What it means to deliver a great customer connection is always evolving. The organizations that are successful are and will be the ones that listen more effectively and that apply what they hear to continuously performing better.
David Byrne, in How Music Works, attributes music genius to adaptability. In the same way, customer-centered evolution is really adaptation to the context in which customers live. It’s what Byrne calls the “tailoring process.” In the same way that musicians create, customer-focused organizations look for patterns and then make pragmatic changes that will benefit customers.
Ordinary music can be created with limited skills, of course, just as expected, mundane service for customers can be found everywhere. It’s not wrong—just mediocre and unexciting. Exceptional music, distinctive music, on the other hand, exists in an expansive dimension that emotionally connects with its audience. The same is true of great organizational cultures that truly relate to their customers through simplicity and creativity. When it really works, it is game-changing.
Byrne could rest on his Talking Heads fame, if he chose to live in the past. Instead, he writes about what a great time it is today to be making music—full of possibilities. Well, it is just as exciting to be part of an expansive movement to create a new business approach. Customer 3D companies connect with their customers in the way musicians relate to their listeners. They encourage a curiosity inside their cultures for every employee to explore those possibilities.
What it means to work with customers is inevitably evolving, also—from a stodgy, restrictive formula to a brighter form of expression. The new definition is built on a culture that suddenly allows employees to add a little emotion and personality to deliver a better relationship with their customers. It’s crazy to believe that the culture which a company had twenty years ago could connect with customers today. It must be adaptive.
