In the corporate world, why can so much of the conversation be so inward?

Why can it be so process and internally metric-driven?

Why, too often, can anyone beyond customer-facing roles lose the context and “pull” of what matters to the end customer?

When you open up the next email or go to your next meeting discussing any form of change, look for

1. the context,

2. look for the who this change is benefiting and how

3. look for the understanding of the real need,

4. look for understanding of what the consequences will be for your colleagues and customers

5. Try and understand what it will look and feel like for those that need to embrace the change and what they will need to do differently.

Too often the benefits are described from the performance of the business – the fact that

1. satisfaction will rise,

2. costs will be saved

3. or risk mitigated;

The opportunity is often missed to describe the benefits for the customer (and I’m not talking internal customer) –

1. How will it make it easier for the customer to do business with us

2. What current friction will it be eliminating that will drive up satisfaction

3. What will the customer no longer need to self serve and self-process as a result of the proposed automation

4. What aspect about the customers privacy are you protecting and why is that important – is it the bare minimum of regulation, or are you going further

Is the proposal painting a picture of :-

1. “imagine a world where our customer experiences ……”

2. “Have you experienced ….. in another world ? .. imagine what this could do if we embraced this in our world.”

3. “Think about what our customers would say about us when this proposal goes well…”

4. “What’s the award winning aspect of this proposal – how will it create raving fans.”

The language, script and patterns in our business cases have become too inwardly capability, process and business performance led – it’s needed for the internal teams to rally around and understand the operational delivery needs. Still, we have lost that thread to the basics of “so what” for the customer and we need to bring it somehow back.

Who on your team is shouting about and shaping the narrative on what the change ultimately will mean for the customer – if it’s the sponsor – are they being

1. Encouraged to spend time on thinking hard about tbe vision

2. Supported with user research on pain points and value-driven opportunities

Come on, let’s realise that every funding request is, in many cases, a request to take a business to the next level – watch dragons den – listen to the questions of the investors – go to a start-up venture capitalist funding round, and see the pitches – get inspired to talk about value propositions and ultimate customer impact rather than business impact and business performance.

Come on let’s break out of the internal centred business cass mindset and get those business cases really framed from a customer perspective – customer cases maybe !