respectfully and stay updated on industry trends. They're persuasive without being manipulative, communicating a clear vision and foreseeing challenges. These leaders are emotionally intelligent and act as stewards, leaving their companies better for the next person in their role.

Create memorable experiences through small details.

Paying attention to the small things, like remembering your customers' names, can make a big difference in how they feel about your brand. It's not just about what you do, but how you make people feel. 

To create memorable experiences, break your customers into groups and imagine what each type of person would want at different stages of their journey with your brand. Digital tools can help you give customers more control over their experiences. For example, when you book a trip online, you can choose exactly what you need, like whether you want to rent a car or not.

Instead of just focusing on what benefits your business, use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure how well you're serving your customers. This will make sure your business is all about putting your customers first.

Transform your business with a 90-day strategy.

Before starting your 90-day plan, take time to think and plan. Ensure your executives are open-minded and ready to honestly assess the organization's strengths and areas needing improvement. Then, follow these steps to bring about the necessary changes:

• First 15 days “ Get a better understanding of your customers, business context, and competition. Analyze all available data to understand where your company is heading over the next three years and identify any threats and opportunities.
• Days 16 to 30 “ Assess your organization's internal capabilities truthfully, focusing on your employees' needs. Review your organization's purpose, impact, and values, and how these translate into customer experience. Evaluate your culture and structure: Do they support your desired future growth? Learn from past failures and apply those lessons.
• Days 30 to 60 “ Evaluate potential commercial benefits from emerging technologies. Map your customers' entire journey with your company. Determine your executives' priorities and identify urgent projects that align with your goals.
• Days 60 to 90 “ Prepare your middle managers for change and provide them with the necessary support. Identify small, meaningful changes they can make to communicate your desired changes throughout the organization.

Create a cross-functional team to help leaders implement and manage the changes. Be prepared to spend time synthesizing these changes and ensuring everyone is informed.