The 6 Pillars of High-Performance Customer Service Leadership: A Complete Guide to Building Exceptional Teams

July 23, 2026 Leave a comment

Introduction

Customer service leadership has never been more challenging.

Today’s leaders are expected to improve customer satisfaction, increase retention, reduce costs, develop employees, embrace artificial intelligence, and drive operational excellence—all while navigating rapidly changing customer expectations.

Yet despite investments in technology, automation, analytics, and process improvement, many organizations continue to struggle with employee engagement, inconsistent performance, and customer dissatisfaction.

The reason is often surprisingly simple.

Exceptional customer experiences are not created by technology alone. They are created by people.

More specifically, they are created by leaders who understand how to align people, processes, culture, and technology around a common objective: delivering exceptional value to customers. Organizations that consistently outperform their competitors almost always have leadership systems that intentionally develop employees, reinforce accountability, and foster continuous improvement. While technology and artificial intelligence continue to transform customer service, the organizations generating the greatest results recognize that leadership remains the ultimate differentiator. For additional insights into how AI is reshaping customer service operations, read my article, https://bit.ly/4aaFUNy, “The 10 Most Powerful Applications of AI in Customer Service — And the Platforms Actually Leading the Market”.

More specifically, they are created by leaders who establish clear expectations, develop talent, inspire purpose, foster trust, create customer-centric cultures, and continuously challenge their teams to improve.

When Customer Service Teams Struggle

When customer service teams struggle, the root cause is rarely the employees themselves. More often, the issue lies in the leadership systems, coaching practices, culture, and accountability structures that shape daily performance.

After more than two decades leading customer service, customer success, customer experience, CRM, consulting, sales, and operations organizations, I have learned that technology, processes, and organizational structures matter far less than most leaders believe. The highest-performing teams consistently excel in six critical leadership disciplines.

These six pillars form the foundation of a high-performance customer service organization capable of delivering exceptional customer experiences, engaged employees, operational excellence, and sustainable business results.

Effective customer service leadership requires far more than managing operations and service metrics. It requires creating an environment where employees can consistently deliver exceptional experiences while growing professionally and contributing to organizational success.

Customer Service Leadership framework showing the six pillars of high-performance teams

Pillar 1: Customer Service Leadership Through Performance & Accountability

Performance creates predictability. Accountability creates consistency.

Without clearly defined expectations, even the most talented employees can struggle. Great customer service organizations establish objective performance standards and create a culture where everyone understands what success looks like.

The first step is establishing SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Employees should understand not only what is expected of them but also how their performance contributes to broader organizational objectives.

Successful leaders balance operational metrics such as Average Speed of Answer (ASA), Time to Resolution (TTR), First Contact Resolution (FCR), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), and Net Promoter Score (NPS) with behavioral expectations around teamwork, professionalism, and customer advocacy.

Customer Service Leadership performance management and accountability model

Performance management should never be viewed as a once-a-year event. Instead, it should be reinforced through regular coaching discussions, performance reviews, and ongoing feedback.

One of the most important leadership responsibilities is distinguishing between skill issues and will issues. Skill issues require coaching, training, and development. Will issues require accountability and performance management. Leaders who fail to recognize the difference often apply the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

High-performing teams also develop peer accountability. Team members hold one another accountable for commitments, collaboration, and customer outcomes. Accountability becomes part of the culture rather than something imposed by management.

Leaders must also model accountability themselves. Employees quickly notice whether leaders follow through on commitments, communicate transparently, and hold themselves to the same standards they expect from others.

Leadership Takeaway

Great cultures are not built on good intentions. They are built on clear expectations, objective measures, consistent coaching, and accountability at every level of the organization.

Pillar 2: Customer Service Leadership Through Coaching & Mentoring

Great leaders do more than manage performance, they develop people.

While performance management focuses on today’s results, coaching and mentoring focus on tomorrow’s potential.

Every employee brings a unique combination of strengths, experiences, interests, aspirations, and challenges. Effective leaders invest time in understanding what motivates each team member and where they want to grow professionally.

The best coaching begins with curiosity. Leaders should seek to understand each employee’s career goals, strengths, preferred learning styles, and development opportunities. What motivates one employee may have little impact on another.

Empathy is equally important. Team members face personal and professional challenges that affect performance. Great leaders listen, seek understanding, and demonstrate genuine concern for their employees’ well-being. However, empathy should never replace accountability, and instead, it should enhance the effectiveness of performance conversations.

Individual development plans can be powerful tools for growth. These plans should identify key strengths to leverage, skill gaps to address, and career aspirations to support. Development should be personalized rather than standardized.

Stretch assignments are another critical leadership tool. Employees build confidence and competence when given opportunities to take on new responsibilities, lead projects, participate in cross-functional initiatives, or solve complex customer challenges.

Customer Service Leadership coaching and mentoring employeesShow more lines

Future leaders are often identified through these opportunities. Organizations that consistently develop internal talent create stronger succession pipelines and higher employee engagement.

The strongest examples of customer service leadership recognize that developing people is not a secondary responsibility—it is one of the primary drivers of long-term organizational performance.

Leadership Takeaway

The greatest legacy of any leader is not what they accomplish personally, but what they help others become.

Pillar 3: Service Leadership Through Motivation & Inspiration

Employees perform at higher levels when they understand why their work matters.

Unfortunately, many customer service teams become disconnected from the larger mission of the organization. Team members see transactions instead of impact. They observe tickets instead of customers. They analyze processes instead of purpose.

I once worked with a customer service organization supporting a medical device company. Despite supporting products that significantly improved patients’ lives, many employees viewed their roles as simply answering calls and resolving issues.

When leadership began sharing patient success stories and connecting daily activities to real human outcomes, employee engagement increased dramatically. Team members began to understand that their work extended far beyond service metrics. They were helping people live healthier, safer, and more productive lives.

Adding on to that, purpose is one of the most powerful motivators available to leaders. Recognition is equally important. Employees want to know their contributions matter. Great leaders celebrate professional accomplishments, personal milestones, certifications, promotions, work anniversaries, and examples of exceptional teamwork

Service leadership strategies for motivating and inspiring customer service teams

Motivation also increases when employees feel trusted and empowered. Leaders should provide appropriate decision-making authority and encourage ownership of customer outcomes.

Healthy competition can further enhance engagement. Team challenges, performance recognition programs, and collaborative goals can create energy and excitement when implemented thoughtfully.

Leadership Takeaway

Lastly, motivation occurs when employees understand the purpose behind their work, feel valued for their contributions, and believe their efforts make a meaningful difference.

Pillar 4: Customer Service Leadership – Creating a Customer First Culture

Many organizations claim to be customer-centric but fewer actually operate that way.

Customer-first cultures are built intentionally through leadership behaviors, organizational priorities, and daily decision-making.

A customer-first culture begins with a simple question:

“What is best for the customer?”

This last question should influence decisions ranging from process design and policy development to technology investments and employee behaviors.

Therefore, leaders should regularly share customer feedback, success stories, testimonials, and Voice of Customer insights with their teams. Customer comments help employees understand how their actions affect customer experiences.

Additionally, recognition programs should highlight employees who go above and beyond for customers. Whether resolving a difficult issue, saving a customer relationship, or creating a memorable experience, these stories reinforce desired behaviors throughout the organization.

Customer journey mapping can further strengthen customer-centric thinking. When employees understand the entire customer experience—not just the touchpoints they directly support—they make better decisions and identify opportunities for improvement.

Customer Service Leadership and customer-first culture development

Organizations should also treat customer complaints as valuable sources of insight. Complaints often reveal friction points, process failures, communication gaps, and unmet expectations that can drive meaningful improvements.

Leadership Takeaway

Customer-first cultures are not created through mission statements or posters on walls. They are built through daily actions, leadership decisions, and an unwavering commitment to customer success.

Pillar 5: Customer Experience Leadership Through Collaboration & Trust
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Trust is the foundation upon which all high-performing teams are built.

Without this trust, accountability feels punitive. Feedback feels personal. Collaboration becomes transactional. Innovation becomes risky.

Trust begins with psychological safety. Employees must feel comfortable sharing ideas, asking questions, admitting mistakes, and expressing concerns without fear of embarrassment or retaliation.

Consequently, research consistently shows that psychological safety is one of the strongest predictors of team effectiveness, collaboration, and innovation. Leaders who create environments where employees can speak openly, share concerns, and challenge assumptions without fear are more likely to build high-performing teams. Readers interested in exploring this concept further may find Harvard Business Review’s seminal article on psychological safety especially valuable: https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-is-psychological-safetyWhat Is Psychological Safety?.

Open communication is essential. Leaders should communicate transparently, provide regular updates, explain decisions, and encourage dialogue. Employees rarely expect leaders to have all the answers, but they do expect honesty.

Also, high-trust teams assume positive intent. Rather than immediately assigning blame, they focus on understanding situations, solving problems, and supporting one another.

Conflict should be addressed quickly and constructively. Healthy disagreement often leads to better decisions, but unresolved conflict can damage relationships and performance.

Successful teams also establish shared operating principles that guide behaviors and expectations. Examples include:

  • We communicate openly.
  • We support one another.
  • We hold each other accountable.
  • We assume positive intent.
  • We put customers first.
  • We solve problems together.

Correspondingly, cross-functional collaboration is another critical component of trust. Customer service rarely operates in isolation. Partnerships with sales, marketing, product, operations, finance, and technology teams are essential to delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Customer service leadership becomes significantly more effective when trust exists between leaders, employees, and cross-functional partners. Without trust, even the best processes and performance systems struggle to achieve their intended results.

Customer experience leadership built on trust and collaboration

Leadership Takeaway

Trust transforms a group of employees into a team. It accelerates performance, strengthens relationships, and enables every other leadership practice discussed in this article.

Pillar 6: Customer Service Leadership Through Innovation & Continuous Improvement

The strongest customer service teams do not simply execute processes efficiently but rather they continually improve them.

This is where great organizations separate themselves from good ones.

Customer expectations evolve. Technology evolves. Competitive pressures evolve. Teams that fail to innovate inevitably fall behind.

Furthermore, one of the most influential continuous improvement philosophies emerged from General Electric’s Work-Out initiative. Its premise was simple yet powerful:

Find a Better Way, Every Day.

The philosophy encouraged employees closest to the work to identify inefficiencies, eliminate bureaucracy, challenge assumptions, and continuously improve processes.

Customer service leaders should adopt a similar mindset.

Encourage teams to ask:

  • Why do we do it this way?
  • Is there a simpler approach?
  • Can we automate this process?
  • Can we reduce customer effort?
  • Can we improve the employee experience?
  • Can we eliminate unnecessary work?

Innovation should become part of everyday operations rather than an annual planning exercise.

Front-line employees often identify the best opportunities for improvement because they interact with customers daily. They see recurring pain points, process breakdowns, communication failures, and inefficiencies long before executives do.

The challenge is creating systems that capture and act upon those ideas.

Unquestionably, many organizations still rely on spreadsheets, email chains, or suggestion boxes to manage innovation. Unfortunately, good ideas often disappear into a black hole.

Leveraging Innovation Management Platforms

Consequently, leading organizations increasingly leverage Innovation Management Platforms to formalize and automate the innovation process.

Examples include:

  • Brightidea
  • IdeaScale
  • Qmarkets
  • HYPE Innovation
  • ITONICS
  • Wazoku
  • Planview IdeaPlace
  • Ideawake
  • Planbox
  • InnovationCast
  • Viima
Customer Service Leadership innovation and continuous improvement framework

Additionally, these platforms help organizations:

  • Capture employee ideas
  • Launch innovation campaigns
  • Facilitate collaboration
  • Prioritize initiatives
  • Track implementation progress
  • Measure business impact
  • Manage recognition programs
  • Leverage AI-assisted idea evaluation and categorization

The result is a repeatable innovation process rather than sporadic brainstorming sessions.

Leaders should also establish structured innovation programs that include:

  • Weekly idea submissions
  • Monthly innovation reviews
  • Quarterly improvement initiatives
  • Customer feedback workshops
  • Cross-functional innovation sessions
  • Continuous improvement councils

Equally important is recognizing innovation. What gets recognized gets repeated.

The Optimal Company & Team Innovation Operating System

Consider implementing:

Weekly Innovation Spotlight

Recognize employees who identify:

  • Customer experience improvements
  • Process enhancements
  • Automation opportunities
  • Cost-saving initiatives

Quarterly Innovation Awards

Recognize:

  • Most impactful implemented idea
  • Largest customer satisfaction improvement
  • Best productivity improvement
  • Most valuable cross-functional innovation

Annual Innovation Excellence Awards

Recognize:

  • Innovator of the Year
  • Customer Experience Innovation Award
  • Continuous Improvement Champion
  • Team Innovation Award

Innovation should ultimately connect back to measurable outcomes, including:

  • Higher CSAT
  • Higher NPS
  • Lower CES
  • Improved FCR
  • Faster TTR
  • Increased employee engagement
  • Greater productivity
  • Reduced cost-to-serve

Leadership Takeaway

Lastly, the best customer service organizations are not those with the smartest leaders. They are the ones that create systems enabling every employee to contribute ideas, challenge the status quo, and continuously improve the business.

Conclusion

Exceptional customer service leadership is not about managing tickets, queues, or service levels alone.

The most successful customer service leadership practices focus on building strong cultures, developing employees, strengthening accountability, and creating sustainable systems for continuous improvement.

Rather, it is about building an environment where people can perform, grow, contribute, collaborate, innovate, and consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences.

The six pillars of high-performance customer service leadership are:

  1. Managing Performance & Accountability
  2. Coaching & Mentoring Team Members
  3. Motivating and Inspiring the Team
  4. Creating a Customer-First Culture
  5. Building Collaboration & Mutual Trust
  6. Driving Innovation & Continuous Improvement

Organizations that master these six disciplines don’t simply create better customer service teams.

They create cultures capable of delivering sustainable competitive advantage through people, purpose, customer obsession, trust, and continuous improvement.

The Leadership Multiplier

In a world increasingly shaped by automation and artificial intelligence, leadership remains the ultimate differentiator. Technology may enable great customer experiences, but exceptional leaders create the cultures that make them possible.

Therefore, the organizations that thrive in the years ahead will not necessarily be those with the most advanced technology. They will be the ones whose leaders consistently develop people, inspire innovation, and empower teams to deliver extraordinary value to customers every day.

Customer Service Leadership creating sustainable competitive advantage

HOW I HELP ORGANIZATIONS BUILD HIGH-PERFORMANCE CUSTOMER SERVICE CULTURES

Understanding the six pillars of customer service leadership is one thing.

Successfully embedding them into an organization’s culture, operating model, leadership practices, and employee experience is something entirely different.

Many organizations struggle not because they lack capable employees, but because they lack the leadership framework, accountability systems, coaching disciplines, customer-centric culture, and continuous improvement processes required to consistently achieve exceptional results.

Over the course of my career, I have helped organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises improve customer service, customer experience, customer success, CRM, sales, operations, employee engagement, organizational effectiveness, and digital transformation initiatives.

My experience includes leadership, consulting, and transformation work supporting organizations such as:

American Express • HP • Verizon • AT&T • Microsoft • Amazon • Hilton • Southwest Airlines • Ritz-Carlton • Pfizer • Toyota • SAP • Macys • Pfizer • Salesforce • Intuit • Cox Automotive • General Mills • INEOS Automotive and many other global brands (see below for full list).

I work with executive teams and customer-facing organizations to:

  • Build high-performance customer service cultures
  • Improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention
  • Develop stronger leadership and management capabilities
  • Create effective coaching and mentoring programs
  • Design customer-centric operating models
  • Improve employee engagement and accountability
  • Implement continuous improvement and innovation frameworks
  • Transform customer experience into a measurable competitive advantage
  • Align AI, technology, and process improvements with business outcomes

Therefore, the objective is straightforward:

Help organizations create stronger employees, stronger leaders, stronger customer relationships, and stronger business results.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Jeffes
Managing Director, LegendaryCX

Customer Experience Strategist | Customer Service Executive | Customer Success Leader | CRM & Digital Transformation Consultant | AI & Customer Experience Advisor

🌐 LegendaryCX: https://www.legendarycx.com
🌐 Professional Website: https://www.stevenjeffes.com
📧 Email: stevenjeffes@gmail.com
📞 Phone: (518) 339-5857

Lastly, to learn more about my background, leadership experience, consulting engagements, transformation initiatives, and career accomplishments, visit my professional career profile pages and website portfolio:

  • Executive Career Profile
  • Career Specialties & Expertise Overview
  • Leadership Accomplishments Portfolio
  • Selected Clients, Companies & Industry Experience
  • Speaking, Consulting & Advisory Services

LET’S START THE CONVERSATION

If your organization is looking to improve customer service performance, leadership effectiveness, customer experience, employee engagement, customer success, operational excellence, or AI-enabled service transformation, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss your goals.

The organizations that outperform their competitors rarely do so because of technology alone. They outperform because they develop exceptional leaders, exceptional cultures, and exceptional customer experiences.

Let’s explore how your organization can do the same.

Steven Jeffes
Managing Director, LegendaryCX
🌐 http://www.legendarycx.com
🌐 http://www.stevenjeffes.com
📧 stevenjeffes@gmail.com
📞 (518) 339-5857

“Building Legendary Customer Experiences Through Exceptional Leadership, Culture, Innovation, and Execution.”

Steven Jeffes: Background & Experience
Steven Jeffes: Career Specialties

Filed under Company Culture, Customer Experience, customer service, customer strategy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leverage Customers as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) While Increasing Customer Diversity and Inclusion

May 25, 2021 Leave a comment

How & why top companies are inverting their organization charts and putting their own customers in charge of customer operations while increasing Customer Diversity & Inclusion (D&I).

How and why this practice also leads to the following ratings:

1) Higher NPS,
2) Increased customer loyalty,
3) Increased customer satisfaction levels & CSAT,
4) Growth in customer zealots that virally promote your brands and company,
5) Increased customer diversity and inclusion (D&I).

The top 10 things you will learn by reading this blog:
1) The spectrum of customer first cultures – find out where you stand on this spectrum.
2) The trends in developing customer insights and customer feedback via customer inclusionary programs and customer onramps.
3) How customer onramps support customer diversity and inclusion (i.e., customer D&I programs).
4) Customer Experience metrics from real companies who have developed and deployed these customer onramps.
5) Creative win-wins to make your customer experience more fun, engaging, educational, rewarding, and inclusive.
6) Innovations in creating customer communities that increase brand loyalty, customer referrals.
7) Market leading companies and their case studies in leveraging customers as the Chief Customer Officer (CCO).
8) The customer organization Inversion and customer empowerment of the future.
9) Quick & easy wins in getting started in the customer inversion that will create customer zealots and a customer experience 2nd to none.
10) The top 10 things you should immediately consider implementing to increase Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) levels, NPS and customer loyalty rates by double digits.

A) The Customer Organizational Inversion-Revolution:

There is an organizational customer inversion-revolution going on and it will only accelerate in the future. What this revolution entails is a complete inversion of the customer decision making structure for companies, one where the customers (vs. the company) are in charge, leading the design of customer strategy and future customer programs. I call it the customer inversion revolution. This inversion looks something like the chart below. We will detail this customer organization inversion-revolution in following sections of this blog.

FROM:

Traditional Customer Service Organization

TO:

Customer Service Organization Inversion-Revolution

Key to implementing this customer organizational inversion-revolution is the development of customer inclusionary “on ramps” (shown in the green symbol above) that allows customers to participate and join the company team as brand partners, advocates, insights experts, advisors, etc. We will cover this more in depth in following sections but hence forward, customer on ramps will be designated by this symbol below:

Customer Inclusionary Onramp

These onramps detailed in the following blog increase customer inclusion by their very nature of creating an array of customer chosen methods for these customers to contribute to and participate in the company’s success. The enhanced diversity is derived from tapping into and leveraging the diverse set of perspectives and needs from existing customers that represent a cross-section of different cultures, races, genders, ages, political views, national origins and religions, etc. so that the best product and/or services are engaged in the marketplace.

Many companies have omitted these onramps in the vetting of new products, services, marketing campaigns, etc. and have ended up offending and alienating their own customers and potential prospects. A great web article points to how companies have fielded expensive and disastrous marketing campaigns and ads in the past only to have to quickly pull them from the market. These campaigns/ads are often a result of corporate myopathy and not taking into account a multitude of diverse perspectives enabled by an array of customer D&I onramps: “7 of the most controversial ads of our time” https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/04/08/7-the-most-controversial-ads-our-time. A major West Coast bank vets all of it marketing concepts through a customer insights group (covered below) before ever releasing the ad and/or campaign into the market. Only after the CIG group (onramp) has weighed in and provided their approval and feedback will this bank to go market with their marketing concepts.

Bottom line, these onramps enable your customers to become brand and company partners/advocates who, through time and continued onramp participation, develop an ever increasing vested interest in the brand(s) and company success.

To be receptive to this change and to get onboard with customer leaders who are in the process of putting customers in charge and implementing the customer organizational inversion-revolution, you must first have a foundational customer centric culture. Companies that are implementing this customer centric change and building customer brand partners include Apple, Southwest Airlines, Ritz Carlton, Amazon, Marriott, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc. Let us first explore what a customer centric culture is and the spectrum of companies on the customer centric continuum.

B) The Customer First, Customer Centric Culture

To begin with, almost every company claims to be customer centric, that their customers are their most important asset, customer satisfaction is a priority, etc. In practice I have found that there is a spectrum of truth to these public statements ranging from treating customers as a necessary commodity to the other end of the spectrum and treating customers as equal and respected partners and treating customers as a true extension of the company-employee team.

Referring to the chart below, we can see that spectrum of company cultures and their treatment of customers based on these different company customer cultures. To simplify this illustration, I have only included 3 types of companies as follows (along top of chart):

Customer Centric Company Spectrum

  1. “Customers are our most valuable asset”: Companies that truly value their customers and view them as an integral part of their team and company’s success. This type of company also maintains a true customer first culture, policies, standards, etc. (right side of chart, spectrum).
  2. “We Value our Best Customers”: Companies that only strive to cater to their most valuable customers since these customers benefit the company the most (middle of chart, spectrum).
  3. “Customers are a Necessary Commodity”: Companies that interact and ‘deal with’ customers when it benefits them (they pay lip service to slogan ‘customers are their most important asset’), left side of chart, spectrum.

On the left side of the above chart, we have a number of customer facing dimensions including the following:

1) “Customer Input”: How the company views and approaches soliciting customers for insights, input on new programs, detailed feedback (i.e., focus groups, crowdsourcing, etc.), etc.
2) “Customer Complaints”: How the company views and approaches the handling of customers complaints.
3) “Customer Inclusion, Partnership”: How the company approaches being customer inclusive by offering customers ways to partner with the company including online communities, customer co-blogging, customer spotlights, etc.
4) “Customer Engagement”: How the company approaches customer communication and creates a rewarding and engaging customer experience.

Companies located on the far-right side of the chart have the following belief that is not only a slogan, but embodied in the company culture, operations, practices, standards, rewards systems, etc.:

“Customers are our Most Valuable Asset”.

For the first customer dimension on the left side of the chart, “Customer Input”, a comment that I heard from a CEO with this type of culture is as follows:

“We make no (major) decisions (that will impact the customer) without the customer’s direct input”.

For the first customer dimension of “Customer Complaints”, a company CEO said the following,

“Customer complaints are a valuable insight and gift to help us improve, beat our competition”.

You can read the comments for each type of company aligned to each customer dimension. Bottom line, without a foundational customer first mindset, rewards and incentive system and culture, you will be impeded on implementing the effective customer inclusion program with many possible customer onramps detailed in the remainder of this blog.

C) Mainstream Customer Inclusionary Programs & Onramps:

As I mentioned before, once you have established a totally customer centric culture, the 2nd step is to build customer incremental onramps for the customer to become a brand partner and an integral part of the customer team. These onramps invite the customer to participate in a number of activities that will increase customer satisfaction (CSAT), loyalty, NPS, viral referrals, etc. Based on my experience, building these customer inclusionary onramps can net your company huge increases in key customer measures as follows:

1) NPS: +14 to 49
2) Customer Loyalty: + 4% to 36%
3) Customer Positive Sentiment: +12% to 71%
4) Customer Viral Referrals: +11% to 26%

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Advisory Board Program

1) Customer Advisory Board Program:

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is the composition of a group of trusted, and generally top customers, who meet on a regular basis (i.e., Quarterly) to advise the company on strategic direction such as the product and/or service roadmap and on upcoming major new programs. Customer advisory boards (a.k.a. trusted customer advisors) can also be a conduit to award top customers for their input, loyalty, spend, referrals, etc.

At a top US automotive company, we invited our top and most open/honest customers to these focus group and advisory events, paid their travel expenses, hosted a nice dinner reception and, at the end of the session, gave them an appreciation gift for their continued participation and loyalty. We also had Platinum private customer events for our top 1% spend customers which were meetings with the EVP and above for open-ended candid feedback & insights gathering discussions.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Insights Group Program

2) Customer Insights Group Program:

A Customer Insights Group (CIG) is the composition of a wider cross-section of customers or specific customer segment(s) who meet on a regular basis (i.e., weekly, quarterly) to advise the company on new tactical programs, proposed sales campaigns, and marketing concepts, provide feedback on existing program effectiveness, provide customer experience insights based on their own actual experience, etc. Customer insights groups are usually on a voluntary enrollment basis and typically come with some sort of incentive to participate (i.e., participate and be entered in a drawing for a gift certificate).

A top 5 US bank uses these extensively and there is a directive from the CMO that no new marketing programs/materials/etc. will be fielded without first getting the input of this insights group. After implementing this program, marketing effectiveness increased by an overall 27% and the loyalty of the group increased by a whopping 38% as compared to non-CIG participants. When surveyed, 92% of CIG members indicated that they told 26+ about their positive perception of this bank CIG program (survey choices were 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-25 or 26+).

Amazingly enough, 5,000 participants volunteer up to 8 hours of their time per week to participate with another 5,000 eagerly waiting in the wings for their term to participate (participation is limited to a 2-year term).

In addition, by tapping into a diverse customer set, the bank was able to avoid potential marketing disasters by stopping the fielding of proposed marketing materials that were deemed offensive and culturally insensitive by members of the customer insights group.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Co-blogging & Co-Authoring Program

3) Customer Co-Blogging & Co-Author Program:

Customers telling their story (the voice of the customer) about their success in using your product/service and their customer experiences are 5-7x more credible than coming from the company. In addition, customer authors bring with them an entirely new audience sphere (their friends, connection, relatives, etc.) which will result in a dramatically increasing your website traffic, SEO, referrals, etc. Customers love the opportunity to be spotlighted and write their own story (with helpful company editing of course) when it comes to their experience interacting with the company. Co-blogging can also be about customer stories with a human-interest side to it vs. always being business oriented. Customer co-authored articles can be about topics such as how to gain the most value from the product/service, tips/tricks they have learned, the value they have gained from using same, etc.

We recently used this for a struggling newsletter program that had only penetrated 27% of our customer base. Six months after I implemented the co-blogging program, the newsletter distribution grew to 56% of our customer base and we experienced a simultaneous increase of 17% in new visitor web traffic.

Customer On-Ramp: Top Customer Appreciation & Recognition Program

4) Top Customer Appreciation & Recognition Program:

Remember the movie “Up in the Air” with George Clooney? He was a top traveler who strived to be in the 1% club in terms of air miles flown per year on a particular airline whereby, if he achieved this distinction, he would then be invited to an awards dinner with the CEO of the airline and be showered with a whole host of flying perks after achieving that level of spend/loyalty. Banks, hotels, brokerage firms, etc. all have an array of top customer loyalty rewards programs.

For the very top customers, there are more hands-on personal perks like a dedicated/private concierge assigned to customers like for the American Express Black credit card which can only be obtained by direct invite by American Express (i.e. not via request). A top US air conditioning company I used to work for had top distributorship recognition events for the distributors who sold the highest revenue generating air conditioning units. While focused internally for a company, many salespersons have benefitted from such top achievement loyalty programs by achieving the distinction as top salespersons for their companies and being rewarded with trips, cash, luxury items, cars, etc. as a thank you for their contributions.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Product/Service Beta Group Program

5) Customer Product/Service Beta Group Program:

Before top companies like Microsoft and Apple ever release a new product into the market, they first try these new products with limited volunteer beta groups. They gather feedback from these beta test groups and then continuously improve the beta product before releasing the product to mitigate potentially disastrous consequences of releasing products with potential flaws that internal testing failed to consider via their test cases.

Customer On-Ramp: Customer Success Program

6) Customer Success (Spotlight) Program:

Does your company have successful customers using your product and/or service? Why not showcase or spotlight this success by detailing what they did, how they did it and the value they were able to derive from doing so? Challenge customers to submit their success stories for selection to spotlight in the newsletter, website, articles, FAQs, consideration for prizes for the top stories, etc. The more customers witness real customer successes, the more other customers will want to figure out how to acquire your product/service to emulate the success of other customers.

Customer On-Ramp: Ambassador Program

7) Customer Ambassador Program:

The Syracuse University (SU) admissions and student success programs received a big boost with the adoption of its Alumni ambassador program whereby successful alumni would volunteer to host regional recruiting events, student college send-off events, and answer questions from interested students in their area. Alumni ambassador groups increased the level of excitement and enthusiasm for new students and families while simultaneously decreasing the levels of anxiety and confusion among students and families.

The entire ecosystem of a customer first, customer inclusive company that has inverted the customer organizational structure and has built a comprehensive set of customer onramps to be able to put customers in charge of customer operations would look something like the following chart:

Customer Inclusionary & Participatory Programs, Onramps

D) Other Customer Inclusionary Programs & Onramps:

In addition to the more popular and mainstream customer inclusionary programs above, there are several other programs that I have encountered that were effective by increasing the levels or customer loyalty and creating many customer-brand zealots (those who actively and aggressively advocate for the brand/company).

Customer On-Ramp: Creative Council Program

1) Customer Creative Council Program:

Many customers have a wide range of creative talents outside of simply being a customer. A company with a large customer base tends to have customers who are very creative such as artists, craftspeople, etc. A large SaaS software firm I consulted for would solicit creative ideas for new campaign concepts from the creative group among their customer base (and sometimes from their employees) to get the best creative concepts as possible. Many times, customers would develop far more appealing creative concepts than their own dedicated creative talent working within the company. Why not source from the best of the best, including creative customers?! This would allow the company to harness this creativity while allowing creative customers to be spotlighted for their hidden talents and feel valued by the company.

Customer On-Ramp: Talent Showcase
Program

2) Customer Talent Showcase Program:

Beyond just being creative, a company with a large customer base typically includes customers who are also poets, book authors, those with interesting and varied professions such as paramedics, volunteer firefighters, food bank volunteers, world travelers, iron men or women, triathletes, extreme cyclists, paragliders, scuba divers, treasure hunters, etc. Many companies I have worked with have conducted customer showcases that highlight the interesting lives of their customer base beyond merely being a customer. These personal story showcases add a human-interest side to the customer base and tend to make customers feel more connected to and understood-appreciated by the company.

Customer Journey Customer Co-Mapping

3) Customer Involved Customer Journey Mapping & Continuous Improvement Program:

Are you planning on creating a customer journey map and want to know what the important steps and metrics are in that journey? Why not invite the customer to join in on these development sessions to provide the team with some insights, feedback, important items to consider? I have used this approach quite effectively and have developed far more qualitative customer journeys as a result. I used this approach to develop a brand new and innovative customer journey map I have labeled “The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map”. Refer to my previous blog article for insights here: https://bit.ly/3bvPRal

The Quantifiable Customer Journey Map

Bottom line, without the customer’s input, the high quality achieved in the final customer journey map would have been much more difficult and time consuming to achieve.

Customer Diversity & Inclusion Council

4) Customer Diversity & Inclusion Council:

A few companies I have worked with in the past have managed and conducted employee diversity councils whereby employees would provide their perspective on how the company can be more diverse, culturally sensitive, and overall inclusive.

A few companies have taken this further and included their own customers into the diversity council along with their employees. In this manner, the company ensures that it is considering the widest possible perspective on D&I and not falling victim to company group think.

Regardless of whether you include a formal customer diversity council, what all the above illustrated customer onramps do in essence is help build a company culture that supports customer diversity and inclusion (D&I) as follows:

1) Enables the assembling of a diverse set of perspectives, based on unique and diverse set of customer experiences, needs, etc.
2) Provides diverse feedback on potential new customer programs, marketing, etc. that might be perceived as offensive and discriminatory to certain customer groups.
3) Enables customers to showcase their diverse backgrounds, talents, interests, viewpoints.
4) Enables a voice of the customer cultivation that represents the full cross section of diverse customers.
5) Enables the delivery of the best of the best solutions by allowing feedback on proposed programs from a wide and diverse set of customers.

If your organization is seeking experienced assistance in creating these customer onramps and a more diverse and inclusive and customer first organization where customers are leveraged to assist the insights Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and are transitioned to full brand-partners/advocates/participants/etc., then give me a call or e-mail me at 518-339-5857 or stevenjeffes@gmail.com. I am also a Certified CultureTalk (https://culturetalk.com/) consultant that can help you develop and/or improve a customer-oriented, customer first culture.

Steven Jeffes, Certified CultureTalk Consultant

Lastly, this is just one article of over 50 articles I have written on customer strategy, customer experience, CRM, sales excellence, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for numerous Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 107,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/ .

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