Picking up on the idea that I raised in this post – one of the things that a group of creative employees challenged to Design a way for us to deliver such a powerful customer experience that each of our customers brings new customers to us might do is to create a word of mouth channel. This is an example of the kind of operational / organisational change that would need to occur in order to start delivering a different approach.
So, in addition to existing web, telephone, direct, intermediated channels etc, all of which are supported by organisational structures and resources, there could also be a word of mouth channel. With budget. With business plans.
Of course this is just illustrative, and word of mouth could easily apply across the other channels in any event as people on the web tell other people on the web about a company for instance. But as an interim step in testing, learning, and building capability it’s a sensible one.
And then once your business has started to capture some volume via this new channel, and has the metrics in place to prove it, then how much easier it will be to take the next step forward and re-organise even more in order to more meaningfully align to word of mouth as a core strategy.
This is only one possible way in which a group of committed, empowered and creative employees could deliver change – based on being asked a different kind of question to the one that usually gets asked. It may not be the way for your company. But why not ask yourself some different questions and see what kind of answers you come up with – even if they’re just theoretical ones for now. The answers might surprise you. Might make you want to do some things a little bit differently.
