Build Customer-Centric Ecosystems to Support Customers’ Goals

I enjoyed a recent meeting with a long-time client Colin Campbell, who is a talented entrepreneur (Upskill.co.nz) and farmer from New Zealand (sheep and Gala apples). He pointed out that the approach he has used in both his farming and his training businesses (that he claims he learned from me) has been to put the customer (student or farmer) at the center of an ecosystem of supporting stakeholders and partners.

In Colin’s case, he does this with his own home-grown customer-centric portal that is based around the tasks, goals, and timeline that each person needs to accomplish. Both students (in his case, people who are training for new jobs or better jobs) and farmers (like himself and others in his community) start from their end-goal. What job do I want to have? When do I want my crops or animals on the market?

Customers work backward from there, coming up with a game plan for how they plan to achieve that goal with all of the milestones along the way. Surrounding the students is an ecosystem of courses, teachers, tutors, employers, prospective employers, and government agencies all playing their respective parts in helping these students be successful. Surrounding the farmer is an analogous ecosystem of seed, fertilizer, and supplies manufacturers and distributors, best practices, weather forecasts, market and commodities data, agricultural research, extension services, and other farmers sharing local tips and tricks. In both cases, there are date-oriented milestones to be met, pre-requisites and tasks to be accomplished.

Perhaps your customers have a timeline-oriented set of tasks they perform over and over again. Have you thought of providing them with the tools they need to manage their own projects and to do lists and linking it to an ecosystem of peer, expert, and partner support?

Comments

[Patty Seybold]

Thanks, Scott!
High praise from you!! How's your book coming?? Can't wait to read it!

Patty

[Wilder]

now we are talking...love the post...all good points...and i like how you highlight how we can all learn from non fortune 1000 companies .. or better yet, learn from farmers, educational systems, etc....there is no reason a company can´t establish a customer centeric support organization. and understanding how to engage member of the ecosystem..... shameless plug here. at Intuit (www.quickbooksgroup.com), we try and let our users do the talking, the helping, the problem solving ...good post. keep on posting...