Sailthru公司的創(chuàng)意往往來自我們的客戶。接觸我們的客戶群，傾聽他們的質(zhì)疑，跳出我們?nèi)粘９ぷ鞯鸟骄剩苿哟罅亢脛?chuàng)意以意想不到的方式不斷涌現(xiàn)。不過，想讓你的客戶成為創(chuàng)新過程的核心，需要時間和努力。

首先，我們需要研究客戶反饋，這能讓我們定期發(fā)現(xiàn)自己做得如何，客戶需要什么，我們是否滿足了他們的期望。我們每月還會邀請客戶光臨我們的紐約總部，以方便我們所有人（其他辦事處會通過視頻觀看）都能在這個渠道和客戶需求迅速演變的大環(huán)境下，直接從這個消息源了解我們的目標、關(guān)鍵業(yè)績指標和挑戰(zhàn)。這是一種角色不可知的體驗，因為以客戶為中心，是一種最有利于公司自我擴張的聯(lián)系方式。

通過這種方式，我發(fā)現(xiàn)讓員工有機會去真正傾聽客戶——而不是感到被迫如此——他們就能在個人和職業(yè)發(fā)展有所增益。這種“大局”正在影響每一個人的行為，在一點在那些通過我們的軟件成功擴大和留住客戶群的營銷人員的臉上表現(xiàn)得特別明顯。自從我們開始以客戶為中心，員工的好奇心和他們所追求的廣度都在驚人地增長。一旦員工開始從客戶的角度考慮問題，新的創(chuàng)意就會源源不斷。

有時候，后退一步，是讓創(chuàng)意思維登上舞臺中央的最好方式。我們讓員工自由地使用他們獨特的方式來應對任何既定的情況。公司為此推行一個咖啡輪盤賭項目，隨機配員工，讓他們一起去喝咖啡，費用由公司承擔。這加強了面對客戶的團隊與工程團隊之間的聯(lián)系，并在增加公司內(nèi)部創(chuàng)造力方面起到了重要作用。如果不在發(fā)展中多聽取客戶意見，任何公司都可能畫蛇添足地制造出一些無關(guān)痛癢的產(chǎn)品，而不理會那些簡單的功能或改善。我們的目標是讓營銷人員更容易留住客戶，因此，所有的部門都必須了解客戶的痛點和機遇。

在Sailthru，另一個鼓勵創(chuàng)新的方式是發(fā)放人才發(fā)展津貼。這項津貼計劃每年為每位員工1500美元，供他們在辦公室之外學習和挑戰(zhàn)自我——無論是去參加編碼培訓還是烹飪培訓都可以。這種個人發(fā)展也會對職業(yè)發(fā)展產(chǎn)生影響，因為新的技能會帶來新的視角。通過確保我們的員工掌握了所需技能，以全新的角度思考客戶和不在他們身邊的同事的需要，思考自己的生活經(jīng)驗教訓，我們能夠讓每位員工都能發(fā)現(xiàn)機遇，應對挑戰(zhàn)，并反過來為公司的發(fā)展帶來積極的影響。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

本文作者尼爾?卡博爾（Neil Capel）是Sailthru公司創(chuàng)始人兼董事長。

譯者：嚴匡正

審校：任文科

Creativity at Sailthru is most often inspired by our customers. Connecting with our customer base, listening to their challenges and getting outside of our own daily tasks and deliverables, has allowed creativity to flow in awesome and unexpected ways. But making your customers the heart of your creative process takes time and effort. First, we had to enact customer feedback studies, which regularly gave us insight into how we were doing, what our customers wanted, and whether or not we were meeting their expectations. We also began inviting customers in on a monthly basis to present at our New York City headquarters so that we all (other offices watch via video) can hear directly from the source on goals, KPIs, and challenges in a rapidly evolving landscape of channels and customer demands. This is a role-agnostic experience as customer-centricity is only as good as your most siloed or self-aggrandizing link.

Through this approach, I’ve discovered that by giving employees the opportunity to truly listen to customers — without feeling forced to do so — they’re experiencing personal and professional growth. The “bigger picture” is being seen as the impact of each of their actions, which is visible on the faces of the marketer successfully scaling and retaining their own customer base with our software. The curiosity I’ve seen and breadth of employee pursuits has evolved dramatically since we committed to customer-centricity. As employees consider the customer perspective, new thinking emerges.

Sometimes, taking a step back is the best way to allow creative thinking to take center stage. Give individuals the freedom to approach any given situation in their own unique way. We’ve tapped into this with a coffee roulette program which pairs employees at random for coffee dates, paid for by the company. This increased connectivity among customer facing teams and our engineering team has been crucial in increased creativity across the company. Without the knowledge of customer input into development, every business runs the risk of needlessly bringing irrelevant products to market and overlooking a simple feature or improvement. Our goal is to make it easier for marketers to retain customers, so their pain points and opportunities must be understood across all departments.

Another way we encourage creativity at Sailthru is through our Talent Development Stipend, which provides every employee with up to $1,500 each year to learn and challenge themselves outside of the office — whether that be taking a coding class or cooking class. This personal development carries over into professional development as new skills enable new perspectives. By ensuring that our employees have what they need to think about customers; think about other employees who aren’t sitting directly to the right or left; and think about their own life experience through a new lens we create the foundation for every individual to identify new opportunities, solve challenges, and impact our company.