Here are several excerpts from a very thoughtful and insightful article by Renuka Vembu, The Customer is The King, that highlights what organisations are doing to create and maintain a customer-centric culture:
A healthy organisation, motivated workforce, delighted customers—are all part of a cyclic phenomenon. A dedicated and loyal workforce will reflect, in a positive way, the company and its value, keeping up the brand name. They will work towards taking the company towards the growth path. Increased brand value translating into augmented revenues and increased share of profits for the company will eventually trickle down to the employees, thereby, enhancing employee benefit schemes.
A motivated workforce will feel an additional obligation to serve the customers better. Every organisation has thus realised the growing importance of grooming its employees to make them an impressive force in the eyes of the consumers. Investing resources in well-defined recruitment policies, thorough and intensive training programs, soft-skills encompassing business etiquettes, communication proficiency, etc. are an integral part of any business.
All the activities introduced by the company, guided by its philosophy, and ably carried out by its employees expect conversion of those processes and efforts into beaming consumers and more clientele. Every individual associated with the company, should be in a framework to completely understand, visualise and relate to the culture and mission statement of the organisation, and the direction towards which they are headed. This in turn will mean or call for providing customers with quality service. A keen and unperturbed customer focus whilst completing the task at hand will translate into fulfilling the needs, requirements and also expectations of the existing clients as also adding new ones to the list. In the era of multiple means and unlimited choices, customer focus acts as the key differentiator and gives the competitive edge.
Internal customers who are people working with the organisation have to be served a motivating experience for them to replicate and carry it out to the external customers. Customer focus has to be started with employee service. Dr Kashmira Pagdiwalla, Director, HR Operations, Intas Biopharmaceuticals Limited (IBPL) echoes the same thought, “An organisation will succeed only when customer needs are satisfied. Changing the business focus to a customer-centered paradigm has broad-reaching impact across the organisation. It gives many companies an opportunity to revisit their company as a whole and improve business processes and achieve significant return on investment.” She goes on to say that with a proper customer ocused organisation, one can:* Build on what you accomplish each year in increasing your customer assets and verify it with hard numbers Have a more structured work environment
that allows for creative thinking
* Establish meaningful policies and processes that produce results
* Manage people through information instead of going through people to get the information you needInteractive methodologies
Presenting the pipeline of consumers with an opportunity to share, and giving them a stage to interact with concerned individuals of the company, triggers off the process of a long-term and healthy company-customer relationship.
Skills that matter
Apart from the job skill-sets, the soft skill parameters like empathy, listening, understanding, caring, patience, honesty, integrity, communication, and the list goes on infinitely, is a part and parcel of any job role in today’s given scenario. The list just holds deeper value and larger responsibility in the pharma sector. Iyer says, “At Wanbury, we emphasise on values like respect for people, innovation, sense of urgency, result focus, leadership, team work and customer focus. Every employee is expected to understand the changing needs and expectations of the customers—both internal and external, taking personal responsibility for serving customers with an ultimate objective of achieving customer delight. Integrity, adaptability, trust and empowerment are main founding stones that contribute to architecting relationship with customers.”
Alkem ingrains another set of characteristics in its employees concentrating on the more humane side like being helpful, patient, and empathetic enough to handle any kind of unforeseen situation. Employees are expected to be logical enough to interpret the roots of customers’ grievances as also a willingness to address them with a smile and a balanced mind.
Customer relationship is based on experiences. When opportunities prevailing are aplenty and open doors are awaiting people, the motivation-satisfaction-loyalty level is the maxim to root for. The experiences, principles and values, and the care and empathy which one comes across in the work place are transmitted to the outside larger world. The customer holds the key to your value in the company and in fact, the company itself.
