You’re a manager who wants to create a customer-focused team. What steps do you take first?

Creating a customer-centric team begins with a culture even before defining customer segments etc. My 5 pillars are 1.Culture is King: Prioritize customers! Leaders champion empathy, active listening, and using feedback to improve. Customer needs become the team's guiding light. 2.Continuous Improvement: Empower teams to constantly improve based on what customers say. 3.Silo Smashers: Break down departmental walls! Cross-functional collaboration ensures customers' needs are met holistically. 4.Skill Up: Invest in your team! Training in customer service, communication, and problem-solving 5.All Hands on Deck: Building a customer-centric team requires everyone's commitment. Prioritizing on customer experience is the key

Understanding deeply about the customer should be the first step before setting up a team. Define clearly the quantity of customers, their potential, their behaviors, and motivations, then do the analysis and segment them. We define key targeted customers, frequency of engagements, then the channel and resources needed to engage with them. These points are critical to decide size of team and required competencies.

Who are your Customers, understand that first Who are your Team To create a Customer focused team make sure you understand both. Look after your Team because they are the People who are looking after your Customers. Support your Team and they will tell you what is going on

To build Customer-Support Team: It’s a continual effort that requires constantly, some adjustments as you learn more and as the market, your Clients needs, Customer Segments, Demographics, Pain Points and your team evolve. Some key traits- 1. Strong communication skills 2. Show Empathy 3. Deep understanding of product and services of the target customer and sharpen technical skills to troubleshoot and resolve the issues on or before time. 4. Continuous Improvement 5. Quick response time 6. Positive attitude 7. Hire the right people and checking the role fitment 8. Organize and Attend ongoing training and support 9. Regularly evaluate and improve customer support team to stay up to date with the emerging technologies like Generative AI

A customer focused team is a team where the customer feedback is heard and also taken action upon. A regular interaction with the Technical as well as Commercial buyer will improve and grow the team as desired. Understanding the pain-points / need of the customer and mapping the offered solution to fit their solution will be the best approach. A collaboration within the organisational dept. will bring in the best from the team to be communicated to the customer offering a tailored solution.

It sounds easy to say Communicate your Customer Vision, but if your Team don’t know what you want to achieve then it will be harder to achieve it. Avoid woolly statements like ‘We want World Class Customer Satisfaction. You will have to start somewhere, it is okay to have ‘Moonshot’ Goals but you may be starting from a standing start

Share your customer vision with your team, aligning it with organizational goals. Use stories, examples, and customer feedback to inspire and reinforce the vision in meetings, trainings, and reviews. This clarity fosters a customer-centric culture, motivating your team to consistently deliver value and exceptional experiences.

Find you central value that will drive all decisions / priorities within the team. For example, if your team value is "customer first" and you have a conflict in your agenda between a customer lunch and a internal meeting, you will decide the to attend to the former!

Communicate the importance of customer focus to your team. Explain how their roles contribute to customer satisfaction and the overall success of the business.

Engage your team in gathering and acting on customer feedback. Utilize surveys, reviews, and direct contact channels to collect insights. Encourage team involvement in designing surveys, monitoring reviews, and participating in service calls. This empowers them to grasp the customer perspective, pinpoint improvement opportunities, and recognize their role in enhancing satisfaction.

Show don't tell. If you want to push your team in a culture driven approach, start by adding 5min of crossed feedback during your weekly 1-1 with each one of your direct reports

Involving your team in customer feedback is a valuable strategy to enhance their understanding of customer needs and improve overall performance

Empower your team to address customer problems by granting them authority, resources, and support. Encourage collaboration, innovation, and experimentation in finding solutions. This cultivates a sense of ownership, accountability, and creativity among team members, fostering a customer-centric culture and driving customer satisfaction.

Provide training sessions to enhance your team's customer service skills. This could include communication training, problem-solving techniques, and empathy-building exercises. Empower your team members to make decisions that benefit the customer. Trust them to handle customer issues independently and encourage a sense of ownership in customer satisfaction.

Talk to customers directly, don't wait for feedback or operate in reactive mode. Getting direct engagement through initiatives with customers is key to helping connect and understand their wants and needs.

Incentivize and acknowledge your team for achieving customer excellence. Connect rewards to customer metrics like retention and satisfaction. Celebrate successes, share stories, and express gratitude for their efforts. By reinforcing customer-centric achievements, you inspire ongoing dedication and demonstrate appreciation for their contributions, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Recognize and reward team members who consistently demonstrate customer-focused behaviour. This could be through performance reviews, incentives, or simple acknowledgment.

To create a customer-focussed team, make sure everyone goes to specsavers. You can't be customer-focussed if everything is blurry.

Create a Positive Work Environment: Foster a positive work culture that encourages collaboration and values both customers and team members. A positive atmosphere often translates into better customer interactions.

Make sure you team uses the product and related services. That will bring a deeper perspective of issues and real customer feel.

Customer Focus starts with identifying the right resources, Defining the Customer and identifying the areas of focus. For Identifying the right resources: Define a clear JD and success criteria. During interview conduct case studies to evaluate customer focused nature of the candidate For defining the Customer: Segment the market and identify the customer. Define customer characteristics Focus Area/KPI: Identify focus areas or KPI's for the team for improvement. It is KPI's that drive performance. If something is measured then it is done.

As of this article main "issue" is : "A manager who wants to create a customer-focused team: What steps do you take first?" Let us all be sharply focusing on STEPS to take first, instead of this and that misfocusing on how to "nurture" a team to be customer-focused" : those points being written do sound not "intelligent" anymore. - A Manager who wants to create a team that is customer-focused, before anything else, must first himself defined a specific, measurable detail criterion (or KPI let's say) of what NOT satisfyingly meet the customer-focused intention. - Once we have those criterion (or KPI) then a Manager will know objectively the "guideline" and start creating the team: be it nurturing or recruiting new then coaching the members.