The Last Ten Per Cent

Of the many things that companies and people take-up, the last ten percent never gets completed resulting in a negative customer experience. But then some companies are far ahead of the curve and they have customers at the heart of whatever they do. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart propounded that, ‘there is only boss, the customer…’. Jack Taylor of Enterprise-Rent-A-Car said, ‘Take care of your people and they they will take care of your customers’. Nestle developed products by studying customer’s cognitive patterns. Starbucks focused on ‘customer experience’. Southwest evolved a new model in the airline industry and Zappos focused on customer service to become a billion dollar company in less than ten years since inception. So, what did these companies do differently?They differentiated by creating customer and people-centric service excellence models, which focused on values, people processes and people development. Importantly they defined ‘service excellence’ by managing customer expectations and by delivering on the promise.About the AuthorT. G. C. Prasad the bestselling author of several management and fiction books. Besides writing, he consults and advises CEOs, HR heads and senior leaders of various companies on people strategy. He also manages TGC consulting, a human resources consulting firm that offers three core services, viz. executive search, senior management coaching and strategic people advisory to global MNCs, Indian conglomerates and PE / VC funded entrepreneurial ventures across various domains such as information technology, e-commerce, health-care, pharmaceuticals, retail, manufacturing, BFSI, media and entertainment.