Alain Thys

Earlier this month I had the honour of being affectionately introduced as the "warm-up act" for Fred Reichheld during an NPS masterclass he gave together in the Netherlands.   As Fred mainly focused on introducing the Net Promoter System and describing the dangers of bad profits, I decided to go for the more organisational aspects of customer-centricity.  I did this by focusing my talk on what I consider to be three of the main barriers to customer-centricity in many organisations:

Lately, there's been a lot of talk about the ways Net Promoter is relevant to those in social media.  But while the intuitive link is clear to me, a lot of the thinking I've read to date doesn't really resonate on a level that is both practical and strategic.  So I decided to take a stab at a more comprehensive framework myself, admittedly helped by a number of practical challenges a CEE client faced who wanted to develop a more customer-centric approach across it's various distribution and communication channels.

I recently completed a project for Philips Lighting on the ways hotels should reshape themselves to be successful in the future. As part of the research I came across this brilliant video by futurist Patrick Dixon on the way many business hotels seem to "get it wrong" when it comes to delivering a quality experience for their customers. If you think about it, most of the things he talks about are "rather obvious". Also, as any frequent traveler can testify, they have been around for ages. 

Ever more executives want to create marketing magic by turning their consumers into "brand promoters". But with all the customer advocacy programmes flying around, many of them seem to miss the elephant in the room: their own employees might not be "that" inclined to recommendation themselves.

Ever since I've first learned to work with it in 2007, I had a thing for NPS.  There are many who tell me it isn't the most scientific of measures, but in our 80/20 world it is still the most effective and actionable customer system I've ever seen. 

I spend a large part of my professional life telling companies that if they truly take their customer's interests to heart, these customers will reward them with their business, their recommendations and their support. But even though I preach this gospel, I have to admit that I never really understood the impact of super-promoters until I experienced it around my book "So You Want to Be Customer-Centric?".

According to the some, 2012 is the year in which we all call it day. As the Mayans never really said such a thing, the chances of this happening are quite slim. But just imagine for a moment that all the doomsday prophets are right and that in less than a year the South Pole decides to take a holiday somewhere near the Equator. 

Apart from the obvious death, despair and heartbreak that would go with such an event, it would also make the 2012 plan you're working on right now the last you'll ever work on. Your legacy. The sum of what you stand for.

When interviewed for my book So You Want To Be Customer-Centric, Georges-Edouard Dias of L'Oréal pointed out the opportunity to truly improve the customer experience in many traditional supermarkets.  In his view: “Many stores today aren't really user-friendly. You need to drive there and park far away from the entrance. When you get inside, it's hard to find the information you're looking for. There are too many products to get a clear picture, and the staff aren't always much help either. Not to mention that even if you know exactly which product you want to buy, it may not be in stock.”

In September I was invited by my friends from Evensys in Romania to talk about the ways FMCG  brands could improve the performance of their sales promotions. When putting together my presentation (see below) I was heavily influenced by two factors. First, I had just published my new book, So You Want To Be Customer Centric? and my mind was still full of all the material I didn't get to use. Secondly, I've never really been a fan of the "buy more, buy cheaper movement", so I didn't really feel like talking about the ways to build a better sales promotion mousetrap.

For the past few years I've been quite active in the field of customer-centric marketing and management. I had the privilege of working with the likes of Philips, ING, Lexus, L'Oréal, Sanoma and many others on projects which touched every part of our globe.