EMPOWERED

CHAPTER 19Customer‐Centricity

In this chapter we'll discuss how to help develop the critical trait of customer‐centricity.

If you ask a CEO or a product person if they care about their customers, you'll usually get some sort of indignant “Of course I do!” response, sometimes followed with a defensive “Are you suggesting I don't?”

Pretty much everyone talks about how much they care about their customers. But when you actually get inside the company and you see how they handle a situation such as an outage, or when a product change causes customer confusion or frustration, or the infrequency that they actually sit down with real users and customers, it's easy to see the difference between those who claim they care about their customers and those who demonstrate their care every day.

This trait is very much related to company culture and is, of course, heavily influenced by the words and actions of the company's leaders.

I'll say up front that if your leaders don't demonstrate this sincere care for your customers, then it will be very hard to develop this in your product people or anyone else. In each and every case I know of where the company truly cares about their customers, it's clear that it comes from the very top.

But assuming this is something that is central to your company's core values and not just lip service, then we need to talk about how we develop this trait in your product people.

Clearly some people are more naturally empathetic than others, but in my experience ...