Friday, November 18, 2011

Shining a light on customer service

Just had a really nice meeting with Maria Burke from Kichler Lighting. We were ushered into the company's conference room to give our presentation and to talk about our ongoing relationship, but before we got started, there something that caught my eye.

Like many companies, their conference contains the ubiquitous large table and matching chairs. Only in this case, one of the chairs was a little different.

This seat was upholstered with a different fabric and had a sign hanging over it that read: "Reserved for our customer's point of view."

A lot of companies talk about staying customer-centric, but clearly Kichler is shining a light on the concept. Of course just having a chair with a sign doesn't mean the company automatically focuses on customers. That still takes conscious effort and persistence, but I suspect having that visual cue serves as a regular reminder to at least try to think about issues from the customer perspective.

And maybe that's why Kichler is able to report record breaking sales in 2011.

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