If there’s one thing I’ve learned over time, it’s that the questions you ask are often more important than the answers. Leaders know what questions to ask and when to ask them so their people can find the best solutions. They know that their people often have the best answers if given the opportunity to find out. Customer obsession is no different … except you have to know what questions to ask.

But how do you know what questions to ask if this is not your area of ​​expertise or expertise? How do you know when to ask certain questions along a specific trip if you haven’t been on that trip before? And how do you come up with the right questions so that you can get the right answers and support from the other leaders and managers in the organization? Let me help you with this … at least when it comes to being obsessed with the customer.

The obsession with the customer is putting the customer FIRST in everything you do.

Leaders in an organization that is not obsessed with the customer find that a little education is necessary to override their ability to ask the right questions. Part of this education is realizing that customer obsession is not the same as simply “liking” and “supporting” your customers. Since the obsession with the customer is much more than this, there is always a learning curve that they go through before they can begin to ask the right questions.

As a side note, all companies care about their customers and want the best for them … this goes without saying. This is not an obsession with the customer. Everyone likes their customers … after all, they are the ones who write us the checks for our products and services. What’s not to like. It all comes down to how companies interact with their customers. In most cases it is great, but it is not usually amazing or obsessed.

Being obsessed with the customer means that the customer is at the center of everything you do … they come FIRST in everything you do as a business. No decision is made until we understand how it will affect your customer. No decision is made until we understand how you will help your client improve their life or their business. And no decision is made until we understand how we can provide the customer experience that will blow them away and make them say, “WOW, you treat me like I’m your favorite customer all the time.” This is the obsession with the customer.

Customer Obsession has a completely different set of questions.

As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the things that great leaders make is their ability to ask big questions so their people can find incredible answers and solutions. This is where the dilemma comes into play. How can a leader ask good questions if he doesn’t understand what he is trying to accomplish? They can not.

When it comes to being a customer obsession, how can a leader ask the right (and great) questions if they don’t understand where they want to go with the answers? For example, if your organization is “product or service centric”, it is much easier for a leader to ask specific questions regarding new products or product development, or even new services that they think might fit the mission of the company. . They are in tune with these questions because this is the focus of the company.

But since most leaders are not “customer-centric,” how can they ask their people the right questions to get great answers? They can not. If a leader decides that he wants to become obsessed with the customer, he has to start asking the “right” (or different) questions to get the answers that will help him move forward with his obsession with the customer.

So how do you know what questions to ask?

There are many different questions and they can be very specific to your organization. I won’t attempt to delve into this level of detail here, but let me give you some guidelines that you can follow. If you are obsessed with the customer, you want to focus on questions in these different areas …

• How does this new product or service help our customers?

• How does this new product or service impact the life (or business) of our clients?

• If we make this modification to our product or service, what impact will it have on our customers?

• How many customers will this change affect?

• What will our clients say if we make this change?

• How do we know if this product will help our customer improve his life (or his business)?

• And many others …

You get the idea about the mindset and focus of an organization that is obsessed with the customer. They start by asking about the “impact” this will have on your customers before asking about the impact it will have on your business. The first questions change from “internally focused” to “externally focused.” For companies that are obsessed with the customer, they do not care if it is a good idea for them internally (generate more sales or reduce costs) until they know that it will add significant value to their customers. Only then do you move to the next level to determine if it is a good opportunity for them as a business.

The obsession with the customer is the culture of the company, so everyone thinks and acts this way, it is not the exception, it is the rule. It is “who they are” and “how they operate” as a company. This is very different from product / service focused companies. Since this is a cultural (or DNA) issue, it permeates the company in every department of every employee.

When it comes to company culture, it now allows leaders to ask employees different questions. And now these questions are not unexpected for employees because they are already thinking of possible alternatives or solutions to address the leader’s questions. For example, if a leader asks what impact a new process would have on their customers and employees come back with something other than “it will help them save time and / or money,” then the idea will probably not see the light of day. at daytime.

It is critical to be honest with yourself and not do something that goes against your areas of focus. If you are not obsessed with the customer (yet), then you don’t want to ask your employees these questions because they are not trained to know how to answer properly. If you want to ask questions about customer obsession, you must begin with the process that will help you become customer obsessed.

What to do next …

The first step is education … learning more about why obsessing over the customer could completely differentiate your organization. Once you see how this works, you can determine if this is the approach you want for your culture and your company DNA. If this is interesting and something that you think will set you apart from your competition, then you will be more open to learning how you would go about making it happen in your company.

While there is a lot of information available, it can be a bit overwhelming to dive into it as it is fragmented and discussed in various ways. If you want to save some time and get to the core quickly let me know and I can help. My passion and my statute for WOM10 is simple … to help each business “OBSERVATION” be able to obsess over the customer.

The only question that remains is: “Are you ready to obsess over the customer and become ‘REMARK’ capable?”