Whether you like it or not, your organization has a culture.
Whether you’ve designed it or it just happened, the current culture has been perfectly implemented to deliver the results you are currently getting.

If you would like your results to be different then you have 2 choices:

1) You can drive your organization to do things differently and then put policies in place to make sure it doesn’t deviate

or you could . . .

2) Create a culture that does things a certain way simply because it values, takes refuge in, and is strengthen by an inherent “way of being”.

Some will say option 2 is a great idea but unrealistic, and therefore, option 1 is the only option.  Not so.

In our work we see the most common source of difficulty in managing cultures to be lack of clarity.

Think about it, unless we are clear on the kind of a building we want to build, it will be difficult to bring the right tools to the job site, difficult to order the right materials, difficult to implement an efficient floor plan and almost impossible to ensure those using the building are comfortable inside its walls.

Relevant and effective cultures feed off of clarity.  The more clear, the more cohesive the culture.

If you were to ask employees “Why does our company exists”, how many answers will you get?  Is there clarity?

One of the roles of upper management is to offer and feed clarity.  Is your management team providing clarity that results in cohesion?

Here is an example of a management effort to create clarity.

The important thing here is the effort towards clarity in “Why” we exist and “How” we do things around here.

When relevant and effective cultures arise, “WHO we are” becomes much more important than “WHAT we do.”

If you like to read more on cultures, here is a white paper that might be helpful – download

All the best.

Rudy Vidal
Customer Loyalty is Never and Accident !
XCL

Over the years, we have followed shifting customer values that help to differentiate brands.
As we follow these developing trends we often gain clarity in interesting areas.  Clarity in the past couple of years came in a better understanding of certain segments of customer loyalty.
We have watched loyal customers for some time and have a good understanding of their make up.  But within these loyal customers, there are some that stand out.  These “raving loyalists” go beyond loyalty, they are willing to defend and represent our brand.  They are somewhat more engaged than those defined by the NPS methodology as “promoters.”   The raving loyalists feel a personal and emotional bond with the brand which causes them to not only recommend but defend and represent the brand.  Think of hard core Apple users; it would be an understatement to say “hardcore Apple customers have a strong willingness to recommend.”  Their bond to the brand is clearly more emotional than that.

Raving loyalists are not only important because they are loyal and drive additional business, but are also part of the “innovators” and “early adopter” set in the market.  It is they, who control access to the mainstream market (see the Law of Diffussion of Innovation – beautifully explained by Simon Sinek here).

In looking at these raving loyalists we find they have the following characteristics:

1. Raving loyalists believe they perceive the company’s purpose or mission (It doesn’t matter if they are right or not.  In this case perception is reality.)
2. Based on their consistent experience with a company or brand, a raving loyalist perceives the company or brand to be authentic to its purpose or mission.  Simply put, the customer thinks the company walks the talk.
3. The raving loyalist perceives an alignment between the company’s values (the source of the authenticity) and their own personal values.

When they see this alignment of values, the customer feels personally represented by the company or brand. In turn, becoming an agent of the brand that represents him or her.  This turns into an emotional bond of reciprocal kinship.

We see these types of relationships between fans and sports teams, within certain ethnic or socio-economic strata, in nationalism and regionalism, religious groups, and more specifically to our discussion, between customers and certain brands such as Harley Davidson, Apple and Corvette among many.

So, the raving loyalist who will promote, defend and represent your brand has only two overriding requirements.  They must perceive authenticity in your brand and they must feel the brand is aligned with their own core values.

Here then, are the obvious questions:

1. Do we understand our customer’s values?
2. Is our mission or purpose aligned with them?
3. Are our customer experiences across the company demonstrating consistent authenticity?

If the answer to any of these is no, raving loyalty is not possible and we have lost major ground in the battle for differentiation.

Our deepest quest as marketers and brand strategists must be authenticity.
However, authenticity is not found in an advertisement or in engaging creative production.  Authenticity is found in the operations of the company as it relates to a higher overriding purpose.  It is found in a company’s policies, processes and delivery mechanisms as experienced by the customer.

Without authenticity we cannot create deep rooted loyalty with our customers.

Rudy Vidal
Committed to XCL