Customer-centricity is controversial. Ask 10 people what it means and whether it's good, and you might get 10 different answers. For example:
- We are customer-centric! … because we have exciting customer engagement programs.
- Customer-centric culture is essential for getting full value from our CX technology investments.
- Customer-focus is important as long as we're meeting analysts' and shareholders' expectations.
- Customer feedback is useful for front-line employees; it's irrelevant to our special-knowledge functions.
- Customer-centric innovation is a mistake: customers don't know what they want.
- Customer intention research is tricky: you can't trust what customers say they'll do.
- Customer-driven is a slippery slope: customers will always want more, and gratis!
- We are customer-minded! … because we talk to customers everyday.
- We are close to the customer! … because some of our employees work at customers' sites.
What is true? And how can a whole company "get on the same page" about customer-centricity? It boils down to 3 things:
- Who is the source of your revenue? (i.e. paychecks, budgets, dividends)
- Why would the way you manage customer relationships be any different from the way you manage personal relationships? (i.e. being personable, being fair, being generous, anticipating needs, etc.)
- What motivates or penalizes mindsets and behaviors in your company?
Introspection and quality dialogue about these 3 questions can help you make sense of the nonsense that people think about customer-centricity.
"Culture" is an entity's way of thinking and doing, so if you want to adjust your culture, you need to become a master at weaving new habits into everyone's attitudes and behaviors. "Centric" means to be centered on something. Hence, customer-centric culture means that everyone's decision-making and actions must be primarily motivated by what's best for customer relationship strength.
Customer Experience Maturity
To build customer experience maturity, customer-centricity is an absolute must. There's no way to achieve CX excellence when parts of your company are carrying out their jobs with disregard to customers. It&39;s systemic, like the organs in your body. One bad apple can spoil the barrel. Customer-centered culture is a building-block for CX ROI (return on investment; business growth). It's informed by CX strategy (i.e. your corporate strategy) and enabled by internal branding.
In our 4-year study of customer experience practices, we noted that numerous tools for centering the business on employees are under-utilized, or not even considered as part of the customer experience management strategy. This spurred us to create a customer experience maturity assessment with stepping stones designed to help you achieve enduring CX ROI. Here's a glimpse at the customer-centric culture stepping stones:
- Setup for Customer-Centered Success: shared vision across functional areas and at all managerial levels, establishing engagement and accountability for everyone's contributions — these are setup via team-based CX strategy development.
- Nurture Customer-Centered Mindsets: to influence everyone's thinking, coordinate managers of CX efforts and weave CX criteria into hiring and onboarding, developing and promoting, measuring and motivating.
- Encourage Customer-Centered Behaviors: apply customer inputs and CX criteria to planning, decision-making, recognition, rewards, and collaboration.
Of course you want to maximize business results from your customer experience efforts. The earlier you strengthen your customer-centricity roadmap, the sooner you'll see amplified results in customers' trust of your company, employees' engagement in customer experience management, and business growth.
Note: This article is 3rd in a 10-part series providing glimpses into the ClearCXTM customer experience maturity assessment.
image purchased by ClearAction from Shutterstock
