Tag Archives: twitter

Customer Centric Leadership in Action – A lesson from Elon Musk

tesla_charging_station

One of the central tenets of being a customer centric leader is listening to customer feedback and responding with action.

There is no better recent example than Elon Musk’s response to a customer complaining about the Tesla charging stations being used simply as car spaces.

The Tesla customer complaining happens to be Loic Le Meur, a fellow entrepreneur and major tech influencer, with 130k followers on twitter. You could argue that probably holds more weight than just your average customer but clearly the issue was one bubbling up and on Elon’s mind.

Here is the interchange from the two on twitter below:

elon_musk_twitter_response

Loic’s tweet was responded to within 20 minutes and within 7 days the press announced “Tesla to begin charging idle fees to those remaining on the charger beyond a full charge”

As the team at OfficeChai reported:

“Tesla was going to charge $0.40 for every minute a fully charged Tesla would stand at its parking stations after a five minute grace period. This simple change would ensure that people wouldn’t leave their cars at parking stations, preventing others from using them.

And what’s incredible is the pace at which the product change was implemented. Tesla might still call itself a startup, but it hardly is one – it has over 30,000 employees, and large engineering teams. To have a product feature conceptualized, implemented and shipped in a week is nothing short of miraculous.”

Now this might not be the perfect solution but Tesla will listen to customers and refine further as needed.

This is what customer centric leadership looks like in action, in this case led from the top. Elon’s expectation is that everyone in Tesla is listening to customers and responding to continually refine and improve the experience and value being offered.

Are you are customer centric leader? Find out more in our book, the Customer Culture Imperative

 

JetBlue uses Twitter – Listens to Customers, Grabs New Business

Part of the reason I haven’t been blogging as much as I should be is because I have been “micro-blogging” on this fascinating site called Twitter.  If you haven’t heard of this yet, check out their FAQs or read a Newsweek article. Find out how it can be used by businesses through CIO Insight.

Today I’m drawn in by a video interview of the guys that created the site on FastCompany TV.  (And for those keeping track at home, I found out about the video on Twitter.)  At 12:23 into the video came a story about how JetBlue uses Twitter.  It was fascinating and one of the most eye-opening examples of fantastically strong market culture in action.

JetBlue set up an account and used it to monitor comments about the company.  Then they started offering real time deals.  All along they were listening to the community and when folks were gearing up for South by Southwest (an annual tech/music festival in Austin, TX) but couldn’t find flights, JetBlue jumped in and offered more flights.  Awesome marketing and awesome market culture!

Customer Insight – knowing where the spot demand was

Competitor Awareness – everyone else must be booked too

Collaborative Networks – real time info from the clients influenced an operational decision, “Can we give them more flights?”  “You betcha!”

Decision Making with a Long-term Focus – what kind of positive buzz and customer loyalty do you think that little profitable move made?

Leadership – it was a corporate decision to engage the customer at this level, evidenced here

I am a huge fan of Twitter and stories like this are empowering.  Jeremiah Owyang runs Web Strategy by Jeremiah where he outlined some additional tools you can use to improve your Twitter experience.  I recommend you check that out if/when you set up an account.  Then be sure and follow me!