Customer centricity can be defined as focusing on and treating customers as the top priority and the primary asset of any business. It is the process of developing, maintaining, and executing all business activities that contribute to customers’ ultimate satisfaction.
It is well said that if a company is customer-centric, its brand must become superior. Though it may seem obvious, how we think and interact with brands has changed. An individual’s perception and interaction with the brand is not just to buy or consume something but to gain information, services, and products. A highly regarded brand will inevitably have a lot of loyalty amongst customers, who globally trust it more than any other company. This trust is built through constant investment in research, product differentiation, and branding, which makes the customers vested in the brand’s identity.
The idea of customer asset value is that companies must place a high value on their customers to succeed. Companies can create a more sustainable and profitable business model by focusing on the long-term value of a customer rather than just their current purchase cycle. Businesses can improve marketing and sales efforts, product development, and support by understanding how much value their customers contribute to the company’s revenue.
The traditional models for determining the value of individual customers are flawed for various reasons. Firstly, there is a huge amount of variability within each particular group. Some customers will be much more valuable than others, and the average value doesn’t tell you anything about that. Moreover, the value of one customer is likely to depend on the other customers in their group, which isn’t going to be captured by the average value. Secondly, there is a significant degree of uncertainty in customers’ value of different product and service parameters. Most customers will not be able to specify precisely how much they value features or reliability. And finally, there is a significant degree of uncertainty in how customer valuations will change over time. All products and services have features and features that become less important over time as the product evolves and becomes more sophisticated. And they also have features and features that become more important over time…
Customer lifetime value (CLV), also known as customer value, is the value of a customer over the entire life of the relationship. This metric can make smart business decisions, such as which customers to retain and which to push off to sales or marketing. CLV calculation requires four pieces of information:
- The age of the customer
- The amount of time left in the lifetime of that customer
- The current value of that customer’s relationship with your company
- The future value of the relationship To calculate CLV, divide the first three numbers by the fourth number to get a formula: (1+Ri)/(1-Ri) where Ri = Reinvestment rate
The future of business depends on accurate and real-time data. It is the only way to make informed decisions, improve operations, and achieve superior results. Customer-centrically sourced and managed data can improve marketing, sales, and operational processes. It can also empower employees to provide superior customer service. Benefits of using customer-centric data: – Aligns with business objectives; – Helps identify customer needs; – Creates informed marketing decisions; – Creates accurate sales forecasts; – Creates superior service quality; and much more.
Customer engagement is difficult to define, as it varies from company to company. For many companies, customer engagement is simply a way to increase the number of customers that remain satisfied with the company. However, there are several aspects of customer engagement that are more important than simply acquiring customers:
- Understanding your customers’ needs and wants: Being in tune with your customer’s needs and wants is vital to providing an excellent experience. Understanding your customer’s pain points will help you provide the right products and services to help them overcome their challenges.
- Providing superior service: Creating a positive customer experience is one of the best ways to retain your customers. Providing outstanding service is a crucial component of any business; if you don’t, your competitors will take advantage of it.
- Focusing on long-term relationships: Focusing on building long-term relationships with your customers is another way to ensure that they remain satisfied with your business. You can turn them into loyal brand advocates who recommend your company to others by offering them value and great service.
A customer relationship management system, or CRM, is a software application that helps companies manage their customer relationships. CRMs allow companies to understand better and manage their customers’ needs and expectations. They can then use this information to improve the experience and outcomes for both parties. CRMs can help companies: CRMs can help companies create closer relationships with their customers by providing a single window for all customer interactions and information. This allows companies to respond to and resolve customer complaints and issues easily. Companies can also use CRMs to track, manage, and follow up on leads generated through marketing campaigns and other means. This allows companies to target and communicate with these individuals or groups. Companies can use CRMs to automate many processes related to customer relations, such as follow-up emails and phone messages. This reduces the time spent handling these tasks, resulting in improved customer service.
Customer centricity is a set of principles, processes, and techniques that prioritize the customer at the center of all aspects of the business. It is based on the understanding that the customer experience is everything and that companies are ultimately defined by their customers. By placing the customer at the center of everything we do, customer-centricity gives us a framework to drive change in organizations. Customer centricity can help you realign your customer relationship management (CRM) system by accurately depicting your current customers’ needs and preferences to deliver the right products and services correctly. This can help your organization become more relevant to your customer and enable you to build lasting relationships. It can also help you improve your overall marketing effectiveness.
Customer Centricity is a methodology that authenticates your customers’ needs and adapts to their changing expectations. It is a vision that considers the entire customer journey beyond your products and services. The main objective of this approach is to align yourself with your end customers completely. By using the following steps, you will be able to realign your performance metrics:
- Understand your end-customers and their pain points by conducting an in-depth study.
- Create a customer journey map with all your customers’ steps. Make sure that all the touchpoints with your organization are included in this map. Not only do you need to have the front end of your customer journey, but you must also include the back end and any non-obvious parts.
- Create a KPI that connects all their pain points, i.e., understand where they are most deficient and where they are getting frustrated.
- Create dashboards that show only the data related to this KPI, such as number of defects being resolved or number of negative online reviews being removed.
A customer-centric product development approach helps a company to focus on the end user by understanding their needs and expectations. It helps to develop products that are useful and easy to use. By following this approach, we can create products that meet the needs of all the stakeholders in your organization, such as your end users, your business users, your product team, and your development team.
The best way to ensure that you focus directly on your most valuable customers is to listen to them. By asking your customers questions and following up with thoughtful solution requests, you can truly understand their needs and come up with creative solutions that will make them happy. Additionally, by offering regular customer support and service updates, you can keep your highest-rated customers informed of any developments or changes that may affect them. This transparency level will surely keep your most valuable customers happy and satisfied.
It is difficult to give a straightforward answer to this question as it depends largely on the organization itself; however, there are a few things that can be said.
- Customer centricity is all about putting the customer’s needs first, which means understanding your customers, what they want and how you can help them. It is about listening to your customers and understanding their needs so that you can create a product or service that will meet those needs. This means that you are looking out for the long-term benefits rather than focusing on the short-term gains.
- Offering excellent customer service is one way to increase your profits in the long term. By taking the time to understand your customers and provide them with exceptional service, you are building trust and loyalty, which can translate into higher sales over time.
- Making sure that your products or services are up to date is also important, as constantly improving and evolving your products can lead to lower costs over time as you sell more.
References:
Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage by Peter Fader, Patrick Lawlor, Part of: Wharton Executive Essentials (4 books) Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3UBEemc
The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity by Peter Fader (Author), Bruce G.S. Hardie (Author), Michael Ross (Author) Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3AcF9S2