expectations as a consumer

I suspect that the weeks leading up to the holidays season have a tendency to illuminate good and bad customer experiences for any consumer. Most often, I must say, I'm am shocked by the lack of customer centric thinking by businesses as they seem to care little about the customer experience. Much of what I do professionally is based on creating good experiences for our members. We work hard to hire and train staff to create great experiences for members and participants, build and implement donor and stakeholder cultivation plans, and, in general, lead with member centric thinking. Why is it that, seemingly, other businesses ignore this thinking? Over the last several years, I have abandoned several companies due to this, and, will never give them business again. I returned from a frustrating experience at a store yesterday, and told my wife that in 2012 I would stop giving my business to that store. It seems to me that if I continue to patronize these businesses, I'm basically saying "it's okay for you to treat your customers this way...we will continue to support you because you are the biggest, or cheapest...". Quite simply, I'm out on that. I would rather pay more, drive farther, etc. to have experiences where I know that the customer is a priority. Will me taking my business from a big box store, a satellite TV provider, a bank, a restaurant or any other business make any difference to them? Will they even notice? No. That is not the point. The point is that I choose to support businesses and organizations that seem to care about the consumer. I choose to support businesses and organizations whose values and business practices align with mine. What do you choose?- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

understanding the why.

I attended a meeting in Chicago this week of some of the sharpest minds in our organization. How I made the invitee list, I have no clue. The meeting was meant to explore the concept of true scholarship and academic research for the leaders in our organization. The premise was that we have become very good at the "how" of our business, but there I the potential that we were not nourishing one's need to know "why". The "how" includes the tactics needed to conduct our day to day business. It includes fiscal management, staff development, facility management, financial development, and general administrative duties. In many cases, we have become quite adept at the how. The "why" includes the core values of the organization, the rationale in doing the work we do, and the community needs that we can intentionally meet through our efforts. People's inspiration is drawn from the why. In the meeting, the comment was made that "people that know how will always work for people that know why". A very true statement, I suspect, in most organizations. Those that understand the why can create vision for those that can accomplish the how. However, how much more impactful might an organization be if everyone understood the why? The process of helping everyone understand the why might be messy and time consuming. In some cases, the why might not be tangible or quantifiable. Explaining the why in such a way that people understand, embrace, and champion the why will take time and effort. What strategies might be used to educate a staff of thousands in a meaningful and effective way? Might it be possible as we onboard new staff to help them, at the point of entry, understand the why? Motivation can be created by performance reviews, metrics for success, salary increases, and fear of failure. Inspiration, however, is created by believing that the work that you do makes a significant impact. It is the thing that gets you out of bed every morning excited about the day. So, how much more meaningful would the work be for all if they understood the why? How much more impactful would the organization be? So...where do we start?