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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Introducing: The Customer Bill of Rights

March 3, 2022 1 Comment

Covered in this blog article:
A) The brand promise
B) Customer bill of rights definition
C) Why the customer bill of rights is needed and important
D) Company mantra, tagline, and brand promise examples
E) The hierarchy of company mantra, tagline, brand promise and customer bill of rights
F) Customer bill of rights company examples
G) Internal service organization customer bill of rights treatment standards
H) How to get started creating your own customer bill of rights

  1. The Familiar Brand Promise:
    We have all heard of a brand promise and have an idea of what this is all about. Simply put, a brand promise is the definition of the high-level quality of experience a company’s customers can expect to receive during every interaction with the company and its customer facing employees. The brand promise speaks to the brand’s purpose and speaks to the value that the brand will deliver.
  1. Customer Bill of Rights Why Needed & A Simple Definition:
    The downside of a brand promise is that it is short of specifics on what the customer can expect during their interactions with the company. To bridge the gap between the higher-level brand promise and to explain what the customers can specifically experience when interacting with the company, we introduce the relatively new customer bill of rights. Here is a simple definition of what a customer bill of rights is:

A customer bill of rights is a public statement designed to communicate to customers what specific service level standards and guarantees the company is going to provide to them.

  1. Hierarchy: Company Mantra, Tagline, Brand Promise and Customer Bill of Rights:
    To first explain how a brand promise ties into the customer bill of rights I thought it important to review the hierarchy of company-customer experience value statements starting with the Company Mantra at the highest level. Simply put, a company mantra states what the company stands for and why they exist. Here are some examples of company mantras that demonstrates “their why”. (a great related read on this “Finding your Why” by Simon Sinek):

A) Company Mantra Examples:
Disney: “Fun, Family Entertainment.”
Nike: “Authentic Athletic Performance.”
McDonald’s: “Fun, Family, Food.”
Next down in the hierarchy of company-customer experience statements comes the company tagline that supports the company mantra. A tagline is a very short and memorable phrase used to convey the value of a brand experience or its products. Here are some examples of the same set of companies and their taglines that demonstrates their why:

B) Company Tagline Examples:
Disney: “The most magical place on Earth.”
Nike: “Just do It.”
McDonald’s: “I’m lovin’ it.”
Next down in the hierarchy of company-customer experience statements is the brand promise, that at a high level, clearly and concisely states the quality of experience a company’s customers can expect to receive during every interaction with the company and its customer facing employees.

C) Company Brand Promise Examples:
Disney: “to create happiness through magical experiences.”
Nike: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
McDonald’s: “make delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone.”

While the company mantra, the tagline and the brand promise all support alignment to the company/brand and its values, it does little to speak to the customer on what specifically they can expect while interacting with the company and its customer facing employees. Hence, last, in the hierarchy of company-customer experience statements we introduce a relatively new tool called the customer bill of rights that explicitly states the specifics the customer can expect when interacting with the company and its customer facing functions and employees.

Hierarchy of Customer Experience Statements: Company Mantra – Tagline – Brand Promise – Customer Bill of Rights

Since it is relatively new to the customer experience world, we are going to break from the 3 previous companies we illustrated (Disney, Nike, McDonalds) and instead highlight some innovative companies who have been bold enough to create and display their customer bill of rights.

  1. Customer Bill of Right Examples:
    Here are some great small business examples that illustrate exactly what a customer bill of rights is all about:
    A) Herb’s Auto:

Herb’s Auto Customer Bill of Rights

Source: https://herbsauto.biz/specials/details/herbs-auto-customer-bill-of-rights

Herb’s is a great example in that it combines their goals from a customer experience standpoint Delivering “fast, Courteous Service” along with specifics on what a customer is to expect “Lifetime Oil, Filter, Lube $12.99*”.


B) Here is another great example from Eden Prairie Painting Company:

Eden Prairie Painting Company Customer Bill of Rights

Source: https://edenprairiepaintingcompany.com/about/customer-bill-rights/

I absolutely love this example as it combines a mantra/tagline along with attractive and high quality visuals of what customer can expect as well as some service level agreements and standards (e.g., “we will begin painting within 3 weeks”, “no less than 4 years experience before working in the field for our customers”) as well as a contact number clearly visible for customers to contact them (i.e. clear call to action). .

C) Here is a 3rd example from C&R Tire:

C&R Tire Customer Bill of Rights

Source: https://www.candrtire.com/About/Customer-Bill-of-Rights

The C&R tire resonates with me personally due to the last item above. How many times have you gone into a tire or auto service establishment’s dirty/dingy waiting room waiting for service and feel like you are in the actual service bay with all the grease, oil, and grime. Some auto establishment’s waiting rooms are truly cringe worthy. That last item on their customer bill of rights is the masterful capitalization on other competitor’s weakness and making it differentiator for your own business by putting directly into in a customer bill of rights!

D) Next up, we have this small business example from a service organization, Chautauqua Opportunities:

Chautauqua Opportunities Customer Bill of Rights

Source: https://www.chautauquaopportunities.com/customer-bill-of-rights/

“Chautauqua Opportunities is an organization established under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to fight America’s war on poverty.” This community service organization tailors their bill of rights around service standards that are appropriate for the constituencies they serve. I particularly like their statements on the delivery of their service in a way that is “non-discriminatory” and “without bias” and safeguards their constituency’s privacy, etc. which is highly applicable to their constituents.

E) Next up, we have this small business example from Capital Homes, Inc.:

Capital Homes, Inc. Customer Bill of Rights

Source: https://capitolhomeideas.com/customer-bill-rights/

F) Leading the charge for larger businesses, we have the excellent and innovative customer bill of rights from Jet Blue:

Jet Blue Customer Bill of Rights

Source: https://www.jetblue.com/magnoliapublic/dam/ui-assets/p/Bill_Of_Rights.pdf

Having consulted and worked for numerous Fortune 500 companies, this bill of rights from Jet Blue is absolutely my favorite. This combines the commitment on informing customers and under what circumstances, details different customer impacting events and what customers can expect for the occurrence of each event type, but most importantly details the exact specifics the customer can expect for each customer disrupting event. Behind the scenes, I can safely predict that their revenue/finance department pre-calculated the cost of the specific customer considerations (vouchers) by multiplying the cost of each consideration by the historical incident rates and customer volumes for each type of event (departure delays, cancellations, etc.). In essence, it is solidifying a predictable revenue model while communicating this to their customer base to gain competitive advantage which is brilliant.

G) My Customer Bill of Rights Examples:

Here are some sanitized (removed client identifiable information) examples from companies I have recently worked for:

Client Customer Bills of Rights – Company Commitment

H) Customer Service Organization (internal) Customer Bills of Rights Example:

At a customer service representative level, I have created the following in terms of what type of specific customer treatment we will uphold and what the customer can expect from each and every one of our customer facing people and functions:

Our Customer Service & Experience Experts Make the Following Promises to Our Customers

Customer Service Customer Treatment Bill of Rights

5. How to Get Started, Create Your Own Organization’s Customer Bill of Rights

Does your company (large or small) have a Customer Bill of Rights? This is not in a company mantra, tagline, or brand promise, but rather a simple set of rules, standards and guidelines that details the specifics of your customer service and customer experience delivery and helps set specific customer <–> customer-service expectations.

Start by discussing this possibility with your upper management and with your customer support organization. Challenge your organization to create 5-10 customer service expectations that your customers can specifically expect from your company and team. Then make sure that every employee knows and understands it is their obligation to deliver on those expectations. Key to this is aligning your internal standards, process, employee incentives and technology infrastructure to support the pledge, training your frontline employees, and recognizing customer service employee stars who are exceptional in upholding your customer service standards and pledges to your customer.

6. Summary

We have all heard of and mostly understand customer experience terms like the company mantra, tagline, and brand promise. These terms while effective in communicating the values of the company and the brand(s), these fail to communicate what the customer is to specifically expect when interacting with the company and their frontline employees for various customer needs. To address this gap in helping customers understand what specifics the company will deliver from a customer service perspective the increasing use of the customer bill of rights has been introduced by a growing number of companies. The many examples of a customer bill of rights presented in this article will give you food for thought in terms of what your own might look like. It is easy to get started to create your own and can start as simple as with a conversation with your customer facing team and upper management. If you do create a customer bill of rights, you must ensure all capabilities are in place to deliver on these customer promises, otherwise it will be judged as just a company marketing gimmick that nobody believes and you risk losing a great deal of marketplace credibility and customer faith.

7) Need help in creating your own customer bill of rights?

If your organization is seeking a proven resource in measuring and improving your customer service and experience via a customer bill of rights, then give me a call or e-mail me at 518-339-5857 or stevenjeffes@gmail.com.

Lastly, this is just one article nearly 60 articles I have written on customer strategy, customer experience, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for Fortune 500 companies. In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 106,000 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/.

Filed under Corporate Innovation, Customer Experience, Customer Profitability, customer service, customer strategy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Blow Away Your Competition by Replacing Your Old CRM Program with the New Customer Relevant Relationship Management (CRRM) Model

January 29, 2012 8 Comments

Blow Away Your Competition by Replacing Your Old CRM Program with a more effective Customer Relevant Relationship Management (CRRM) Model

1)               Introduction

  1. Do you have a robust CRM program in-place, but you feel you are still missing the mark in terms of delivering what your customers really want & need?
  2. Is your organization at risk of making market decisions that can cause a backlash and mass defection by your customers like the Bank of America $5 fee decision or the Netflix business split decision?
  3. Do you have volumes of consumer data and analytics, but sales are declining or flat and customers are churning at an increasing rate?
  4. Do you feel you could improve the quantity and quality of your customer insights including ascertaining critical consumer needs, preferences, likes/dislikes, interests, preferred communication channel for you to contact them, preferred timing and frequency for you to communicate with them, etc?

If you can say “Yes” to any of these questions, the rest of this post is a MUST READ for you and it is time to consider this more effective CRRM Model to replace your outdated CRM Model.

2)               CRM vs. CRRM Model Overview

The following diagram depicts the major differences between the old CRM Model and the new CRRM Model including the problems associated with the old CRM model and benefits of the newer CRRM model.

Old CRM Model vs. Customer Relevant Relationship Management (CRRM)

Old CRM Model (left above):

  1. Relies on historical data and analytics to determine what customers need, want, etc. by the analysis of sales history, types of products purchased, categories of products purchased, views on websites, stores visited, etc.
  2. Customer activity information is a proxy to what customers really want and need. Example, you will seldom learn that a customer hates an in-store or web experience through this proxy for what they are wanting, feeling, needing, disliking, etc.
  3. Companies are unlikely to gain insights into the impact that any future company decisions will have on customer loyalty, retention, acquisition.

New CRRM Model (right above):

  1. Takes a more direct approach with customers and utilizes a systemic querying method to ascertain exactly what customer want/need/prefer/etc.
  2. Embraces customer councils, customer forums, customer voting to drive future content, interactions, product/service offerings, etc.
  3. Activity solicits ratings from customers on many aspects (marketing materials, web experience, in-store experience, product usability, quality of customer service, etc.) regarding the health of the overall customer relationship and continually asks “How well are we managing our relationship”

3)               Example of CRM Model Gaps

To illustrate how companies are struggling to really determine the real needs of their customers, I took selected comments from interactions with senior CRM executives from major US Corporations based on consulting engagements, job interviews, speaking to them in passing, etc. The following charts are their actual verbatim comments as well as my read on their CRM gap that prevents them from developing world-class relationships with their customers.

Traditional CRM Programs:

  1. Organizational culture, operations, and go-to-market strategy does not put the customer and real customer insights into the center of CRM operations
  2. Relies on data, analytics, and customer history to drive on-going customer interactions.
  3. Puts the organization at extreme risk of missing the boat from a customer’s perspective – real needs, wants, concerns, preferences, experiences, etc.
  4. Companies that rely on this model are at-risk of customer defections, decreased customer spend/loyalty, etc.

New CRRM Model – with Customers In The Center of Customer Operations

New CRRM Program:

  1. The organizational culture, operations, and go-to-market strategy puts the customer and real customer insights into the center of CRM operations rather than rely on the proxies of what customers want, i.e. data, analytics, and customer history.
  2. The customer becomes the actual judge, ‘rater’ of whether you are delivering quality, value and a good relationship to them.
  3. The customer is put in charge of CRM operations and enables a bi-directional and on-going dialog with the customer whereby they tell you their real needs, wants, concerns, preferences, experiences, etc.
  4. Companies that rely on this model are more likely to develop products, services, offers, communications that delight the customer and whereby they are more loyal, greater brand advocates, and likely to refer your company to their friends as a company who listens, cares and empowers their customers.

6)             Companies That ‘Get ‘CRRM

The following are samples of companies that, in my opinion, get the CRRM model and details how/why each of them get this new go-to-market customer model.

Companies That ‘Get’ CRRM – 1 of 2

Companies That Get CRRM – 2 of 2

Phrases That Describe Companies who ‘Get’ the New CRRM Model

  1. We don’t hide behind data and analytics to drive our customer & CRM operations, but rather we ask our customers what they want.
  2. We are eager to ask our most disgruntled customers how we can improve our relationship with them and to determine who to improve our go-to-market strategy
  3. Before we make any major market-facing decisions, we ask a cross-segment of our customers what they think about each of our proposed decisions and then ask them how to improve upon how these changes are implemented so we ensure a continued delighted customer base.

The bottom line of this post is that, if your company relies less on historical data and analytics to determine what customer want and actually builds methods, processes, and systems to put the customer in charge of rating CRM operations in order to provide you with ongoing and valuable real insights (needs, wants, likes dislikes, preferences, concerns, etc.), the customers will feel more valued and connected with your brands. The benefit of adopting this new CRRM model will be more loyal, empowered and delighted customers who will be brand advocates and brand referrers that will increase shareholder and company value.

As I have now built this new CRRM model for several major US brands, my next blog post will be on ‘how to’ develop this capability at the enterprise level.

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