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August 22, 2023

What is a customer-centric strategy and how to create one for your business

The relationship between businesses and customers went through a full transition as a result of digital transformation. 

It is now crucial to have the appropriate resources in order to ensure that the customer experience with your brand is the best it can be in order to succeed in such a competitive and disputed market. 

As a result, customer-centric strategy is becoming more common throughout many businesses. The objective of customer satisfaction initiatives is to foster more loyalty, which will boost sales. However, providing value to customers is the goal of customer centricity, which attempts to establish lasting relationships with them.

It may seem like common sense, but this customer-centric approach to business is actually quite new. Companies often focus on their own requirements without considering customer impact on their objectives. Businesses have, however, been forced to change their strategies as competition has risen, and customer expectations have become higher.

How about learning more about this strategy and the steps involved in implementing it in your company? 

This article includes the following:

  • What is customer-centricity?
  • Why is the customer-centric approach so important?
  • What are the business benefits of being a customer-centric company?
  • What are the main metrics to measure this kind of strategy?
  • Conclusion

What is customer-centricity?

Customer centricity is a business strategy focused on prioritizing the customer and putting them at the heart of the company in order to provide a great customer experience and develop lasting relationships. However, it's a strategy that puts the requirements of the customer ahead of those of the competition in the business model of the company. The concept is that by providing customers with a higher value that other businesses are not able to supply. Also, the company that is doing it has the possibility to achieve a competitive advantage.

Companies that are serious about customer centricity take the necessary steps to understand their customers. Additionally, customer centricity should be established as both a strategy and a component of your company's culture. Before it is noticed by the customer, it must be genuine and have an impact on every member of your team.

Customer centricity, however, goes beyond a product or a sales channel. It is a component of the company's organizational culture, strategies, and philosophy. The idea covers all departments and necessitates employee cooperation.

Why is the customer-centric approach so important?

Nowadays, customers anticipate companies to prioritize the customer experience. They expect their engagements with companies, from customer-centric marketing to contacts with customer service agents, to reflect their needs, wants, and opinions. According to the statistic, 55% of customers say they’ve had customer service issues go unresolved. On the other hand, 36% are unhappy with the empathy they received from a customer service agent.

Here are all the factors that make a customer-centric approach so crucial: 

  • It promotes return business
  • It guarantees you're satisfying your customers' needs
  • Furthermore, it brings in new customers
  • It helps product development, brand reputation, and image

Customers are the lifeblood of any business, and growth relies on attracting and retaining them. Despite offering high-quality products, innovative offerings, and competitive prices, none of those things will matter if your customers have a bad experience.

What are the business benefits of being a customer-centric company?

The following are some of the primary benefits of a customer-centric approach:

1. Customers who feel heard will make more purchases

When customers feel heard, they'll spend more. Customers feel heard and are more likely to spend more money when companies design meaningful experiences that include customer feedback. Customers will have better experiences that more closely reflect what they anticipate when you put them first in your company's actions.

2. Personalization is beneficial

A company's revenue may benefit from providing a satisfying customer experience that is personalized rather than generic. More personalized brands frequently expand faster than their less successful competitors.

Additionally, when a brand doesn't provide personalized services to customers, it puts its customer base at risk and damages their satisfaction. To retain loyal customers and attract new ones, personalization, and customer focus are essential.

3. Greater lifetime value and customer loyalty

Customers are more likely to return to a company for similar customer experiences rather than look for new ones elsewhere when they feel recognized and appreciated by the company. It makes sense to spend on improving, more customer-centric company experiences to boost loyalty and customer value because the cost of acquisition is likely higher than the cost of customer retention.

4. Customer-centric companies get ahead of their competitors

A company stands out from competitors when it focuses on the demands of its customers and develops a unique selling offer based on excellent customer experiences. It is clear that ignoring the demands of your customers has a financial cost, and that the best approach to expand is to put the needs of your customers first.

However, become a customer-centric company to compete with your market competitors.

How to create a customer-centric strategy?

It's time to put some steps into practice now that you understand what it means to be customer-centric. Also, you will find out the key elements of this strategy, and the primary difficulties to be overcome.

In order for that to happen, we have chosen some advice for your business so that it can appropriately put its customers at the center of attention. Check it out now!

1. Hire the right people

Companies that focus on customers make investments in their employees. The first step in providing excellent customer service is to hire the best candidates and give them the necessary resources. The culture of your company should be maintained every day, and every member of your team should have a customer experience attitude. Finding the right employees is only the first step, though.

However, focus on choosing employees who can fit into any function while also understanding the value of customer experience and customer-centric thinking in your company. 

The initial point of contact for both satisfied and dissatisfied customers is your customer experience team. Additionally, it is frequently the first point of contact for new customers. This puts them in a unique position to provide the greatest experience for both new and existing users of your products.

2. Take customer feedback as an opportunity to improve

You must be aware of customer feedback in addition to routinely tracking the effectiveness of your strategies. Studying them will help you determine how to continually improve your customer experience. Furthermore, the easiest approach to assess where your company lies on the spectrum is to look at customer feedback. Real-time input is necessary to close the gap in a customer-centric strategy.

To determine whether customers are satisfied, use instant post-interaction feedback. Asking specific questions to evaluate their level of involvement and overall performance will help your customer experience employees. Additionally, you should notify your customers when the problems they reported have been resolved. 

3. Understand your customer

You must have an in-depth knowledge of your customer's demands, difficulties, and goals, as well as their general behavior, in order to give them the greatest experience possible. While most customers can effectively measure what they want now, determining what they desire over a longer period of time is very challenging for most people.

The objective of customer centricity is for businesses to anticipate customer demands and provide helpful recommendations to efficiently solve them. However, you can only be certain of your choices when customizing the services and products offered after doing an extensive analysis of your customer profile.

4. Invest in initiatives that will improve the customer experience

Your brand and company strategy inform your approach to the customer experience. A customer experience strategy is how you meet up to the expectations of your customers, which you will outline in your company strategy.

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What are the main metrics to measure customer-centric strategy?

It takes a lot of work to develop and launch a customer-centric strategy, but once it's up and running, you should gradually begin to see the benefits.

To determine how well your customer-centric approach is functioning or whether you need to make any adjustments along the way, as is the case with any strategy, you must be able to measure your efforts. Live can help you grow your customer base the way you deserve by tracking the right communication metrics all across your company.

The following main metrics to measure customer-centric could be tracked over time:

1. Churn rate

Your churn rate calculates how quickly customers stop doing business with you. For subscription-based companies like SaaS companies, it is an especially attractive measure. The easiest way to determine your churn rate is to divide the total number of customers within a certain time period by the number of customers who have left.

If, however, you are losing current customers and experiencing a high churn rate, there is no use in attracting new ones.

2. Lifetime Value (LTV)

The benefit of the CLV statistic is that it assesses a customer's worth across the course of their relationship with a business. As a result, this measure can give you a solid idea of how successful your business is in building profitable, long-term connections with customers based on offering them fantastic customer experiences. 

3. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure how satisfied your customers are.

In addition, this method aims to identify the proportion of customers who are "brand promoters," "neutrals," or "detractors."  This gives you a clearer idea of who might be considering quitting your company and who is happy with the services provided.

Regularly monitoring your NPS and following its development can help you determine whether the adjustments to your customer experience are increasing your customers' loyalty, happiness, and willingness to recommend you to others, or if there is still room for improvement.

Conclusion

The transition to establishing a customer-centric company is challenging and takes time.

Do not let this put off you, though, since even the slightest adjustments to procedures and policies can be quite advantageous to both your customers and employees.

The key to releasing the full potential of customer value is to have a customer-centric strategy. Always put yourself in the customer's position, reduce the amount of work required from them, and increase their value.

You can individually adapt each customer's experience at scale using the Live platform. No matter where it's shared, pay attention to all customer feedback. Utilize effective analytics and predictive intelligence to gather crucial data and turn it into targeted action for better company outcomes.

Don't hesitate to get in touch with us today if you want to learn more about how the Live product family can help you to boost your customer experience strategy globally. 

Learn more about how the Live product family can help you support and improve your customer experience strategy.

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