In December, a panel of speakers on customer service topics discussed “Is Customer Service the New Marketing?”. The panel makes the case for marketing how well an organization serves its customers. This is not new. It’s the traditional ideas being warmed over. The panel’s message to organizations is, essentially, don’t change your approach to customer service; simply market it better.

What it means to work with customers is inevitably evolving. It’s crazy to believe that the culture which a company had twenty years ago could connect with customers today. It must be adaptive.

Thinking like a customer, when it is engrained in a culture, creates freedom – the willingness to point out shortfalls in current company processes and the passion to identify new opportunities that will make their company easier to work with.

Most writers and speakers about customer service are focused on simply describing it, rather than paying attention to how to create the leadership characteristics that they want companies to develop. Their work seems to manifest itself mostly in generalizations and to imply that those generalizations will always work for your organization. Beware of what seem to be shortcuts.

In Customer 3D organizations, telling customer success stories helps to spread the behaviors that created the good ideas. What results is a shared passion for helping customers which manifests itself in greater employee empowerment and collaboration.

The Customer 3D system creates enthusiasm among employees because they are aligned around doing something meaningful for their customers. Work becomes much more satisfying and they become more effective.

Put your organization on a journey that creates a customer-centered culture. Design a culture that is empowered to “own” the customer in every interaction. Where you are in two years will be dramatically different—and better.

Real customer-centricity will not happen without a strong culture that is empowered to think first about customer needs. Changing the culture of your business from product-centric and rules-driven requires leadership that expects employees to “do the right thing” for customers

There is a pattern in all of the four pictures of Matisse, which allows the viewer to recognize him. Likewise, in organizations there is a wholeness, which is recognizable by customers. This wholeness is the real nature that determines everything about the organization.

Customer-centered organizations create a deeper relationship with customers. By moving beyond a product-centric, “A to B” mentality, their culture of continuous improvement for all of their customers builds a more substantive relationship. They are legendary, rather than ordinary.

A culture of sharing reinforces the belief that you and your customers have a common purpose. And this spirit of collaboration translates into a message that these customers can trust you to work on their behalf. It is empowering, both for employees and customers.

Highly customer-centered organizations believe they live in the same environment as their customers and they educate their employees to carry out a strategy that judges every action by the customer success it delivers.

Boundaries disappear with a customer strategy that is proactive and focused, not reactive. It should articulate a basic philosophy that aligns all employees and brings confidence and clarity to how they can contribute to stronger customer connections.

Making sense begins with the recognition that meaningful work involves finding a better solution for the customer. If the old structure was static, the new version is metamorphic: in readiness to become something else if that is what helps it connect with its customers.

All organizations should have a clean, clear vision of how they look to their customers—a 3D version that includes every aspect of the relationship. It doesn’t just happen. The organization must create a system to “shine a light” on itself in order to be useful to the customer.

Educate task-oriented employees by demonstrating what a customer-centered culture would do. Then, measure the progress of the organization in galvanizing these new customer behaviors.

There is a fundamental quality of great customer relations that many organizations have lost. The timeless system for customers is not going back, but beyond what exists today. The new paradigm represents congruence with your customers. It is authentic.