‘The customer is always right’ – how many times have you heard this saying? Even if this way of putting it is a little rote, customer-centricity is key to running a successful business. In today’s market, it’s easier than ever for a customer to swipe through an app or hop online and find a competitor. To get the competitive advantage, you need a customer-centric business culture. Here are seven steps to create a customer-focused business practice that will generate revenue:
First: What Does ‘Customer-Centric’ Mean?
To be ‘customer-centric’ in how you do business means to make every level of business operation and service cater to the needs of the customer. It’s not simply a matter of deferring to the customer’s authority (‘the customer is always right’) but knowing and anticipating customers’ needs and meeting them with aplomb.
Defining customer-centric business behaviour is easier than making it the standard practice in the daily workings of your business. Here are seven steps to making your business more customer-centric:
1. Find Practical Examples Of Customer-Centric Practice And Make Them Targets
To start offering customers best-in-class customer experience, you first need to find the practical business behaviour that customers will see as customer-centric. Communication between departments in your business is essential as this helps to make sure all levels of staff are committed to superlative customer experience.
2. Plan And Prioritise The Most Impactful Actions
It’s impossible to attend to every detail of improving your customer experience simultaneously. Prioritise actions that are estimated to produce the most beneficial impact. A seamless customer experience begins with excellent strategic planning and prioritisation behind the scenes.
3. Make Sure Your Entire Team Is Accountable
In order for customer experience improvement measures to work, you need to make sure your entire team is committed to a new, customer-centric approach. This is where staff training is essential – everyone should understand the impact their role has on overall customer experience.
4. Link Strategy And Implementation With Yields
A customer-centric approach should always be based on an explicit target – increased payment conversions, for example. Establish a way of measuring efforts to increase customer-centric practice. If your business starts using more personalisation data, for example, test and compare different degrees of personalisation to determine the specific type of customer experience that yields the best results.
5. Reward Staff For Following The Right Ethos
To ensure smooth implementation of improved customer-centric practices, reward and recognise staff whose actions are in alignment with your new strategies. This will help to ensure that there is business-wide commitment to improving customer experience.
Provided that each team member takes responsibility for their part in the chain of the customer journey, you can make your business more customer-centric with minimal effort and reap returns due to happier, more trusting customers.