In times of uncertainty, many companies and leaders worry about the strategy to follow, the right path to take.
One sure way to manage short-term and uncertainty has always been, though, to simply focus on clients’ and customers’ needs and address them; preferably, better than others, but addressing them is already a good start.
And yet, a lot of companies fail to do that correctly, and persist in doing so: it’s not that they don’t listen, it’s worse: they DON’T want to listen.
One example is particularly striking:
- All consumer experience studies show consumers want to speak to HUMANS when they are in need of support
- Yet most companies stubbornly persist in testing the most sophisticated technologies, now AI, to try and manage most of the support process without having any human in the loop, or entitling you with a conversation as an ultimate reward after having you waiting for very long minutes, typing X many times on the keyboard and repeating your request Y many times
I’m sure you can find many other examples in your daily practice, no matter what industry you’re in or your company’s size, big or small.
Why is that?
- The immediate answer is always: costs.
- But it’s a wrong one, and a stupid one, too. It’s the obvious answer to avoid thinking deeper.
- Because the cost of losing business, or no longer being in business, is always much higher than listening to one’s customers.
So why don’t you listen?
- Because most companies are not driven, or no longer driven, by the purpose of serving their customers… and who wants to really admit that?
- What they are really in pursuit of is: growth growth growth no matter how, fear of losing to their competitors, fear of missing the latest AI hype, fear of investors, fear of what each manager will do in the internal food chain…
In times of uncertainty, one sure way to navigate is to pay attention to your customers’ needs and serve them well: and who knows, maybe if you do listen and change your ways of working, you’ll find innovation opportunities and growth where you didn’t expect it?