Customer Mania! It's Never Too Late To Build A Customer-focused Company

Chapter 1: Yum! Meets the One Minute Manager I have the greatest job in the world. I travel hither and yon, observing how organizations behave. I'm always looking for companies that are trying to build themselves the right way -- by focusing on their customers and creating people-first, performance-based cultures.Why is customer focus so important? Because whether you're selling pizzas or professional services, your business is not about you. It's about the people you serve. I say I'm always looking for companies that are trying to do it right because building a company the right way is a continuous journey. There is no final destination. When I find an organization on this journey, I am excited.The BeginningFour years ago I was asked to speak about customer service to an annual meeting of KFC (originally Kentucky Fried Chicken). At that conference I met David Novak, who at the time was president of Tricon -- the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. During that meeting, David told me about the journey he and his folks were on to revitalize a lackluster balance sheet by becoming a customer-centric organization. David knew that his company, like most companies, had already been giving lip service to focusing on the customer. He believed that building a company the right way meant going beyond merely listening and responding to the customer; it meant putting together a can-do team that was obsessed to go the extra mile for the customer. David intended to create nothing short of a Customer Mania culture throughout all their restaurants worldwide.Talk about an ambitious dream. In 1997 KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut had been spun off from PepsiCo to form Tricon. At that time, Tricon's balance sheet was in trouble. The new company had inherited a $4.7 billion debt and its return on invested capital hovered at a feeble 8 to 9 percent. As if that weren't a big enough challenge, in 2002 Tricon bought two additional quick service restaurant brands -- Long John Silver's and A&W All American Food Restaurants -- and in the process became by far the largest restaurant company in the world, employing some 840,000 people at nearly 33,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories. It was at this time the company changed its name to Yum! Brands. Given their financial situation and the sheer size of the enterprise, the task of creating massive cultural change was daunting, but that didn't seem to faze David. I loved that attitude. It became clear he was not just interested in creating a Customer Mania culture worldwide, he was going to do it. I would grow to admire his commitment and determination.I got to spend more time with David six months later, when he asked me to speak at an annual meeting of all the top managers from the company. This time we had a chance for some real give and take and it didn't take long for us to realize we were soul mates. In David's wanting to build a customer-focused company the right way, he was trying to implement everything I have been teaching and writing about for years. And he was doing it in one of the most difficult environments possible.A Gigantic Do-OverIn golf if you hit a bad shot and say, "I'll take a mulligan," you get to hit again. David Novak uses a similar phrase to depict what his company is up to. He said, "When my daughter, Ashley, was younger and she and her friends made a mistake in their games, they would say, 'I get a do-over.' That's what Yum! is -- a gigantic do-over."The fact that this is a giant do-over makes the task of creating a customer-focused, people-first, performance-driven culture more difficult. It is much easier to implement the concepts I have been teaching over the years when you first start a company than to take an organization that has built a different culture and head it in a new direction. Starting over means winning over skeptics and gaining buy-in for a totally new way ofBlanchard, Ken is the author of 'Customer Mania! It's Never Too Late To Build A Customer-focused Company', published 2004 under ISBN 9780743270281 and ISBN 0743270282.