Rohitaash Says…

Should a business be obsessive about customers? I believe customer experience is one battle that counts most and every company should and must obsess about customers at all levels.

Customer experience should be the starting point of all work that needs to be done and delivered to the customer and a company should work backwards to accomodate their internal agendas and processes around it so that every team member’s could clearly see what can not be compromised for their own interests and limitations.

If adopted whole heartedly by the top management, customer experience would drive innovation and force individual teams and team members to think beyond either / or scenarios and do what must be done to ensure the best experience in marketplace could be delivered to the company’s customers.

Almost all CEOs are obsessive about customers however, their vision can be very restricted by the status quo of company practices and existing turfs in the companies they lead. Courage and Self Belief are qualities often spoken about and at display during high profile meetings but seldom practiced. Often things are allowed to go as bad as they can in the face of resistance by existing status quo and political and operational turfs  that nothing short of complete rehaul of top management is required to bring in the focus back on the customers.

This is one area where successful startups primarily in technology sector have shown an edge and they manage to succeed and continue to thrive despite their growth into much larger corporations. Led by the same brave souls who started these companies , they manage to retain their startup culture which really means that they remember their lessons learned and continue to focus on customers and innovation.

Jeff Bezos is one such CEO at Amazon.com and here he is presenting his mind on the wisdom gained from his years in business and Amazon.com’s recent purchase of Zappos.com