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| Yummy lobster! Looks great, smells great and best of all tastes great! |
This has been a weekend of gastronomic delights. Friday night was a Boston dinner prepared with tender love by the Advanced Management Program (AMP) Office of Harvard Business School (HBS). It was a delight to behold and it certainly was even more delightful to eat it. And devoured it, I did. It tastiest crustacean that I have eaten since I arrived in Boston.
HBS feeds its students great food. Three times a day, every weekday, we trek to the Kresge Hall, where the Board Room is located, and enjoy the delicious meals they prepare for us. On top of that, the service is fabulous. The service crew is very polite and attentive to our service needs.
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| Penang Restaurant with its succulent selection |
That's one more thing about the AMP. Since the participants come from all over the globe you have the great opportunity to sample and experience a variety of cultures.
Class Notes
Leadership
- Being customer-centric is not just a feel good exercise, companies that have a strong customer service strategy have outperformed the S&P 500
- Always know what are the real factors that motivate the customer, and what are the hygiene factors (the bare minimum support that is expected)
- Innovators of customer service grow at a much higher clip than companies that provide "good enough" service
Leadership and Accountability
- Avoid the "slippery slope" by taking care of the small stuff and nipping undesirable behavior in the bud
- Foster debate and responsible action
- Assign responsibility and hold people accountable in order to stimulate thinking and "ownership" of issues or process
- Manage markets, segments and customers
- Different customers play different roles for the business and need to be managed differently
- Customers fall into 4 core categories: true loyals, switchers, strategic accounts and product innovation partners
- What the market does not fully understand, it undervalues
- Some companies engage the "puffer fish" defense in order to discourage take-overs - they grow liabilities, but this adversely affects the company in the long-term
This ends another day in HBS.
