Hey! I'm Nicolette
I worked as Chief Customer Officer for multinationals like QVC, Sky and Liberty Global. Triggered by the Cluetrain Manifesto (1999; “Markets are conversations”) I successfully guided organizations through transformational customer centricity changes since the beginning of this century throughout Europe. I bring strategy together with pragmatism, making companies more successful, whilst making employees and customers happy.
Ever since I started working in customer operations, I was always forced to focus on decreasing costs. My superiors gave me the feeling that customer operations was a nuisance, and they’d rather terminate the department if they could, because it generated no value for the company, and just cost money.
As markets, in the beginning of this century, started to globalize, becoming more and more competitive, and products and services becoming commoditized and interchangeable, I started to realize that customer operations would become one of the areas companies had left to create sustainable competitive advantage for brands and companies.
But how to go about that in environments where people work who are told every day that they are just a nuisance and an expense for the company? That they don’t matter, and what they do doesn’t matter? People who had become the factory workers of our day and age?
It was then, that I realized, that, when a company needs to 1) save costs and 2) improve it’s competitive advantage in a sustainable way, the way to it was people dealing with customers everyday.
What would happen if we started to appreciate people, make them feel they matter, and what they do matters. To the costs? And to customers?
I was fortunate enough to have had many companies in which I could test my assumptions. I call it my ‘strategic playgrounds’. On every occasion it turned out that, when I made employees feel cared for, give them the feeling that they matter, and what they do matters, to ‘the big picture’ (the success of their company), they started to change their behavior. They in turn started to make customers feel cared for, and give them the feeling that they matter.
The business case meanwhile has proven itself many times in small and large (multinational) companies. The costs go down and the profit goes up.
When You Care, People Notice.
Employee engagement skyrockets, and so does customer engagement. Both employees and customers become advocates for the brand or company. Employees stay longer, customers stay longer, buy more, and bring their friends.
In the process, achieving what is for me a bonus more valuable than money, seeing employees transform into happy people who love their work, and happy customers who love to do business with us.
WHEN YOU CARE, PEOPLE NOTICE
A powerful pull that generates success beyond expectations
Care is king – and why it makes a difference for Customer Experience
What if you where the general of an army? More often than not, customer operations is the largest department in a company with respect to the number of people working there, as Customer Operations often represents 25-50% of the headcount of an organization. That means that you have an army.
When you successfully unite and focus your army in one direction, behind one goal, things will start to change. You start to experience what I call contagious enthusiasm. Your people start to get into a flow, together. Professional pride starts to grow, and so will execution power and realization power.
You notice a pull from people in other departments, without you (or your people) trying to ‘sell’ what you are doing. It starts to spread like a (positive) virus. Soon you will start to see the results coming in.
You start to see costs going down, and revenue going up. Not because you focus on the money, but because you focus on people, employees and customers.
All you need to do, is create an environment where your employees are enabled to focus on people, on customers. Make people feel you care. Instead of the traditional customer ops KPI’s focused on operational efficiency. Don’t get me wrong, operational efficiency does matter, but it’s a means to an end, not what makes people happy. Care makes the difference.
When You Care, People Notice
My Why
I belief that everybody deserves to feel meaningful. Do work, and do business in an environment you enjoy. Where people feel valued, instead of deployed as dehumanized robots, human doings.
In our hypercompetitive, globalized marketplaces where products and services are commoditized and interchangeable, it’s the feeling people get that creates sustainable competitive advantage and makes you stand out from the crowd, both for potential employees and customers.
We are human beings, not human doings. An organization is incapable of creating meaning. Humans are meaning makers. Only humans are capable of adding meaning, for themselves, and for customers.
People in organizations that are enabled to add meaning to their work make organizations successful beyond expectations. Costs go down, profit goes up. Not in spite of people (anonymized and dehumanized expense items like FTE, and so called revenue generating units -customers-) but thanks to people.
Customer Centricity is a vessel to add meaning, making your company sustainably stand out from the competition for both (potential) employees and customers.
The BIG5 of Customer Centricity™ help you get there.
Want to learn more about Customer Centricity?
Do not miss your chance to join the Micro Online Training on the BIG5 of Customer Centricity™, with a wealth of battle-proof strategies to help your organization focus on delivering exceptional employee and customer experiences and drive long-term business value and success! Seats are limited and by saving your seat early you get the chance of winning a FREE TICKET! *
* Please note that the Free Ticket is non refundable and can not be exchanged for money. The winner will be choosen randomly and will be informed via email as soon as the date and further details for the upcoming Micro Online Training will be revealed.
… And get access to your gateway how to focus on delivering exceptional employee, and customer experiences, create an evironment people love to work in, and do business with, and drive long-term value and success.
BECAUSE CARE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
What makes our actions human?
Care creates meaning. Care makes us think and feel. It is what makes people’s actions human. Hence, care is what makes organizations human. An organization that does not care cannot create meaning for people as human beings, be it employees or customers. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) stated: Care is the meaning of being (“Sorge ist der Sinne des Da-Seins”). Without care, being has no meaning.
Care is energy
Pretending to care costs energy. Acting from a source of genuine care generates energy. Care supercharges your organization, and creates results that exceed expectations.
Care ensures commitment and involvement
The ethics of care describe care as a much broader concept: as an essential form of involvement with the world.
Where consumers are flooded with an abundance of choice, and products and services are completely commoditized, and interchangeable, care makes the difference: ‘When you care, people notice’.
A service-based culture is hard to build and maintain. Consumers can’t be tricked into it. They will know and their (positive or negative) messages spread faster and across larger geographic areas than your company will ever be able to afford, no matter how large your marketing budget. Genuine care makes the difference.
Care delivers sustainable business and financial results. Care has a material impact on attracting and retaining top employees, their work attitude, and their work pleasure. Care has a tangible impact on the loyalty and the retention of customers, their spend, and attraction of new customers (Fred Reichheld’s new KPI, earned growth rate, EGR). Care materially impacts the bottom-line and the long-term success of your company. It is a transformational process that touches the core of your organization. Care generates customer advocacy (NPS), it turns your (employees and your) customers, your two most important stakeholders, into your ambassadors, and is the most effective as well as the cheapest ‘marketing tool’.