Nov 11 in Customer Experience
Written by: Heather Rast
Does being visible or “reachable” constitute a customer-centric environment? Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. have spent their professional lifetimes diving into the issue, and they believe its much more than that. So do I.
In the foreward to Akin Arikan’s book “Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success” they explain: “[customer-centric] is to put yourself in the customer’s own shoes and try to experience doing business with your company the way the customer does…see your business from the outside-in perspective of the customers whose needs you’re trying to meet.”
Get outside of yourself
As the duo goes on to elaborate, adopting a customer’s view of a business, product or service is a critical factor to an organization’s success. Why? Because businesses need to sell units or licenses or procure service contracts and the best way to understand how to do that effectively and efficiently is to get inside the mind of those you hope to sell. Think not in terms of your own efficiencies - that comes later, after you learn how to resolve the customer’s pain points. When you think in terms of the customer and what they want to achieve, you’ll not only learn more about their motivations, triggers and sensitivities, but you’ll gain an appreciation for what it’s like to do business with yourself. Can you handle the truth as your customers experience it (instead of blithely buying your marketing department’s own rhetoric)?
Some companies fail to adopt a customer-centric mindset. The decision may be intentional – after all, it costs money to improve systems, enhance experience or define better internal processes. Sometimes short-term necessities must take precedence over long-term investments. Other times the decision is less purposeful. Say, if the company lacks an awareness for the new consumer-driven marketplace fueled by copious amounts of readily available information and an accessible (and vocal) peer network. When you choose to ignore social media or discount its potential impact, you make a business decision with far-reaching, downstream implications. You just may not know it yet.
Use it or lose it
Therein lies the importance of maximizing customer relationships – those you have, and those opportunities you may have to acquire more. As Peppers and Rogers so aptly state, “There is no secondary market for customers…forward-thinking companies will create as much value as possible from each and every customer.”
Value may take several forms, the most obvious and measureable is in the form of sales generating revenue and profit. Another form is potential future earnings (sometimes exponential, given positive word of mouth) based on a current experience. Indeed, every email issued to customer service, every inbound inquiry, all the Facebook wall posts and tweets aggregate with the product’s performance, instruction manual, and a host of other factors to comprise one’s experience and mindset. The manner in which a problem is addressed or an issue resolved can dramatically impact a customer’s furture intention to buy. Those customers have friends and networks, lest you forget.
The squeaky wheel
Other folks have written that a business can’t afford to let the voices of a (perhaps contentious) few customers direct operational strategy. I agree. Things get watered down, or you risk rewarding many for the sake of a few who are likely uncommitted, anyway. There are also times when you can’t afford a client or customer. Their input may not be constructive or well-meaning, their allegation patently false, or their argument conveniently devoid of their own (in)actions. Some folks you just can’t reason with. Those are the ones who often want a free lunch.
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges a customer-centric company faces lies in nurturing a culture and building a brand known for focusing entirely on the customer, all the while observing boundaries which allow that company to remain in business. Zappos found its much-celebrated sweet spot, managing to make money and be profitable while sustaining an outside-in perspective.
The cold reality
When a company sees itself for how it operates day after day, customer after customer, truths will emerge. Training and policies and workflow can mitigate many wrongs. To affect and sustain long-term growth, however, a company must consider the myriad ingredients comprising lifetime value of its own customers, and build an organization around the idea that the relationship has an expiration date.
The clock’s ticking. Can your business exceed customer expectations? Will your business philosophy of ”surprise and delight” turn one customer into many?
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