Just had the pleasure of re-reading Dick Lee’s excellent article on Customer Think using GM to illustrate the effects of inside-out thinking. Only a fool would dare to contradict him … so I won’t. But I fear that Dick has understated one important point. Apart from all the other problems that contributed to GMs demise (lack of financial planning etc.) GM was neither in their own or in their customers perception customer-adverse. Just take a look at the following slide that we regularly use during presentations:
To be ranked 3rd in a US customer service satisfaction survey shows that GM must have had some sort of connect to their clients.
The real problem, as far as we can tell today is – and this only strengthens Dicks argument – that the whole enterprise must be orientated towards the customer and not just those divisions and departments that have actual contact with the customer. So it’s not just an inside-out/outside-in but also an all (or in GMs case) nothing issue. One simply can’t be just a bit customer orientated, as anyone who has realised that no process is an island will readily admit.