I always hear the following 3 questions from companies & fellow marketing professionals, I regularly speak to:
- How do we innovate around the customer?
- How often can we do it?
- How fast can we do it?
It is interesting to see how Wells Fargo does it. In a highly regulated industry like Banking, they get inspired from companies outside their industry to remain customer-obessed!
Here are my key take-outs that can be applied to your business tomorrow:
Rule#1: Learn from leaders outside your industry
To me, Wells Fargo learning & applying ethnography techniques and principles from P&G was quite refreshing. To stay customer focussed and to build a purposeful customer experience & engagement strategy, it pays to learn from industry leaders outside your own business -Who do you get inspired from?
Rule# 2: Establish newer ways to listen to your customers
Wells Fargo has set-up customer councils for their various banking products and services. Imagine observing and hearing from customers on their banking experiences - their moments of exhiliration and frustration - it is a great way to rejig some of the customer facing processes & technologies -Do you have one in place?
Rule# 3: Be agile to iterate, test & experiment - Customers want quick turnaround
Sometimes, I do see situations where companies know the bottle necks that stand in the way of better customer experience & easier adoption but they are just not agile enough to get things off-the-ground. Hence, customers move away as they don't see their voice. feedback and inputs being used by companies. Well Fargo develops, tests and deploys new services in 90 days! So, when customers see visibile improvements or even attempts in trying to address their problems - it can be either process improvement and product development, it has a huge impact - How agile are your product development timelines?
It's a great way to begin and move forward in your customer-centric journey - Small but incremental steps but they do leave a lasting impact in driving innovation around your customers.