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Perhaps you read the last section and think that you are the rare exception. You are saying to yourself, “Steve’s right; most companies aren’t customer driven. Thank goodness we have stressed a customer-driven orientation so much in my organization.”

Let me see if I can’t convince you that you probably have more work to do.

Let’s take a look at something as simple as your invoices. Not every organization invoices customers, but most do. (If you are a retailer, your receipt is analogous to the invoice. Some of this won’t apply exactly to you, but I think you’ll get the gist.) Few processes are as common to all businesses as the mundane invoice, yet consider how customer driven the invoice is for most companies.

When do you send your customers an invoice? How do you send your customers an invoice? What do your invoices look like? What are the terms? Most importantly, who determines what information is printed on that invoice? Who determines when it goes out, how it is sent, and even why it is sent?

If you are truly customer driven, it is your customer who should decide these things. In most companies I’ve observed, the last person who should have this responsibility is some-how the one who has been selected: Carl, the company comptroller; Olivia, the office manager; or Betty, the bulldog of accounts receivable. The absolute worst is companies that allow the computer guy to decide how the invoices should work. These people all tend to focus on the internal. When left to their own devices, they build processes that are company friendly. The invoices are easy to administer, standardized for internal benefit, and able to be batched and disseminated on a fixed schedule. By nature, these team members are not customer focused. They are task focused. Unless you have a training or incentive program that changes their focus, they are not concentrating on eking out extra sales or continually increasing customer retention.