Does your culture eat, sleep, drink customer?

Culture shapes the norms within an organisation and drives the way things get done both behaviourally and systematically.

Many organisations forget this when trying to implement a new strategy into the business. This is particularly relevant when implementing a new loyalty strategy to drive a new loyalty programme for the business. There is no single mould for implementing a loyalty strategy and there are many factors to consider prior to developing & implementing it into your business. The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” often used to describe how no matter how successful or bullet proof you think your strategy is, if it is not in line with the culture embedded in your business……then you are wasting your time. A strategy has to include culture as a core element.

We know that a loyalty strategy impacts the entire business. It should not only belong to your marketing or clients service department but it should be “owned” and adopted by the entire business from your board of directors to your frontline employees. Your aim should be to adopt a strategy that is both employee & customer centric too. Here are 3 “Cs” to consider on how to bring about a strategy to suit your company culture:

1. Communication:

Have a communication plan

• communicate change & communicate it in a timely fashion internally before externally
• communicate in stages & do so regularly
• communicate in such a manner, always taking the current culture/environment into consideration
• Provide insights/background into the strategy to all employees
• Allow for feedback

2. Collaboration:

• Once you have delivered your communication plan allow time for people to not only provide feedback but  allow for discussion groups, understand how the new strategy impacts them as individuals and as a company as a whole
• Allow your staff to spread their concern openly to get full consensus
• Provide workshops to all departments within the business enabling them to understand how their roles may change and how their role contributes to the success of the business as a whole. This is critical for landing a customer centric strategy

3. Commitment

• The customer centricity strategy needs commitment and buy-in from all parties. It will play an integral part of the company culture and daily operations. Across entire business from top management to front office
• E.g. cashier has main interaction with your customer – let her be your sales person!

• The person heading up the strategy should guide the execution of all the loyalty activities at all levels. Marketing, finance, suppliers, call centre agents to mention a few will all need to be led into the new strategy.

“People are loyal to culture, not strategies” says Joe Tye, CEO & Head Coach of Values Coach Inc. People are loyal to the culture they are accustomed to, not a strategy and this can easily cause resilience to any change within an organisation. When you fully understand your company’s culture and know how to execute any change, bearing in mind the complexities that may come along with such a change, you will be able to lead any new loyalty & customer centricity strategy and create competitive differentiation……nothing is more powerful than this.

To implement a customer centric strategy is simply a pipedream if your frontline & back office processes are not designed to be customer focused and if the culture does not eat, sleep, drink customer.

                                                                               Ros Siddle, Marketing & Loyalty Research Manager, Truth