Your customers, both external and internal, are asking: Why you? Why now? What makes you relevant? More important, they will ask the same question every day into the future. Remaining relevant is your biggest challenge for long-term success.

When was the last time you answered these three questions from the perspective of your client or customer: Why you? Why now? What makes you relevant?

Better yet, when was the last time that you asked them for their candid feedback?

It’s important to ask on a regular basis because your customers are evaluating you every day.

What it means to be relevant

Steve Martin always responds with the same answer when asked about making it in show business: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

That’s a great answer, but it depends on how you define “making it.”

If making it means being famous, talent isn’t a requirement these days. William Hung landed a record deal and saw his cover of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” top 2 million You Tube views. That’s quite a return from an American Idol audition that redefines the word “bad.”

The only way to classify Hung as relevant is if the question is, “How can I get a cheap laugh at someone else’s expense?”

Why defining relevance is difficult

If this feels a little squishy or perhaps even slightly irrelevant, you have identified the problem. Relevance is relative. Creating a concise definition is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. It is possible for a while, but over time it starts to break down.

Defined metrics such as service level agreements are tangible indicators, but those don’t necessarily ensure your relevance. Customers determine your relevance by weighing factors that are both tangible and intangible. Sometimes it can even be a situational blend of the two.

A CIO client recently confided that morale on the App Development Team had recently taken a hit when it was labeled irrelevant by one of her C-Suite colleagues. The team prided itself on meeting all of the tangible and agreed upon requirements. The customer, on the other hand, determined relevance and justified the need to bring in an outside resource based on an intangible feeling that the internal group wasn’t in tune with what he needed.

Why relevance matters

Presence on the S&P isn’t the only measure of a company’s success, but it is still considered to be the best indicator of how large U.S. stocks perform. The downward trend of presence on that list proves that creative destruction is alive and well.

In 1965, publicly-traded companies maintained a spot on the S&P 500 list for an average of 33 years. By 1990, the number had dropped to 20 years. The average length of time on the S&P 500 list is projected to drop to 14 years by 2026.

You are likely to become irrelevant long before it becomes obsolete. Does that frustrate or even scare you? It should.

How you remain relevant

Remaining relevant is about remaining your customers’ choice year after year. It is that special form of success that has Steve Martin continuing to star in films and sell out venues for his comedy and music over 45 years after making his first appearance on The Tonight Show. It is why Martin is still considered relevant when many of his talented contemporaries and William Hung have slipped into obscurity.

Here are five ideas to keep you and your team so relevant that you are impossible to forget.

1 Watch for the signs of impending irrelevance

Irrelevance in your operation means that you cease to matter or be important based on the criteria by which your customers evaluate your contribution.

No one intends to become irrelevant. It is exceedingly rate that one event renders them obsolete. More often it is a slow death that is easy to miss unless you are watching. Here are a few of the symptoms:

  • Being forced to compete on price even if you are not in a commodity market
  • Lack of customer engagement
  • Comments or complaints that your business is isolated from current realities
  • Your actions no longer matter to competitors
  • Inability to attract and keep top talent
  • Flat or declining revenue when everyone else is growing
  • The only things that are new in your product or service offering are the words you use to describe what you have been doing for years
  • Decisions for the future are influenced exclusively by what worked in the past

2. Tell yourself the truth about how relevant you really are today

Elastic Path’s Sci-Fi Shopper research provides a picture of what customers want in a retail experience of the future. A crucial finding is that 57% of customers don’t think companies are doing enough to give them the futuristic experiences they want. More disturbing, those same customers rated companies as a 4 on a 1-10 scale at creating the experiences they want. On the other hand, companies rated themselves as a solid 7.

Extrapolating this outward, it is easy to assume that the factors that were important in the past remain so today. The reality is that past success only proves that you used to be relevant.

Delivering on today’s expectations is the minimum for remaining relevant. Are you sure that the solution you are providing is the one your customers want?

3. Make my life easier today

Darin Archer, Elastic Path’s Chief Strategy Officer, told me that companies tend to chase bright shiny objects such as virtual reality as a difference maker with their customers. Internal customers are no different. More than one CIO has admitted their fear of someone browsing a trade show floor at the end of the year with money left in their budget.

Customers, on the other hand, want someone to make their lives easier. Virtual reality will be cool in the future, but today, your external customers want you to it possible to pay you without carrying a purse or wallet. Likewise, your internal customers want your team to be focused on solutions that make it easier to get their work done right now. It is up to you to keep the focus on what’s important to the customer rather than allowing the organization to chase the bright shiny object.

4. Break down your silos to provide a seamless solution

The customer, according to Elastic Path’s research, doesn’t care about your organization chart or division of duties. The last thing they want to hear is someone saying, “This isn’t my department” or “I can refer this on to the group that handles that.”

It isn’t enough to be responsive within a department. The customer expects you to be nimble across departments.

The operational challenges of expanding this idea to its most customer-relevant outcome are daunting. You have to minimize the loss of efficiency that specialization provides. Metrics for success can be different across functional groups. In many cases, providing customers with the seamless experience they want has an impact on bonuses. Then there is the reality that functional managers can be in competition for promotions as the opportunities for advancement diminish.

Leaders have been talking about the need to break down silos for years. If this was easy, you would have done it by now. Get ready to take teamwork to a new level and potentially change how your organization looks and acts.

5. Make the experience more engaging

Research by Walker, a customer experience consulting firm, suggests that by the end of next year your customer’s experience will be more important than the product or service in a decision to do business with you. Taken to a logical conclusion, your internal customers will expect an enhanced experience, too. So will your current and prospective employees as they decide to come (or remain) at work with you.

Those experiences will need to be faster, better, cheaper, and friendlier to capture and keep their attention.

Scott McKain, author of the book What Customers Really Want, says that companies often confuse providing customer service with creating a compelling experience. He offers that the most engaging experiences have a personal focus, show reciprocal loyalty, and are constantly innovating to create greater connection.

Remaining relevant is the challenge we face in a world that moves at hyper speed. The adage “What have you done for me lately” has been replaced with “What can you do for me right now?”

You can’t rest on your laurels. What changes do you need to make today in order to remain relevant tomorrow?

 

 

This article was adapted from a piece that first appeared on the IDG Contributor Network.