Dorie Wallace Leadership

I look forward to Jay Nathan‘s GrowthCurve.io newsletter every week! This week, one of the topics was about ownership. I especially love the quote “Have you ever washed a rental car?” Jay recommended telling customer stories in all-hands meetings to get the organization closer to the customer. I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I recommend going one step further by having the customer tell their own stories to your teams.

I have had a ton of success doing this in several roles, both customer-facing and non-customer-facing teams. When we tell their stories, it is helpful – no question about it. But when they tell THEIR OWN STORIES, people hear it more. They see the facial expressions, they hear the tone of voice, and they connect to the human on the other end of the software.

Even better, customers love telling their story! And to tell it to the people building the software they use everyday – wow, they feel like they are being heard! Because they are being heard. I have rarely had a customer decline the invite, usually only for logistical reasons. I even had one customer volunteer to drive 8 hours so they could visit my team in person.

In one example, when I led a large technical support center, we reviewed an incident from start to finish from our perspective. And then we asked the customer to walk us through that incident from their perspective…what was going on at their organization, why was this issue important, what caused them frustration, etc. It was incredibly valuable as it humanized the customer for our support team. It shifted from “ugh, why is this customer so worked up just because the report is slow” to “oh wow, I didn’t think about how the delay in this report meant they were getting inundated with emails from their supervisor”.

In another example, I brought a customer – our champion at the organization – to kickoff a strategic planning session. It grounded us. It kept us focused. And the participants often referred to what the customer said throughout the session.

Here are some tips:

• This works for positive and negative customer stories. If it is a negative experience, it is a great way to learn from the experience and truly understand the impact that experience had. This isn’t an industry norm, so you will impress the customer when you share how you want to learn.
• Help the customer prepare – what do you want them to share, who is the audience, what questions might they expect, etc.
• Make sure your team knows that a customer will be there – your attendance will skyrocket!
• Plant some questions to ensure there is engagement with the speaker.

And as always, connect with the customer afterward to follow up on any issues they shared and to say thank you. This is a perfect place for a handwritten thank you note.

What have you tried to drive ownership and connection to the customer?