From burgers to relocations, customer-centric businesses lead the way

Customer-centric design is critical across industries, including in the world of fast food, where market top dog McDonald’s made a splash recently by announcing its first global chief customer officer.

It’s the burger behemoth’s “latest step to improve the digital and in-person customer experience,” CNBC reports. Marketing, data analytics, digital customer engagement and McDonald’s new loyalty program will all fall under the new role.

Now’s the point in the post where you might ask yourself, “What’s so complex about the ‘experience’ at McDonald’s? Don’t people just want their Big Macs?” But if you stop and think about it, you can probably identify a number of other things that can factor into a fast-food experience. Do I have a lot of menu items to choose from? Can I get my meal quickly? Is my order correct and my food still hot? Can I order from my smartphone if I want to? If I’m dining in, is the environment clean and comfortable? If I want food to go, are there different options for that?

It’s these kinds of questions and more that give rise to a chief customer officer. It’s all about the experience a customer has with a brand, not just the service they receive. To build true brand loyalty, businesses must fine tune their experiences — gaps or missteps might lead a customer to take their business elsewhere.

In mobility, we don’t quite have customers in the same way McDonald’s does, but our relocating employees are similar to patrons who walk through the golden arches. They want a good experience with their move, in the same way that they want a good experience when dining out. And if they have a negative experience, it may sour their opinion on their role or your whole company — which is not good news for talent attraction and retention efforts.

Think about some of those example questions above and apply them to the mobility experience you’re providing today. Do relocating employees have a variety of benefit options to choose from? Will they receive prompt attention and service? Can they use technology to access their benefits in a way that works best for them? How you address these questions can start to shape your “mobility philosophy” and — if you’re taking a customer-centric approach — give you a leg up in the competition for top talent.