Creating a Customer-Centric Strategy for Your Business

A customer-centric strategy is a business model focused on creating the best experience for your customer and building customer loyalty.

Consider your own customer experiences…

For example, the cable company that rescheduled with you three times and still didn’t show up in the two-hour window they scheduled.

Or the company that replaced a defective product for you, no questions asked.

Which would you rather do business with?

The ultimate reward of creating a customer-centric strategy is building a base of loyal fans who are highly engaged with you and your brand.

What is a customer-centric strategy?

It’s a way of doing business that’s focused on the customer experience before and after making a sale – putting customers first in all of your business decisions.

It means understanding your customers, anticipating their wants and needs, giving them meaningful experiences, and building a relationship with them.

A customer-centric strategy is based on the idea that customers have choices. Unless you are providing a truly unique service, customers evaluate your business against your competitors. Ultimately you can make more money by retaining your customers instead of constantly acquiring new ones.

Benefits of a customer-centric approach

Data shows that a customer-centric strategy gives you a competitive advantage, leading to better overall financial performance.

In fact, seven out of 10 consumers in the US say they spend more to do business with a company that delivers great service.

And it is 5-25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one.

As an online business owner, you already understand the importance of social media marketing. When your customers post online about the great customer service experience you deliver, it makes a difference. It’s been shown that 83% of US online shoppers are influenced by their friends’ social media posts.

You can see the potential return on investment your business can achieve through a customer-centric strategy.

How to create a customer-centric business

A customer-centric business creates products and processes designed to provide world-class customer support from initial discovery through purchase to delighted client. Here are a few ways that Systems with Strategy can help you create lasting, loyal relationships with your customers.

CRM

When you put your customer at the core of your business, and combine it with a great CRM, you can collect a wealth of data about your customers. This allows you to build strong customer relationships digitally and be more connected to your clients.

Segmenting your customers based on opt-ins and purchases allows you to target communications to where they are at in your customer journey. They feel heard and valued.

Making customer data available to your entire team (sales, customer support, etc.) allows everyone to get involved in customer service. For example, if your website developer knows where users are getting confused, they can better address the issue.

Community

An online community integrated with your products or services lets your customers connect and engage with each other under your brand.

This has the added benefit of helping you build customer loyalty and it’s a great source of customer feedback.

Listening to customers is an essential part of any customer-centric strategy. When you pay attention to what customers are saying about your products and your business, you can not only collect data but focus on understanding it.

Automations

Automations are an important piece of your customer-centric strategy. When applied correctly, automations enhance the customer experience rather than detracting from it.

It may seem contradictory to take people out of the customer service experience. However, automations are able to provide 24/7 support, 365 days a year. And they assist your team by handling repetitive tasks so they can devote more attention to the customers that truly need them.

Systems with Strategy makes it easy to integrate automations with your CRM and Community. Adding community posts to wish customers a Happy Birthday or sending a customer email with a coupon on the anniversary of their first purchase from you are just a couple of examples of how automations help make customers feel valued.

Conclusion

A customer-centric strategy helps you build a base of loyal, engaged fans and benefits your customers along with your business. In the world of digital marketing and social selling, customer centricity gives you a competitive advantage in terms of customer retention.

Customer centricity starts by focusing on the needs of your customers instead of your products or features. Collecting and understanding your customer data and listening to what your customers have to say allows you to support your customers with a great experience.

If you’re ready to deliver customer-centric experiences that increase revenue as well as customer retention and engagement, book a call with one of our specialists to learn more about how Systems with Strategy can help you be more customer-centric.