Too many leaders try to make their business grow by chasing more customer transactions, rather than enhancing customer experience and advocacy. This growth-at-all-costs approach can actually come at the greatest cost to the business – its long-term viability – as it is not sustainable growth.
Novated lease company Alliance Leasing has invested heavily in customer experience, retaining clients who move jobs.
According to the 2024 McKinsey Growth Leaders Mindset Survey, maintaining a customer-centric approach is one of five key mindsets required to unlock sustained growth. Yet only 15 per cent of leaders consistently incorporate customer input into their business decisions and just 23 per cent regularly engage with their customers.
The survey also reveals that when considering growth initiatives, leaders admit only 22 per cent of their time is focused on strategies beyond the next five years, as they are sidetracked by short-term tasks.
Leadership coach Brad Giles, the author of Bigger Isn’t Better, Better Is Better, says leaders can feel pressure to achieve endless growth, as well as growth for growth’s sake. However, he says the most effective way to grow a business sustainably is having customers who advocate on its behalf.
Building genuine connection
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Giles claims if leaders want a better business, they also need to find a way for their customers to stay long term.
“Every business will say that the customer is the most important thing, but they probably don’t act in that way,” he says. “Where’s the demonstrable evidence [of that] other than having a commodity in the market?
Leadership coach and author Brad Giles says getting customers to advocate on behalf of a company can underpin sustained growth.
“You’ve got to meet their need better than anyone else. You’ve got to expand on the value that they receive so that you can gain their trust and earn their loyalty over time.”
Giles says in today’s environment, customers can be sceptical, making it harder for businesses to earn the trust and loyalty to build longer-term, meaningful and valued relationships.
“A customer might be loyal to a local shop because they’ve got a good personal experience with the shopkeeper, but they don’t fully trust that it will fully stock what they need,” he says. “You need these multiple elements to create that advocacy.”
Novated lease company Alliance Leasing believes it has created that advocacy, which general manager Guy Ewin reports is underpinning organic growth.
“A lot of it is word of mouth and repeat business,” he says. “We’ve adopted customer service from a sales perspective which is really important from the front end, but also from our accounts perspective from the back end.
“We look after people’s vehicles for five years, so, from our perspective, our accounts team and how they manage people moving forward for the five years is probably more important [than sales].
“We find as people change careers, change roles, go to different organisations, they want to transfer their novated lease [with them] and don’t want to leave us.
“That gives us our foot in the door for a new client or a new employer. Once we’re in, we then typically become the supplier of choice.”
‘Your call is important to us’, really
Alliance Leasing’s customer-centric approach, which has helped drive it onto this year’s AFR Fast 100 list, revolves around basic principles such as consultants answering calls within three rings and responding to emails within two hours.
Alliance Leasing general manager Guy Ewin.
Each consultant is trained to handle any type of inquiry, so callers are not put on hold or transferred between departments. But it also devises initiatives based on what customers would want, such as providing expense reimbursements on the same day when receipts are submitted before 2pm, rather than making the customer wait weeks for payment.
Customer service is so important that Ewin says it withdraws from tenders or declines clients if he feels a project will put at risk its quality of service. Alliance Leasing’s workplace culture, which encourages open communication and feedback by everyone – including Ewin himself – also helps enhance customer experience.
The group has a relatively flat managerial structure, with Ewin taking a hands-on leadership approach; his workspace sits between the accounts and sales employees so he can be part of the team.
He says Alliance Leasing does not have a high turnover of staff, who are usually in the office most days of the week, despite hybrid work opportunities.
“There are a lot of jokes, a lot of banter, but everyone works really hard while they’re here,” he says. “I’m the first one to jump on the phone if there is an issue and lead from the front; I’m not sitting back in a dark room looking at spreadsheets.”
Giles says a workplace where employees want to work does mirror the customer experience.
“In some corporations, people get treated as a number and they don’t like that,” he says. “So, if we’re going to build genuine advocacy, we have got to build some soul into the business. We have got to have relationships that are genuine.
“If we are able to build soulful relationships with customers, where we actually care and we don’t treat the employees or the customers like just a number, we can build more long-term value within those customer relationships.”
