A lot of leaders call their companies customer-centric. But if you say it to Sue Swenson, you better mean it. The president and CEO of Sage North America can spot the difference between a customer-focused culture and what she calls “the program du jour” or mere initiative.
“To be customer-focused needs to be at the core of everything you do, not a program that is one-off,” she says. “It would be interesting to go into a meeting within the company and see how many times the customer is discussed and, frankly, when is the last time you spoke to a customer.”
If you eavesdropped on a monthly meeting at Sage, a subsidiary of U.K.-based Sage Group plc that provides business management software and services to 3.1 million companies, you’d hear the customer popping up more frequently in conversation — especially if you sneaked in during the last year. Since coming on board in May 2008, Swenson has zeroed in on the customer experience.
Traveling around the country to hear about it from both customers and employees, she learned the Sage experience wasn’t consistent. She wasn’t surprised. After all, Sage acquired more than 20 companies since 1998, each with its own customer service methods.
Swenson wanted to tap the potential of her 4,100 employees to provide a recognizable experience that would keep customers coming back and spreading the word. That overhaul required more than a one-time alignment — it meant setting in motion a cycle of improvement by sparking the ongoing conversation about how employees are serving customers and how they can do it better.
The steps she took to align the company’s approach are the same ones she uses to keep improving the customer experience at Sage.
“It really does take us challenging each other,” Swenson says. “It takes people who keep questioning that and keep pushing and providing an environment where people feel comfortable raising the question. …
“It can’t be an overlay. You really have to crack open everything that you’re doing and be conscious about asking yourself: Is that really a customer-centric approach to that?”
