Customer-Centric Approach

Customer-centricity. It’s a word we’ve been using for ages – and probably many others – without really thinking too much about it but rather using it as an obvious given in business. The first question: what does it mean to be customer-centric?

It depends. Most of us use it in the sense of putting the customer at the center. Realizing that, regardless of time, creating customer value and really putting customers first, beyond a simple customer focus, it generates most and longest lasting business value. In this sense it’s common language. Customer-centric. As in anthropocentric, egocentric, geocentric or heliocentric.

It also depends on how you define the customer. Is it just the existing customer? Other stakeholders? Is it also the prospective buyer? And what about the customer of your customers ? Or their – influential – social connections? Your employees? Suppliers? Channel partners? Journalists

Nowadays, in a reality of a connected customer, the increasing role of the customer experience and, among others, the multi-channel, omni-channel or channel-agnostic customer behavior, we are mainly using it in this context of integrating and/or connecting what we do around the customer so the customer has seamless experiences or, at the very least, finds what he needs in a fast and easy way, regardless of touchpoints.

As a term, customer-centricity, first trended when organizations started adopting customer relationship management and vendors of CRM software used it a lot. Last but not least, there’s the definitions given by smart marketers that shed another light on it and make it more tangible. There are several views but it’s good to know them. Not just for the sake of marketing theory, strategy and measurement but also because customer-centricity can’t just be an idea or a vague concept as it often was in the early days and really often still is today. I’ve never met an exec who said his company wasn’t customer-centric. They all pay lip service to it since many many years. Others are really convinced they are.

Just look at the famous gap between how customer perceive customer service and/or customer experience and how executives perceive the performance of their organization in that context. That gap, depending on industry, is HUGE. Fortunately, there are also many organizations that get it or, at least, start getting it and, more importantly acting upon it.

So, that would probably be the main takeaway here: don’t approach it as a concept but embrace it as a mission, an – admittedly obvious – promise that is turned into action in a measured way and with responsibilities and clear goals.

Source: J-P De Clerck