Cambridge Business Association
The Customer Culture Imperative
Book

The Customer Culture Imperative

A Leader’s Guide to Driving Superior Performance

Linden Brown and Christopher Brown
McGraw-Hill, 2014
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Editorial Rating

8

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  • Applicable

Recommendation

Today’s businesses compete in a world of rapidly shifting customer preferences, crafty competitors, new technologies, volatile economies and daily disruptions – any of which can turn a firm’s world upside down. Marketing experts and father-son team Dr. Linden R. Brown and Chris L. Brown offer a realistic perspective, warning that firms can’t limit their focus to customers and must also watch and learn from their employees, competitors and society. getAbstract recommends this refreshingly wide view of customer engagement – including the need for committed, collaborative staff members and a willingness to view the business through multiple lenses – to leaders of companies of any size.

Summary

Let The Customer Lead

Nothing you can do for your business matters more than developing a customer-centric culture. Customer culture rests on the belief of every person in your organization that when customers win, you win. Holding on to this value requires fortitude, discipline and a long-term view. Leaders, employees and investors must trust that serving customers’ best interests today – even if it means missing short-term opportunities for fast profits – pays lasting dividends down the road.

Amazon consistently proves its commitment to its customers by foregoing profits – and disappointing shareholders – while honoring the conviction that customers will reward Amazon with loyalty. From its IPO in 1997 through 2013, Amazon’s shares grew almost 2,000% in value.

A customer-centric attitude pervades every decision at Zane Cycles in Connecticut. One customer arranged for the store to display in its shop window the new bike she had bought her husband for his birthday. On the night of his birthday, she brought him past the shop, but was devastated that the bike wasn’t there. An employee had forgotten. Zane’s owner sprang into action. He waived the 50% she owed on...

About the Authors

Father-and-son marketing experts Dr. Linden R. Brown, who heads a firm that measures the strength of corporate cultures, and Chris L. Brown, a consultant, live in Silicon Valley, CA.

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