If you want to be customer-centric, then your business needs to make a company-wide commitment to your customer's success. The steps below explain what your organization can do to make that commitment to your customers.
1. Anticipate Customer Needs
There's a great quote from Henry Ford that says:
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
You may be wondering why I am bringing this up when it seems counter-intuitive to the concept of customer-centricity. But hear me out:
Ford is saying that if he had only listened to what customers thought he could build, he wouldn't have produced a car. He was thinking light-years ahead of his competition, and for that reason, he created a product that anticipated the market's future needs. Ford knew what the customer wanted before the customer knew they even wanted it — that's a game-changing business move.
We can see similar styles of future-forecasting in Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. These visionary CEOs pushed the envelopes on what people would want in the future, giving the world the iPhone, iPad, and the Model X — and companies with valuations of $1.08 trillion and $48 billion, respectively.
While most customers are able to accurately provide an account of what they want today, gauging what they want on a longer time horizon is extremely difficult for most people. They rely on companies to do that work for them to anticipate [removed] — and make helpful suggestions accordingly.
2. Collect Customer Feedback
It may seem obvious, but to create a great, customer-centric company, you need to communicate both frequently and regularly with your customers.
In today's digital world, there are countless encounters where you can collect feedback. Here are a few touchpoints that you might already use to communicate with customers:
- Chat
- SMS
- Phone calls
- In-app messages
- FB Messenger
- Message boards
Today, valuable communication can occur on so many different platforms.
Every department should be using all of the communication channels at their disposal to learn about customers — and the sheer volume of quantitative insight you receive from these messages can help you greatly as you adjust your product roadmap.
But there's also a level of qualitative feedback that you need to be proactive about collecting. While the aforementioned communication is likely already occurring at your company, user research is something you might be ignoring.
Here are three customer research techniques to consider if you're not already:
Conduct a Survey
By telling your customers that you're not perfect, you can gain insight and track your performance. The most successful companies in the world already know the value of surveys, and by conducting a regular [removed] or product survey, you can provide an avenue for the great feedback.
Launch User Testing
Ask any designer or PM the value of user testing, and they'll sing their praises. Modern [removed] such as Usertesting.com and Hotjar provide a simple framework to collect feedback from real people about your product. In the quest to build a customer-centric organization, this can help validate your hunches and guide your work towards the highest-impact projects.
Make Direct Calls
Have a friend that always insists on talking over the phone rather than text? I'd take a gander that that friend is one of your closer confidants. There's something more personal about a conversation outside of the digital realm — by simply picking up the phone, you're able to get a more robust form of feedback from customers.
And an added plus? You can adjust your line of questioning in real-time to adapt to each situation.
Our CTO J.P. Morgan practices this technique weekly — and he swears by the feedback he collects from his customer calls:
"Talking to customers is probably the most important thing I do all week. While there's a level of product development that requires you to take a stance and anticipate needs — it's impossible to do that without an understanding of your customer's current situation."
3. Be Easily Accessible
We all know the concept: make it difficult to contact support, and you'll spend less time servicing those difficult customers.
There's a huge financial and time expenditure used in servicing customers, so many brands (especially digitally-built businesses) hide their support behind many layers of pages.
For instance, try to find a phone number on Facebook's Help Page. It's nearly impossible. They'd rather communicate through help articles and live chat before giving out their number.
On the other spectrum, there's Zappos, the online shoe retailer with a completely opposite approach to customer success.
Zappos identifies that when a customer wants to talk to them, they should make it as easy as possible. Note how they include their phone number prominently on the top bar of every page with the note "Available 24/7."
Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, [removed] for that decision as:
"A lot of people may think it's strange that an internet company would be so focused on the telephone when only about 5% of our sales happen by phone. But we've found that on average, our customers telephone us at least once at some point, and if we handle the call well, we have an opportunity to create an emotional impact and a lasting memory … Our philosophy has been that most of the money we might ordinarily have spent on advertising should be invested in customer service so that our customers will do the marketing for us through word of mouth."
Make sure your [removed] is highly visible and easy to access — and that it actually answers common customer questions you see crop up time and time again.
4. Meet With Customers In-Person
One of the biggest epidemics facing modern organizations is the loss of feedback from in-person meetings. Looking back 50 years, before the advent of the Internet and our diversified global economy, it was far easier for businesses to interact with an end customer.
Direct, human contact happened on a daily basis simply because it was a necessary part of commerce. If you wanted an item, you went to a store, talked to a salesperson, and bought it in in-person. That feedback could be used by a business to improve the consumer experience.
Today, in most businesses, this is not the case. Don't get me wrong, the other advances from the digital economy have provided great benefits. While your potential touchpoints for feedback are far greater due to technology, there is less in-depth contact.
How do you combat this? By bringing back the in-person experience.
It may seem old school, but hosting in-person events can be beneficial in your quest for customer centrism. By hosting an event, you provide value to two parties: the customers and the brand.
For instance, consider Sofi's initiative to host [removed] across the country. While it's likely a substantial expense, there's a positive externality. And they don't hide it. They claim the benefits of a direct channel to interact with and get feedback from their members, as well as a way to build brand affinity. Not to mention, its lots of fun, too.
5. Provide Proactive Customer Service
One of the best ways to differentiate your business from its competitors is to provide your customers with added value that extends beyond the point of purchase. This shows them that you're truly invested in creating a delightful customer experience and will go [removed] to deliver it to them.
One way to provide added value is to include [removed] features. Proactive customer service gives your customers resources that help them solve problems on their own, without having to reach out to your business for support. This way they can resolve simple issues and avoid waiting on hold for your customer service team.
[removed] is one company that has profited immensely from adopting proactive customer service. They used [removed] to create a pricing page so customers wouldn't have to reach out to a live rep to see how much its products cost. This accelerated the company's sales process as customers knew immediately whether or not WashCard Systems would fit their budget.
A pricing page may seem like a simple addition, but it completely changed WashCard Systems' lead generation process. In 2018, the pricing page became the website's most visited page and was responsible for nearly two-thirds of the company's online conversions. Rather than dissuading customers, the pricing page encouraged them to reach out to WashCard Systems and learn more about what the business had to offer. This type of proactive customer service demonstrated the business's customer-centric approach to improving the buying experience.
6. Adopt Customer Service Tools
The customer's experience with your brand is just as important as the product or service you're providing. Customers don't just want a sale, they want to enjoy the entire buying experience. Even if your product is great, you'll lose customers to competitors who are able to make their customer interactions enjoyable and productive.
Adopting the right [removed] plays a major role in creating a customer-centric experience. These tools help customer service teams create seamless, [removed] systems that provide customers with immediate solutions to their problems. By doing so, customers are more satisfied because the business is investing in their short- and long-term success.
One company that does an excellent job of utilizing customer service tools is the insurance company, [removed] . Lemonade recognized that one of its most difficult challenges was changing the customer's perception of its industry. Most people loathe speaking with insurance companies because the customer experience is typically dull and frustrating. So, Lemonade invested in [removed] to help change that experience for its customers.
Lemonade's chatbot, "Mia," creates a light-hearted and friendly conversation with its users. Mia provides customers with clear and concise answers and advises them on plans that will best fit their budgets.
In an interview with HubSpot's [removed] , the company's CEO, Daniel Schreiber, highlighted that this chatbot has made their customer service experience more "playful and instantaneous." Additionally, Lemonade has been able to cut costs and reduce prices for customers as a result of added automation.
7. Look Beyond the Purchase
At the end of the day, your business's goal is to get customers to purchase your product or service. However, when customers buy once, you'll want to ensure they buy again. After all, [removed] show that it costs nearly five times more to attain a new customer than to retain an existing one.
But, how do you motivate your current customers to purchase from you again? Well, the best way is to provide them with added benefits that extend beyond the point of purchase. These benefits should help customers achieve their goals and create a more memorable customer experience. By doing so, customers will begin to affiliate their success with your company's products and services.
One example of this can be seen with the industrial clothing company, [removed] , or RMI. RMI sells flame-resistant clothing to labor crews operating in industrial worksites like oilfields and mines.
In addition to its clothing, RMI creates added value for its customers by providing them with free safety certification courses. Customers take these courses to receive credible certifications that will qualify them to operate a product or piece of machinery. This not only helps customers avoid costly mistakes but also gives them the tools needed to excel in their careers. As they take more courses and enhance their skill set, customers begin to rely on RMI to assist with their long-term goals.
8. Create an Onboarding Process
If you want to create a customer-centric culture, your team can't abandon customers after you make a sale. Instead, make sure your customers get the most from your product and services. That way they'll be more inclined to return to your business when they're ready for an additional purchase.
One of the best methods for optimizing your product's value in the eyes of the customer is setting up a detailed onboarding process. An onboarding process introduces your products and services to the customer and explains how to use them to fulfill their specific needs. Each customer's needs will be unique, so your team should personalize this process to ensure every customer is properly set up for success.
What is your approach to becoming customer-centric?
Is your company listening to the Voice of the Customer?
Are you anticipating customer needs?
9 Ways How To Be More Customer-Centric
Learning how to be more customer-centric sure sounds good. But if you’re an established company with siloed data, lack of customer knowledge, and a rewards structure that prioritizes generating revenue over meeting the needs of your customers, then you have some work to do.
The list of potential opportunities to improve is a long one; this one isn’t. That’s because it’s meant to get you thinking and developing your own solutions specific to your organization.
1. Listen to your customers. We’re not simply talking about satisfaction surveys or asking “the ultimate question” to track a Net Promoter score--though this can be part of the equation. The issue with these solutions is that they don’t point toward the problems or delights that drive those scores. [removed] .
2. Remember: Customer perception is reality. The quality of your customer experience lives in one place: the mind of your customer. No matter how well you think you’re doing, the gap between customer expectations of experience and their perceptions of actual experience is the reality you need to understand and address.
3. Make your customers part of the solution. Involving the customer in the design process--experiences, services, products, or physical environments--has been around for a long time. It boils down to this: Don’t make decisions about what your customers might want or need without taking their point-of-view into account.
4. Map your customer’s journey. [removed] allows you to “walk in your customers’ shoes” by traveling with them as they interact with your company. Research-based and focused on desired outcomes from the customer’s perspective, you’ll see what their needs are at each interaction, how well you meet them, and where opportunities for improvement lie.
5. Monitor customer interactions. Customer listening is just that: listening. Monitoring is critical, as well, because only you know all your touchpoints. Pulsed, planned, or transactional surveys, call-center logs, complaint lines, Web feedback, and social media commentary--monitor your performance in all of these places, and more. Set KPIs based on customers expected and your planned experience, and monitor to see how well you do.
6. Get your data together. Most established companies keep [removed] in silos across the enterprise: sales data in one bucket, marketing data in another; product and service somewhere else, and digital data another entirely. All of this customer data needs to be integrated and easily accessible across your organization, so employees can truly “see” the relationship between you and your customer, and make decisions as a result. This is one of the greatest challenges faced by big companies, and one of the most important to solve.
7. “See” your customers digitally. Every transaction between your company and your customers generates data about that transaction. Each online or mobile interaction generates [removed] that can be stored and analyzed. Looking at your customers through the lens of your digital relationship will provide valuable insights into behavior that can help you radically improve customer experience.
8. Define your customer experience strategy. [removed] flows from your company’s business and brand strategy. Just as brand strategy creates (and manages) customer expectations of a brand, your customer experience strategy is your plan to meet or exceed those expectations. With implications for virtually every aspect of your company, it’s the vehicle through which you can turn customer expectations into reality.
9. Empower and reward your employees. In the quest to be more customer-centric, [removed] . They boast a wealth of insight about customers and internal operations, and can quickly improve customer experience through one-on-one interactions and behind-the-scenes decision-making. Yet many companies have reward structures tied only to revenue, versus meeting the needs of customers. They don’t empower employees to make the decisions required to meet those customer needs.