My recent report, “Driving Toward Communications Sourcing Excellence,” looks behind the scenes to find out why Formula One (F1) sourcing professionals enjoy such a great customer experience from their network providers. It’s a two-way street: Providers ensure that the F1 team’s network is reliable, always available, and delivers peak performance when needed, and F1 sourcing pros provide the guidance, insight, and support to make sure providers know what teams need. This is as much a concern for CIOs as it is for sourcing pros in their quest to win, serve, and retain customers.

Matt Cadieux, the CIO of Infiniti Red Bull Racing, said, “AT&T has a dedicated F1 account team that I meet for regular account reviews to discuss our requirements and plans. In the rare event of a problem, we also have excellent relationships with AT&T’s top executives. AT&T has consistently delivered projects when required; for example, in 2014 it provisioned new access networks in England and France and at racetracks around the world. These circuits have been fully operational — we show up and they just work.”

What It Means

My colleague Tracy Stokes believes that a consistent customer experience builds a trusted brand, and I couldn’t agree more. It also leads to:

  • Higher revenue per customer. Customers who have an above-average experience with a company are more willing to buy again from that company. As demonstrated in research from Watermark Consulting, a US-based customer experience firm, companies with high customer experience scores deliver significantly higher shareholder value than low-scoring ones.
  • Improved customer retention. Happy customers who had a better experience are less likely to churn. Airlines and wireless service providers have the most to gain — the revenue potential for an airline is more than $800 million annually; it’s nearly $700 million for a wireless service provider. Other firms can see tens of millions of dollars of incremental revenue by embracing a customer experience discipline.
  • Customer experience excellence. If you want to attract and retain customers — especially your best customers — you must provide an excellent customer experience at each and every moment of engagement. Be the leading light for your industry; take a page out of the go-to-market strategy telcos use to serve F1 clients.

My colleague Harley Manning has great advice on how to transform to an experience-driven organization. It’s time for you to rev your engines for a top podium finish.