Customer Focus Teams

To respond to customer needs and ensure customer satisfaction, develop close relationships with customers, and equalize the management structure, many companies have created cross-functional customer care or customer focus teams. These teams provide customers with “one-stop shopping.”

Each team has complete ownership of its accounts and is empowered to decide how to serve each of its customers. The team incorporates each service function such as sales, service, and accounting into a single team structure to better meet all the needs of its specific customers. A mindset of continuous improvement in customer experience is cultivated. Teams take corrective action to resolve daily problems and have access to information that allows them to plan and control their operations and improve their performance. The teams are self-managing, with work allocated on the basis of skills and strengths, rather than a job title alone. This structure allows team members to provide fast turnaround on each customer's concerns. The role of manager of a self-managing team is similar to that of a sports coach, helping team members develop their skills and knowledge rather than telling them what to do and trying to control them.

The goal of a customer focus team consists of developing interdependence and joint responsibility for results. Instead of work being organized from the top down in the traditional manner, with processes reduced to individual steps that quickly become boring and repetitive, work is structured around whole processes. The team-based approach considers the fit of each team member with the work that needs to be done.

Some advantages of ownership and self-management are personalized customer service and improved internal communication. Customers feel more comfortable when they know ahead of time with whom they will be dealing each time they call. Team members in turn gain an in-depth knowledge of the needs and expectations of each customer and share this information with each other. There would be no advantage in an individual team member hoarding knowledge, as pay is determined based on the success of the team as a whole and the company's profitability.

Self-managing teams do not just magically happen overnight. In the beginning it can take two or more years and several stages of development before a team achieves the objective of self-management. Comprehensive training is required in basic management skills such as time management, problem solving, and decision making. This training, along with functional cross-training, is critical to enabling team members to manage their own operations.

To fully realize his or her potential, each team member not only needs to receive cross-functional training but also the support of entrepreneurial and experienced managers who understand the self-management approach. These managers should be able to drive team initiatives and actively work with team members to build ongoing customer relationships to increase profitability for the company through better customer experience.

Teams should not become “customer silos” instead of “functional silos”; members must work to share systems, policies, processes, and people so that the results can be quickly tested and replicated. A winning team is a team that provides superior customer service and achieves high customer satisfaction leading to increased profitability and higher volume. The senior management needs to continually fine-tune the structure, systems, roles, and processes of the team to meet the changing needs and increasing complexity of both their own company and the customer's business.

To achieve corporate goals, customer focus teams must make customer satisfaction the top priority and have a consensual understanding of the organization’s vision and mission and their role in the organization as both an individual and a team member. Team members must work together to plan, make decisions, resolve their differences, and build trust among each other. Team members must understand their limits and recognize what is and is not possible and learn to walk before they try to run. Teams should set goals for continuous improvement in inputs, processes, outputs, and measurable results.

 

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