6 Tips To Create Customer Centric Strategy
Despite research demonstrating that investing in customer service improves business outcomes, creating a truly customer-centric firm demands guts.
True client centricity requires a purposeful commitment to ideals that may contradict short-term, cost-cutting strategies that are more easily linked to the bottom line.
To create a customer-centric firm, you should commit to a set of principles — and embed them throughout your whole organisation — that prioritise customers in all decisions.
It’s not always easy, and it’s not always natural. However, if you succeed, it will have a direct and positive impact on your bottom line.
What exactly does it mean to be customer centric?
Being customer centric entails focusing every area of your business on customer wants and interests, from marketing and sales to product design and support, and putting customers’ long-term success over short-term commercial goals.
What is the significance of customer centricity?
Several studies have found that customer centricity improves financial performance and gives a competitive advantage:
Seven out of ten Americans say they have spent more money to do business with a firm that provides exceptional service.
A 5% increase in client retention raises profitability by more than 25%.
The ROI of providing an exceptional client experience more than covers its costs.
Customers aren’t the only ones who benefit; establishing a customer-centric firm encourages workers to make excellent decisions and do their best job, creating customer centricity a growth strategy as well as a way to establish a great corporate culture.
- Invest in customer service
Customer support is viewed as an income generator by customer-centric businesses rather than a cost of doing business. Their support staff are the driving factor behind the company’s expansion.
Your support team is the most accessible to your customers. Every day, they speak with consumers and assist them in reaching their objectives. There are no better staff to support everything you do as a business and every decision you make.
To build a customer-centric firm, you must invest substantial time and resources in your support personnel so that they are not always trying to clear a line. This entails prioritising:
Hiring exceptional people.
Paying customer service representatives extra.
They should be treated as the proactive, empowered, revenue-generating professionals that they are.
- Gather Customer Feedback on a Regular Basis
Listening to client feedback can help your team and your firm understand better your customers’ demands and how they evolve over time. Begin by developing compelling surveys to distribute following key interactions. The possibilities are practically limitless, and you may ask a variety of questions to help you define what customer-centric means for your specific audience.
Customers will assist you in developing a product that other customers will enjoy. While they cannot guide your growth toward innovation on their own, a really customer-centric firm will rely on the fact that their customers frequently know what they want.
There’s another advantage to asking and listening. When you ask for feedback and your consumers provide it, you boost your chances of obtaining a high level of customer satisfaction. Your ideas will be more valuable and plentiful, and your customers will be happier as a result.
- Consider your corporate culture to be an asset.
One aspect of creating a customer-centric firm is to value your customers; the other aspect is to value your staff. You must give respect and care to your team in addition to creating meaningful and compassionate relationships with your consumers.
Here’s how it’s done:
Begin at the top – If you want your employees to care about consumers, make it a high priority. Don’t just say or write that you value outstanding service; practise it. Reward people that go above and beyond on a regular basis. Make it crystal clear to everyone that customers have a voice in your business. A customer-centric approach is a corporate strategy that promotes a great customer experience at all stages of the customer journey.
Have faith in your team – Everyone likes taking charge of their jobs. Allow your employees to make decisions on their own and delight clients in the ways they believe are best for them.
Show your appreciation – Above all, remember to praise your personnel on a frequent basis and express how much you value their purposeful work in caring for consumers.
- Employ People with the Right Mindset
Consider whether or not possible new hires share your company’s values while evaluating them. Create a group of employees who are passionate about assisting your customers to succeed.
A customer-centric staff should know how to prioritise customer requirements and demonstrate actions that actually assist customers. During the interview, ask at least one question that will help you understand the candidate’s customer orientation. Some individuals continue to be born with a customer-centric and service-oriented mindset. Others lack critical soft skills, such as empathy and patience, which are needed for a customer-centric culture.
- Reward Loyal Customers and Employees
It is always crucial to remember that employees are at the heart of any customer-centric culture. Creating a loyalty programme to reward your top clients is a good idea, but you should also consider about how you honour your employees. Create some rewards that reinforce the desired behaviours and the idea that the requirements of the customer come first.
Take full advantage of the chance to honour employees that go above and beyond to make a customer pleased. Providing bonuses and sharing employees’ accomplishment with the rest of the team or the firm at large are excellent ways to recognise and reward your team members’ efforts. Don’t forget to recognise team members who work behind the scenes as well as those who interact with clients.
Customers, employees, and management at all levels will all need to contribute to the creation of an effective customer-centric approach. As you can see, there really are various tried-and-true methods for strengthening relationships, gathering better data, and making more informed decisions that benefit your customers. These efforts, if effective, could result in improved revenue and an more engaging consumer experience.
- Meet your Customers where they are
Companies that provide the best customer experience focus integrating themselves into the lives of their customers instead of the other way around. Instead of forcing potential customers to come to you, go to them.
So, if a consumer contacts you via social media, respond to them there rather than giving them a contact form and requesting them to contact you there. If you are unable to respond to customer inquiries immediately through the channel through which they have contacted you, make it as simple as possible for them to get where they need to go.
For example, if you can’t provide help directly on social media, make it simple for them to be transferred to a better channel without the customer having to repeat their query or provide any extra information.
Taking as much time and effort off the customer’s plate as possible is a core concept of outstanding customer service. This entails being present and accessible anyplace they may reach out.
The Advantages of Customer Centricity
A customer-centric growth strategy may not always fit neatly into a spreadsheet, but that does not mean it shouldn’t be pursued. Creating a customer-focused firm benefits your customers, workers, and bottom line. If your industry operates in a competitive market, you could face firms with more money and larger teams, but you will thrive on the values that customers value.