Voice of the CCO: Tammy McLeod on How Customer Centricity Impacts the Bottom Line
Tammy McLeod, VP & Chief Customer Officer of Arizona Public Service Company (APS) and the Chief Customer Officer Council's 2010 Chief Customer Officer of the Year shares how satisfying customers contributes directly to her organization's bottom line.
Transcript for Voice of the CCO: Tammy McLeod on How Customer Centricity Impacts the Bottom Line
As the executive director of the Chief Customer Officer Council, I've always been passionate about customer centricity particularly in the area of measuring results and proving value. Tammy McLeod is a member of the Chief Customer Officer Council and the Council’s 2010 Chief Customer Officer of the Year.
In a recent conversation I had with her, I asked her, “What are some of the ways in which customer centricity has had a measurable impact on your company’s bottom line?”
“I think the first thing I think of immediately is the fact that satisfied customers are just easier to deal with. When they are happier and they're getting great service from us, we can be pretty sure that the next time that we have to work with them on a project, on a transaction, or something else, it's going to run much smoother than it would if we're entering into that transaction with a dissatisfied customer.
Overall, I think there's some new research out there that organizations like J.D. Power & Associates have shared with us that show (in our industry, at least) that the operating margins of those companies that are maintaining a higher customer satisfaction are actually higher as well.
And we're a regulated business so, frankly, while sometimes it may be hard to show how being focused on customers is contributing to our bottom line since we have to go out and ask for a rate increase maybe on an every two-year basis, going out and getting a rate increase is going to be a whole lot more difficult if our customers are dissatisfied.
The other thing to consider is that because of some of the mergers and acquisitions that have actually taken place, J.D. Power & Associates is in the same family as the S&P 500.
And so, frankly, the information that we've seen would suggest that the J.D. Power customer satisfaction scores are actually being used as an input into those ratings; that definitely affects our bottom line.”