This year I attended INBOUND, an event (and community) that celebrates the human side of business. It’s a group of people who are passionate about marketing and delighting customers, and connecting with others who have that same ambition.

Here are some memorable truths I came away with regarding the power of a culture that truly cares about the customer.

Culture Defines Your Destiny

At the conference, Dharmesh Shah, Cofounder and CTO of HubSpot, talked about an underlying theme of the conference: culture is what defines the destiny of a company. “To grow better, you need a culture that puts the customer first,” said Dharmesh.

And this can’t just be the trendy kind of version of this concept. “It’s the trendy versus truth problem. It’s trendy to say, ‘We’re customer obsessed.’ Truth is, companies are often self-obsessed,” he explained.

So what are some ways we can continue to improve our culture with our focus on the customer?

Here are just a few ways he presented:

Earn customer’s attention. Don’t steal it.

Give people something of value, before you take something of value—like their time! Said another way, create a culture where you provide value before you extract value. When asked, 85 percent of people said they think less of a company that reaches out to them without getting permission, and that’s not all that surprising today.

Don’t make your company’s process the customer’s problem.

For example, what happens when a new customer comes onboard at your company? What if they want to skip a step when it comes to onboarding? Let them!Don’t add unnecessary friction to the process. “Solve for [the customer’s] success. Not your systems,” explained Dharmesh.

After all, customer success is your success, so make sure people are able to make decisions accordingly. “They don’t care that you have a customer success team and an account management team and a customer support team and they all report to different people who may or may not like each other. Customers don’t care. They want their question answered and they want their problems solved,” he said.

Own your mistakes.

“Own your screw ups. We all make mistakes. Just say sorry, be sorry, and make it better,” said Dharmesh. Key emphasis on making it better and learning from your mistakes, I might add!

Make your pricing open, clear, and fair.

If you just can’t imagine your pricing being available online, at least try to give some guidance. The data even shows that most people would leave if they believe the pricing is too confusing to figure out. “Unless you’re working at a monopoly where there are no alternatives, the absence of pricing information is friction…”
Think about Blockbuster. When the media and analysts looked into Blockbuster’s failure, the most commonly cited customer complaint was uncovered. That complaint: the extended viewing fee…also known as the late fee. But customers interpreted that as greediness and unfairness from Blockbuster.The point: think about your pricing (and even how you invoice), and think of how you’d react if you were the customer. Empathize with how they might be feeling.

Don’t block the exit.

You are making it easy to buy; make it easy to cancel, too. It may seem counter-intuitive, but think of the experiences you’ve had when you just couldn’t easily figure out how to cancel a subscription or a service. You want customers who WANT to stick around! If you make it easier to cancel, more people will buy. It’s less friction.

All, in all, how do you grow better? “The answer is simple…not easy, but simple. Do the right thing. Treat people with respect. Treat them like you’d want them to be treated…Do the right thing even when it’s hard,” said Dharmesh.

It may be hard to let a customer go, for example, but it’s doing right by the customer. “When you do the right thing for the customer, all those moments together is what creates delighted customers, and customer love is the most powerful force you can apply…”