“At every level in the organization, if people don’t understand what’s going on face-to-face with the customer, it doesn’t matter what else you’re doing.”
That’s the advice of Rhoda Olsen, CEO of Great Clips. It’s the same strategy that has driven 30 straight quarters of same-salon revenue growth. But it wasn’t always that way. Back in 2005, “We thought we were a pretty customer-focused organization, as everyone does,” says Olsen. But that year sales and customers dipped for the first time in history. This wake-up call showed Great Clips they needed to better understand the current state of their customer needs.
After conducting significant research, they discovered their brand wasn’t very well-defined and category confusion was significant. Customers had a difficult time distinguishing Great Clips’ value proposition from other salons. Read more the full interview, including an analysis of efforts, in Great Clips – Driving Organic Growth through Customer Focus Interview with CEO Rhoda Olsen.