I have been coaching various organizations from finance, govt. to social to retail for solving real business and organization challenges and the question which is asked time and again and keeps coming back is “What is the mantra that leads to business growth in an organization?”
My instant response is: Customer Obsession. It is super prevalent when you follow an enterprise like Amazon which has achieved an all-time high revenue this Jul’20 as Amazon Posts Biggest Profit Ever at Height of Pandemic, the company said revenue jumped 40 percent from a year earlier to$88.9 billion.
Consumer at every Knick and corner of the world now has started exploring Amazon for their unmet needs, it is expanding from urban to now even rural areas and is reaching from masses to classes i.e. all types of consumers with very diverse needs ranging from accessories, groceries, and books to all types of supplies like farming tools, portable furniture, portable electric devices, herbal medical supply and much more.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, Letters to investors i.e. shareholders, in every letter he communicates his passion with continuous focus on the core value element for business success i.e. customer obsession. At Amazon, everything starts and revolves around this core value.
Amazon goes extra miles to maintain the relationship with customer by really understanding the needs and then applying/turning those into action: they discovered that customers look for free shipping so they came up with Amazon prime as an expansion to their business model. Their easy returns policy just added to customer delight as it was introduced as a response to an unmet need after closely observing and empathizing with the customers.
At one time way back in 2000 timeframe, Amazon was simply an e-commerce company struggling with scale problems. Those issues forced the company to build some solid internal systems to deal with the hyper growth it was experiencing. Like many startups in mid 90’s they too had not really planned well for accommodating growth on a digital platform. They sensed that there were other companies that had ventured into the ecommerce model and were bound to face similar problems as their business grew exponentially. That laid the foundation for what would become AWS. They related their struggles with the consumers, had already walked in the shoes of their consumers, identified the opportunity, fixed their own infrastructure and offered it as a service to companies making ecommerce fast and scalable. They never stopped empathizing and evolving and have a massive portfolio of Services a company looking for digital platform could choose from. Gathering insights early has given them a massive competitive lead.
Extraordinary insightful patterns emerge when you read about Jeff Bezos, Amazon company culture and their stories, all these indicates How Amazon got super impressive business value that is by a set of Amazon growth principles which has most important principle for all employees and leaders i.e. Customer Obsession. Amazon Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customers trust. Although Leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
Insights: This not only helps you solve problems for today but also build for future. There is so much what we share in consumer empathy that’s the heart of Design Thinking. This requires one to put immense energy at present but you will be paid the dividends in the future. It’s not a one-time process we need to constantly immerse in consumers, their shifting challenges, aspirations, unmet needs, hopes as everything is changing so is the customer and their behaviors. Often companies look for innovative ways to sell or enhance a low selling product or service but being too much narrowly product or service focused, they rarely invest and empathize enough to understand their customers.
My experience at Amazon: One of the reasons I buy at amazon is that I know if I don’t like it I can return it and they even walk an extra mile at times by refunding the money if the product was not in a good condition and not up to my expectations. So it’s the fearless and STRESS FREE quality shopping experience. I bought a smart watch in US, came back to India, the watch stopped working within a week and I couldn’t return it, I complained on the (bot assisted) chat, and they refunded without me having to return the equipment. How delightful!! A keen observer of Amazon’s strategies, I found that at Amazon, it’s the customer needs that drive innovation. The company is determined to use technology at its best to keep customer interactions easy. They even try to foster relationships between customers and brands. At the core they are so committed that they have a corporate culture to listen to the customer carefully. They help their buyers stay connected and have one of the best-reaching logistics.
Pause for reflection:
- See, how you can apply this approach to your business?
- What do your customers really want?
- What do they really need?
- What problems are they facing today, how can you gain a business opportunity by helping them?
- How would turn the compelling consumer insights to action?
- What can you do today to improve that customer experience with you?
- How can you make your customers delighted?
DIY Tip : Challenge your teams to come up with non-obvious unmet need of the customers which can also be a business opportunity for you.
For more inspiration refer to:
Success secrets of Amazon
The bezosletters.com
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Jeff Bezos: The Life, Lessons & Rules for Success
Gauri Mohan 