1to1 Magazine Demo

On the Beat we love it by Mila D’Antonio Speaking Up Bob Johnson, Chief Customer Officer, Century Furniture Family owned Century Furniture has been manufacturing high-end furniture for 60 years. Over the past few years, however, Johnson has helped steer the company away from its traditional roots to a more customer-centric operating model. Here he discusses how he has worked to incorporate a customer-focused mind-set across the enterprise. T-Mobile Ends the Contract Battle Hate long-term cell phone contracts? In August T-Mobile became the first national carrier to offer month-to-month plans. This means customers who choose that plan will pay full retail price for a new cell phone, but won’t have to face early termination fees. Thumbs up to T-Mobile. Now when customers want to switch phones or plans, they won’t feel like they need to hire an attorney. thinking? what were they cing A La Carte Pri Airlines Force lden era of Century is a traditional manufacturing company that is evolving to become customer centric. Describe how you’re achieving that. We are a traditional furniture manufacturer. We’ve been in the business for 60 years. We have always had good customer service and thought we were doing a good job, but realized we needed to improve. As our business has shifted, there are fewer furniture retailers so we are focusing more on designers. More retailers are going out of business so we’re trying to focus on design accounts…. One of our initiatives is an attempt to change the DNA in our company so we’re not just a customer service department, but every employee at Century needs to recognize that they are in customer service. We have had good success through recognition, promotion, and training…we’re starting to move the needle so everybody recognizes that something they do is affected down the line. Can you describe the process involved in shifting a traditional culture to think in this new way? Changing the DNA has been a positive. One of our other initiatives is to survey and talk to our customers.… The most important thing is to have support from the very top. Our president is very supportive and placed us “One of our initiatives is an as a top priority. attempt to change the DNA Having that high level of in our company so we’re support and then feeding that not just a customer service into the organization has helped. department.” We’re also getting the entire organization to recognize that we’re selling an experience. Your company is focused on the entire customer experience. In what ways are you trying to improve service? When you have bought our upholstery, we did not build it until we received the order—a customized process. Now we have changed our casegoods to the sme process, where you can get any item in 60 different finishes. It’s a whole different manufacturing model. It’s more in line with the designers. We’re continuing product training internally, and for our customers we want as much information into our showrooms and into the desingers’ hands. ONLINE EXTRA: View a video interview with Maria Parasugo, vice president of design, sales, and marketing at Century Furniture about the company’s service strategy. Go to www.1to1media.com/links/centuryfurniture.html go fe to say the It’s pretty sa Pan American ended in the air travel ane passenys. Today’s pl charges. and TWA da bevy of new nce a gers experie w charges example, no d passenJetBlue, for and pillow, an for a blanket $7 g room too. hase extra le gers can purc for exit row arges $15 to conNorthwest ch charges $15 rough s; American seat ok directly th don’t bo sumers who t airlines nd while mos nd the airline. A check a seco passengers to es for charge an charge fe d Americ bag, Spirit an st when you ju ggage. And all checked lu ’t get crazier, t fees couldn though the cost of es has raised Frontier Airlin ck of antlers from $75 a ra transporting to $100. the A fee to use What’s next? bathrooms? “No one wants to hear ‘you’re just like so-and-so.’ They want to feel their experience is personalized.” — Karen Walker, vce president of marketing, Technology Solutions Group, HP Americas, Hewlett-Packard Co. www.1to1media.com September/October 2008 17 http://www.1to1media.com/links/centuryfurniture.html http://www.1to1media.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of 1to1 Magazine Demo

1to1 Magazine Demo Contents 1to1media.com Editor's Note Feedback Putting Care in Patients' Hands Loyalty at Work Redefining the Contact Center Agent Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Cigna Dental Drills for Loyal Customers On the Beat 19 Ways to Succeed Miami Heat Schools Its Staff on Sales and Service Marketing Lends a Helping Hand More Than Meets the Eye Customer Service by Committiee Textron's Business Soars by Tracking Customer Loyalty Resources Contact Center Agent as Trusted Advisor Mastering Global CRM Face to Face with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.