Tips on Becoming more Customer-Centric

Hi - It's Jeff!

Thank you for being part of my FIRST monthly newsletter! I'm thrilled to be here and hope that I can share easily consumable and actionable insights to support your revenue growth and continued marketing and business success.

Whether it's a client meeting or a chat with a peer, I'm frequently asked about customer centricity vs customer experience. Being more customer centric is a concept that, on the surface, can seem silly. What company?doesn’t?revolve around its customers and the revenue they generate?

The answer, of course, is many aren’t.

They’re product-centric, instead focusing on what products they can get to market that customers may appreciate.?

So, how do you nail down your focus on customer centricity and operationalize it??

First thing first, What does it mean to be customer-centric?

Being customer-centric is asking the question “how does this serve our customer(s)?” at the heart of everything you do, from product development to customer service to marketing.

You need two key documents to fuel Customer Centricity growth:

1. Buyer Personas / an Ideal Customer Profile
2. A customer buying journey

Check out: Customer Journey Mapping for more on these.

Now that you've established your two key documents, lock in the next 3 steps.

Step 1:?The Elevator Pitch

Building internal buy-in is key to success of anything, and it’s no different here. To help, you’ll need an on-point pitch to communicate through your company – from leadership on down – the necessity (and value!) of being customer-centric.

If you can’t explain what you’re doing in 30 seconds, it really doesn’t exist

Like so many things in marketing, if you can’t explain what you’re doing in 30 seconds, it really doesn’t exist. But even more, it needs to be a common definition that everyone in your organization understands. This creates better alignment and ensures you’re talking in the same language!?

Step 2: Internal Plan?

The bigger your company, the more complex this will need to be. This is one of the most important campaigns you’ll ever create!

You’ll also need to budget for this, but there’s a right and a wrong way to do it:

Step 3: Build

The six key areas to focus on when building your Customer Centricity plan are:

1. Strategy
2. People
3. Process
4. Tech / Data
5. Customer Understanding
6. Results

Peer-to-Peer Insights:

Want tips from over 100 CEOs, CMOs and VPs across industries on how they meet their marketing challenges?

Here are 3 peer-to-peer discussions about meeting the challenge of serving the customer well.

Season 5, Episode 18: Customer Portfolio Management : Ruth Stevens, President, eMarketing Strategy, shares on using data to manage the customer base of a firm like a financial asset.

Season 5, Episode 9: Who Owns the Customer? : Tiziana Barrow, Founder and CMO of Tilagia talks about focusing on the customer journey and customer ownership.

Season 5, Episode 12:?Customer Lifetime Value: Shane Lennon from @VirtualCMO explores the lifetime value of customers and how we can continuously deliver value to them.

Find CMO Insights, the Podcast where you listen to your podcasts.

What's next?

Now that you've embraced the concept and definition of customer centricity, have an understanding of core requirements and heard insights and perspectives from leadership, the next step is to learn how to operationalize customer centricity for your own organization.

This will take time, and work, but it will be so well worth it. ?

Check out Customer Centricity deep dive to explore and uncover or improve Customer Centricity for your organization.

Let me know your thoughts! Got questions for me, or my dog Maya (who apparently had an issue at the vet...), leave them below and we'll be sure to answer them.

-Jeff