Connecting The Workplace To The Marketplace
Peter Drucker, management consultant, educator and author, said there’s only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. “You have to manage for results, do the right thing right and make serving the customer the center of everything,” Drucker said.
Organizations that pursue this path saturate every nook and cranny of their operations with the voice of the customer. They insist on customers interrupting every project, process, activity, program and initiative.Their objective? Make every customer experience perfect.
According to Gartner2, a leading information technology and research firm, investing in the customer experience pays off in terms of revenue growth, profitability and customer loyalty.
The customer experience represents all of the interactions a customer has with a product or service provider. It’s made up of many encounters or touchpoints where customers and prospective customers come into contact with an organization to create the overall customer experience.
Both externally and internally-focused communication play a role in creating those touchpoints. For instance, external communication functions deliver a multitude of touch points through marketing, public relations, public affairs, branding, sales and advertising activities and programs.
Internal communication affects the customer experience through three primary sources:
Leaders communicate through what they say and what they do.
Systems and processes (such as measurement, rewards, learning and development, etc.) communicate priorities and enable people to take actions that shape the customer experience.
Formal communication channels such as publications, meetings and social media communicate in multiple ways.
In other words, external communication helps create the brand promise while internal communication helps deliver the brand promise.
Here’s how that works.
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Disrupting the Function of IC - A Global Perspective.
This article is featured in the book Disrupting the Function of IC - A Global Perspective (pp. 162-167), in which 30 experts from around the globe share their advice and insights on the practice of internal communication, today, and tomorrow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jim Shaffer
Leader The Jim Shaffer Group
Jim Shaffer is an internationally recognized management consultant, author, speaker and leader of the Jim Shaffer Group, a firm that helps organizations accelerate results though superior strategy execution.The firm’s clients represent some of the world’s most respected brands.
Jim was a principal, vice president and global leader of a Towers Perrin (now Willis Towers Watson) center of excellence. He was an architect and leading practitioner of the firm’s change management consulting practice.
His book, The Leadership Solution, became a classic treatise on leadership, change management and creating high performance organizations.
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