The Customer Culture Imperative: A Leader's Guide to Driving Superior Performance

by Linden Brown, Christopher Brown

Overview

BECOME THE ENVY OF YOUR INDUSTRY WITH A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC CULTURE

Winner of Marketing Book of the Year 2015 by Marketing and Sales Books

For the first time, this groundbreaking guide unlocks the secrets used by Amazon, Virgin, Apple, Starbucks, and salesforce.com. It creates a guide for success based on three years of scientific study drawing insights from more than 100 businesses to identify seven key factors. When implemented together these factors have been proven to drive superior business performance. Customer culture is as fundamental to business performance as breathing is to living. It is the life force of your business. This applies no matter what your industry sector.

And with the evidence-based methods in this book, you can replicate their success in your business!

The Customer Culture Imperative reveals the key disciplines of customer culture that consistently predict enhanced, sustainable business results. Each one is linked to a particular strategy and drives predictable and measurable improvements in one or more business performance factors--from innovation and customer satisfaction to growth in sales and profits to higher rates of new-product success. It gives you the tools to:

• Inspire everyone in the company to embrace a customer-centric culture
• Unify efforts across units by creating a "common language" for change
• Collect and measure data from your efforts and benchmark your progress
• Make change long term so you leave a legacy of an enduring business

Creating a customer-centric company takes more than making an investment in the customer service department and systems. It's about building a culture in which the customer is at the heart of all decisions made within every function and unit. What's best for the customer is what's best for business. Make that a part of the DNA of your organization, and you will lead your company to unprecedented success. Guaranteed.

PRAISE FOR THE CUSTOMER CULTURE IMPERATIVE

"Linden and Chris Brown have written the best book on what it takes to build a genuine customer culture in an organization. Their framework and their stories will inspire you to take the next step." -- Philip Kotler, S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

"A customer-focused culture is a powerful competitive advantage. This book will show you how to diagnose the level of a customer culture and then make the leadership moves to raise this level." -- George Day, Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

"Creating unique customer engagements is an essential ingredient of the 'Starbucks Experience.' Crafting an authentic culture is essential to insuring that all employees consistently execute and innovate the highest quality customer experience. Linden and Chris provide a unique framework and road map to build this culture within large and small organizations." -- Arthur Rubinfeld, chief creative officer and president, Global Innovation and Evolution Fresh Retail, Starbucks

"Smart phones, smart networks, and personalized apps are changing the way people live and work--giving control to an emerging class of globally connected customers that have the power to shift markets. Linden and Chris Brown’s work will help you understand what is happening and what it means to your business.” -- David Thodey, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra

"Over the 40+ years of my life in business I have always known that a customer culture is the key to success. How to achieve it has been a continuous search and challenge. This book is the clearest roadmap I have read to truly achieve a customer culture and all the benefits it brings.” -- John Stanhope, Chairman, Australia Post

"Some books (alas, very rare) summarise well-researched management theory, combined with current best practice, to deliver powerful and pragmatic guidelines for growing shareholder value. This is one such book. Read it. Enjoy it. It is a powerful contribution to best practice.” -- Malcolm MacDonald, Emeritus Professor, Cranfield University School of Management

"Smart phones, smart networks, and personalized apps are changing the way people live and work,giving control to an emerging class of globally connected customers that have the power to shift markets. Linden and Chris Brown’s work will help you understand what is happening and what it means to your business.”--David Thodey, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra

"Over the 40+ years of my life in business I have always known that a customer culture is the key to success. How to achieve it has been a continuous search and challenge. This book is the clearest roadmap I have read to truly achieve a customer culture and all the benefits it brings.”--John Stanhope, Chairman, Australia Post

"Some books, alas very rare, summarise well-researched management theory, combined with current best practice, to deliver powerful and pragmatic guidelines for growing shareholder value. This is one such book. Read it. Enjoy it. It is a powerful contribution to best practice.”--Malcolm MacDonald, Emeritus Professor, Cranfield University School of Management

"This easy to read book provides essential and unique guidance for driving the critical relationship between customer centricity and sustained organisational performance."-—Dr Ramzi Fayed, Executive Dean, Australian Graduate School of Leadership

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071821148
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	01/10/2014
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Dr. Linden R. Brown is chairman and cofounder of MarketCulture Strategies Inc., a Silicon Valley company focused on measuring the level of customercentric cultures of organizations and the associated risks and opportunities. He coauthored, with Kellogg Professor Philip Kotler, the latest edition of the number one selling Australian university textbook, Marketing.

Chris L. Brown is the former marketing director for Hewlett-Packard for the South Pacific including Australia. He is now a Silicon Valley–based management consultant.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction xi

1 What's Best for the Customer Is Best for the Business 1

2 Customers' Rules 37

3 Customer-Inspired Innovation 57

4 Relentless Positioning 75

5 Competing for the Future 97

6 Tectonic Shifts 115

7 The New Math: 1 + 1 = 3 or 4 or even 10 141

8 How Leaders Get Their Ducks in a Row 161

9 How to Make It Happen 185

10 Leaving a Legacy 243

11 Will You Be Ready? 265

Appendix 1 The Research Program 273

Appendix 2 Customer Culture: A Leader's Measurement and Action Guide 289

Notes 293

Index 311