by Mandisa Makubalo, founder of Unlimited Experiences

What is "Customer First Talk"? How does this look, tangibly, and how does a company recognize that it’s moved beyond ‘customer first talk’ to delivering value for its customers?

"Customer first talk" is all about putting the customer first, in simple terms, it is when a business puts the needs and requirements of a customer ahead of anything and everything else. Such a business is one that strives to build healthy lasting relationships with their customers by identifying their needs and providing the best possible experience to the customer". This kind of talk must come from a much deeper place, than stringing together clever words and phrases to sell products and services. Furthermore, customer first talk should carry an authentic voice that solves problems, delivers great customer experiences and stands for something. Customer-first talk should never start at the point of physical engagement with the customer, it starts before the design of the product or service. How much is the customer involved in the define, ideation and prototyping phase, how are the customer's need reflected in the business processes, systems, technology and across the entire value chain?

The starting point for delivering value is not just talking about it, it is understanding the end to end journeys customers take to accomplish tasks such as purchasing your products/services, opening up an account, signing up/registration process, experiencing your product or services, dispute resolution etc. Customer journeys are often quite complex running across websites (including all browsing types), social media platforms, customer care centres and other interaction points. In today's business world value is delivered through interaction points that are managed by multiple different functions within the business such as sales, marketing, operations and stores. Understanding these journeys is crucial because they are the unifying principle for the business, and this is where value is delivered to customers. Employees are required to stop thinking only about their own functions and individual tasks but to rather start thinking about customer journeys as this is where the value lies for the customer. Each part of the business must deliver consistent, timely and relevant content as part of a complete customer journey experience.

Let us look at a coffee shop, delivering value does not start at the point where the Barista makes the coffee for the customer but starts at the point of deciding which cups to buy, coffee choice, the colour of the cups, the design on the cups, the logo, the quality of coffee beans, the milk, the sugar, the coffee making machine, the type of spoons, the ambience of the coffee shop, the staff, these are all part of the complete customer journey experience, delivering value is across all these interaction points.

Delivering value is not the responsibility of customer-facing business areas though in today's times this responsibility is left in the hands of these areas. It is a matter of organizational culture. So, how is your business delivering customer value?

Mandisa Makubalo is the founder of Unlimited Experiences, co-founder of WasteMinders, and Customer Experience Advocate. She is a highly experienced serial entrepreneur and change-maker. She is the founder of Unlimited Experiences SA, the first 100% black-owned customer experience management consultancy in South Africa, a business that helps companies become more customer experience centric. She is also the Co-Founder and CEO of a waste management non-profit organization called Waste Minders NPS, a company driving economic development through waste management and creating awareness around environmental degradation. Mandisa has studied and worked in customer environments for most of her professional career - her expertise lies in Strategic Planning, Design and Implementation and Service Excellence. Mandisa has been recognised and awarded for her exceptional leadership qualities throughout her career.