Excellent Customer Experience lessons from Sam Walton to help you be LEGENDARY!

Written by Sonal Jaiswal | Evangelist, Customer Guru

Last week, we learnt some amazing lessons on Customer Experience from Tony Hsieh. This week, we have CEx lessons from, Sam Walton, the founder of one of the most iconic retail companies – Walmart. The company was started way back in 1962 and has grown in leaps and bounds since. It operates over 11,000 stores across 28 countries, employs over 2.2 million people across the world and ranked first on the 2014 Fortune 500 list of the world’s largest companies by revenue.

Here are some Customer Experience lessons that every business can learn and use in growing themselves:

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

Need we explain this anymore!?

“The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers.”

The concept of engaged employees resulting in engaged customers is definitely not new. Every organization must not only attract good employees but also retain them. Create a positive culture that employees would love to be a part of. Train them and empower them to help you build the organization. And once an employee is satisfied, he will spread the positive vibes to the customer!

“Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.”

It is really not surprising that the greatest entrepreneurs of all-time have the same advice to give. Going beyond your call of duty and exceeding the expectations of the customer leads to customer loyalty, increased positive word-of-mouth and reduced customer churn. And what better advertising and marketing than word-of-mouth?

“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.”

With the cut-throat competition across all the industries, best is the new mediocre. Organization cannot afford to miss a single opportunity to WOW its customer. It is only the ‘legendary’ that will last!

Are there any other such business leaders that have inspired you make your organization more customer centric? Let us know and we will be more than glad to bring in some lessons from them!