As we move further into the digital age, savvy consumers all over the globe are embracing their newfound power to dictate the terms of their engagement with business and brands. The global marketplace enabled by the internet means that it’s no longer possible, or even practical, for businesses to rely solely on the strength of their products to ensure success. That’s why brands and marketers the world over have begun to embrace customer experience as the key driver for new growth.
The problem with the current best practices, though, is that they all revolve around making changes at the margins to the way a typical business operates. It’s a superficial approach to retrofitting existing organizations to better account for providing a top-notch customer experience – and that’s just not good enough. Today’s consumers are so passionate about their experiences that they’ll leave a flourishing career to attain them, so half-measures won’t cut it. Instead, businesses that are really serious about competing in the global marketplace must endeavor to tear down their existing organizations and rebuild them with a customer-centric focus from the ground up. Here’s what that means and how to do it.
The Point of Focus
Customer centricity, as it pertains to businesses, means that every facet of operations should flow through the customer. In short, it means creating a continuous feedback loop through the customer that informs everything about how the business functions. That loop should begin in the acquisition phase and run all the way through the post-purchase phase. At every level, the business should seek feedback both from existing customers and their target market to fine-tune products, services, and even marketing. It’s also vital to design a data collection and analysis mechanism that facilitates sharing insights about the customer across all organizational groups and levels. Without one, for example, the business’ marketing could be sending a message that’s creating a customer expectation that won’t, at a systemic level, be met in the other phases of the customer experience.
Begin With a Mission
Building a customer-centric organization must always begin with the mission statement of the business. It should reflect the supremacy of the customer and serve as a reminder to everyone that their job is not to sell; it is to satisfy. To those that doubt the importance of mission statements, consider that Amazon started out with the mission of being ‘Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company‘. From the beginning, that mission has animated everything that the company has done, creating one of the most successful and valuable enterprises in the world – all driven by putting the customer in the driver’s seat.
Trust The Feedback
The single most important thing that a business can do to be customer-centric is to put a heavy emphasis on what customers are saying about them – not as a means of damage control – but as a way of evolving and improving. Consider, for example, the story of Groove CEO Alex Turnbull. He spends 20 or more hours per week providing direct support to customers. He does so because he felt he was losing touch with how customers actually interacted with his company’s product, focusing instead on meeting deadlines and pushing new features. The result was a newfound dedication to the customer at all levels of the business, and a new focus on aligning business objectives with the specific requests and feedback coming from customers through the support channel.
Link Incentive Structures to Customer Outcomes
To create a self-sustaining customer-centric organization requires buy-in at every level of the business. To create that level of commitment, it’s essential to link employee incentives, not to the financial results that the company posts, but rather to customer satisfaction indicators. For example, financial rewards like bonuses and raises should go to the employees doing the most to put the customer first, and not necessarily to those driving the most sales (although those groups will align most of the time). That way, every employee has a personal stake in making every customer interaction a successful one, and that culture will reinforce itself through the incentive system.
Be an Ally to Customers
When a business’ transformation into a customer-centric organization is done well, the difference will be clear. Customers will become more like valued collaborators in the enterprise instead of remaining outsiders. They will feel and appreciate the way the business strives to meet their needs – even if they’re not always successful. At the end of the day, that is the surest method of creating the kind of customer experience that today’s consumers want. It can’t be created through minor alterations in strategy or mere lip-service to the goal. It requires a rethinking of every facet of the business, but the payoff is immense – and it’s the real key to success in the global marketplace.
