Every organisation has a set of values, most even live by them, but how many have successfully embedded the right behaviours that reflect those values every day?

This weekend I read an interesting anecdote in What the customer wants you to know that led me to think about this.
A senior manager of a financial services organisation shares his experience with the author.

“I went around and I asked everybody I saw what were their great achievements in the last year. And not one person’s answer included the word ‘customer,’” he says. “There was stuff about ‘I integrated twelve products into one’ or ‘we migrated this to that’ or ‘we had four products’ and ‘we hit this target or that target.’ But not one person mentioned the customer.”

A business where stories about customer satisfaction or success don’t emerge naturally could indicate potential trouble. This anecdote is a good reminder and example of how stories can be used to assess behaviours at work.

Encouraging stories to emerge constantly and looking out for patterns in these stories could help managers to detect both changing customer needs and the ability of staff to respond to the customer.

When was the last time you heard or told a great customer story?