Customer Focus

Well I told you I would be away for a few weeks on the BMC ITIL v3 tour, today is Seoul (having already completed Beijing and Shanghai). Great attendance at each location, today over 180. We also got some great press coverage in China, one headline I’m told read “ITIL V3 the Harry Potter books for IT”, though I have to take their word for it! I think it was referring to the demand for the books!!

Just wanted to relay some good customer focussed processes to you from my travels. We all talk about “IT should now have a Business Focus” or perspective, which is correct, the Business should have a Customer Focus or perspective, actually as the Business is IT’s customer, IT should have a Customer focus too. Let me give you a great example from the Grand Intercontinental Hotel here in Seoul, - they have a customer focus.

The BMC co-ordinator for this tour, Amy You, had arranged for the hotel airport collection service to meet me at the airport last night. Now when someone travels so much, the only thing they look forward to is a hassle free journey with everything as easy as possible. This hotel has thought that too. When I was met at Arrival, and my luggage taken from me (nice!), we got to the car and once inside I was handed my room key and details. They had already checked me in, allocated the room and provided me with the key, no queuing at the Desk. Once I arrived at the hotel, I was greeted by a receptionist and escorted to my room (with my luggage following, not 10mins later). So no getting lost, or trying to find which direction the room is once out of the elevator. Once in the room, they took my payment details, explained the facilities in the room and left. Perfect. Now someone thought from the Customers perspective!

We need to start doing the same, not just responding to what we think is needed or requested, but actually find out and then deliver.

The Business wants and needs to please the Customer to ensure a satisfied customer and a repeat customer who will provide the most effective sales and marketing possible, personal recommendation, generating future new clients.

Finally I need to just mention a funny story! We’re all tired from all the travel, late flights early mornings, so when we arrived in Korea one of the party (I shall name no names), asked our host what version of Chinese they spoke!!! He was tired, this was after almost missing one flight having mislaid his boarding pass and at the gate needing to empty his entire shoulder bag onto the floor to find it. More stories will follow I’m sure. I won’t mention asking how they managed to get the ice into the bottled water!!