Organization Cultures - Is yours Customer Centric?

In one of my earlier posts, I discussed that employee satisfaction is directly proportional to customer satisfaction. Recently, while reading about customer loyalty and how each organization considers "loyalty" differently, I started thinking about organization cultures and how employees are a big part of it.

Like each culture has its own set of beliefs and traditions and thus its own way to define faith, similarly we will find that organizations, over time, develop their own culture. This culture does not always come from the top down, it sometimes flows the other way. Whichever direction the beliefs are passed, the culture has an impact on how the customer sees the organization. 

As customers, when defining a customer oriented organization, we say, the organization has a "culture of customer satisfaction". Well what does that mean? In my books, it means that its employees have an intrinsic orientation towards customer satisfaction. And as all followers of any faith, are quite passionate about it. 

Similar to its impact on the customer perception, an organization's culture also has a direct influence on its direction and growth. Consider this, if an organization has a well defined and functional culture, which postulates beliefs that the whole of the organization adheres to and works towards, you can expect to see this organization becoming successful quickly. On the other hand, if an organization with a varied set of beliefs, each one taking the organization towards disparate goals will see the organization fall behind as it tries to get its "act together".

So who are the prophets and followers in an organization culture. The employees of course. They are the ones who follow the beliefs and align themselves to the culture. They are both the followers and also the prophets. When they interact with customers, they are, in my view, prophecizing the organizations culture. The degree of their faith and acceptance of the culture is easily seen in their passion about the company in these interactions. The orientation towards customer centricity can also be determined by the customer perception and understanding of the organizational "beliefs". 

Try to look at your organization, you will see a set of beliefs that define your company. Are these beliefs customer focused? In my opinion that will tell you how customer centric your organization is "at its core".