Articles

Becoming Customer Centric helps GE Capital profit by $300 million

GE Capital is one of the winners of the 2007 1to1 Impact Awards that recognizes companies who have been able to inspire ideas and breathe new life into their organization. A recent article in 1to1 Magazine explains how this company expects to make a profit of $300 million by becoming more customer centric.

Net Promoter, a discipline that helps companies to profitably grow by focusing on their customers, was the recipe GE Capital’s success. The key elements of Net Promoter are establishing and defining metrics to link to growth, leadership that encourages customer focus, strategies to ensure adoption and integration with business processes, and operational systems to support the initiative. One of the notable methods of measurement with this discipline is the Net Promoter Score, a customer satisfaction survey which is calculated by the percentage of customers who are promoters subtracted by the percentage who are detractors.All of the Net Promoter elements are well demonstrated in GE Capital's 'In their shoes' campaign, a company-wide promotion encouraging employees to think from the point of view of the customer.

In one instance employees received a shoe box with a copy of The Ultimate Question of Net Promoter "Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?" printed on a card inside the box. In addition to the shoe box, GE Capital held a contest recognizing top employees demonstrating customer focused behaviour.

An internal "innovation" blog was also launched so people could share their own insights and experiences. And a customer loyalty portal was created to keep staff educated and updated on the Net Promoter Score and the overall 'In Their Shoes' status.

With all these support mechanisms for a customer-centric culture, no wonder GE Capital is expected to go from $1.5 billion profit in 2005 to $1.8 billion for the 2006 fiscal.

If you would like to become more customer centric, consider developing a customer advisory panel with Vision Critical. Since 2000, we've developed 150 panels for organizations such as Liz Claiborne Inc., RIM Blackberry, Cleveland Clinic, Nestle, Valvoline, Telus, Virgin Mobile, WestJet and Sirius Satellite Radio. If you would like to learn how we can help your organization, contact Julie Romas at julie.romas@visioncritical.com or call 604.647.3557.

Posted on February 4, 2007
Permalink