- April 10, 2023
- Posted by: Gopal Krishna
- Categories:
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Peter Drucker
We all have heard Customer related concepts such as Customer Service, Customer Awareness, and Customer Sensitivity. These concepts further evolved as businesses increasingly place Customer at center of their business. This led to relatively new approaches to improve Customer Experience (Cx); Customer Centricity/Focus, Customer Obsession and Customer Devotion.
Across the industries, a significant percentage of companies are still stuck in old ways of interacting with customers. However, this trend is changing as more and more organizations are embracing new ways of driving experiences for their customers.
In this article, I focus on Customer; Centricity/Focus, Obsession and Devotion. I am making an attempt to provide clarity around these approaches, organizations who embrace these approaches and the business impact they create. These approaches directly impact Customer Experience (Cx) to a varying degree. Cx is an effect while the cause is one of the approaches.
Customer Centricity/Focused
Everytime organizations take a decision, it considers the impact that decision will have on customers. Customer-centric organizations are aware that for them to be successful, their customers need to succeed. It’s not about selling your products or services but about helping customers solving their problems or getting stuff done for them.
Customers are understood and valued to an individual level. The performance measurement is more about emotional value than satisfaction. There is emphasis on communication and collaboration with customers, between employees, and between employees and customers. Customer-centric organization demonstrate committed leadership, courage and a number of specialist competencies.
Examples of Customer-Centric Organizations:
- IBM: IBM uses a hybrid design-engineering approach called IBM Design Thinking to put users, rather than features, first, in the planning process, and do it with speed. Over 100 product teams have embraced it, and their business units are growing revenue by double digits.
- Rich Products: Achieving Customer Intimacy through Reengineering. It has broken the silos between departments in the product development process. Instead of a lengthy route of marketing chasing down R&D, QA, regulatory, packaging, and plant contacts with a new feature request form a client, they have taken a new, cross-functional approach that responds quickly to customer needs.
- Intuit: Reviving a Culture Built Around Customers. Intuit implemented a cultural and operating initiative called “Design for Delight” where empathy for the customer and experimentation is encouraged, and expected.
Customer Obsession
Obsession with customer is a next level. Everyone in the organization cutting across the functions is involved in providing value to customer. Throughout the organization, customer needs and expectations (functional and especially emotional) are well understood and response is often proactive and appropriate.
These organizations focus on complete customer life cycle, and much more on retention, loyalty and risk mitigation, win back than acquisition. Multiple sources of data are used to develop insights and invest in altruistic content creation to communicate proactively and in as personalized a manner as possible.
It makes a ton of a business sense because these organizations focus on what matters most to their customers which directly translates to what monetizes most through customer loyalty, bonding, advocacy and emotional connect.
Example – Amazon
Amazon understands that the needs and wants of a customers keep changing. It is proactive in anticipating such changes and consequently is ready with products/services that will cater to these new needs. Amazon does what customers want – it completely crafts its business practices, its systems, and its people to support it.
Let’s look at customer scenarios and how Amazon’s customer obsession culture is handling them.
Purchasing a wrong item (DVD) at Amazon – Amazon allows easy return or exchange for DVDs without restrictions; Even if the customer is outside the return window or is otherwise technically not entitled to do what he’s/she’s asking to do, the company will go out of its way to bend its policies in the interest of happy customers and the enduring customer relationship. Amazon will even buy back those DVDs ones you’re finished with.
Damaged Item – When a customer complaints of damaged item shipped by its logistics partner, Amazon customer service agents just don’t take complaints, they ensure they resolve it, in real-time if possible. They call the logistics partner on the other line and commit timelines to pickup the damaged item. It means, they are helping customers to resolve their complaint instead of customers having to make multiple calls to more than one service provider.
Customer Devotion
Every interaction with customer is an opportunity to engage, excite and build relationship. Organizations need to gain insights into individual customer’s rational and emotional needs. It’s requires progression from personalization to individualization. In other words, it’s a canvas called personal portrait.
Often, organizations are grappled with the sheer volume of customer complaints. Instead of looking at these complaints as problems, can organizations perceive them as opportunities? The answer is a resounding yes.
Leisure/hotel industry as an example;
- 8 out of 10 Leisure Guests influenced by well-handled issue resolution when ‘re-booking’
- Attentive Staff is the number # 1 driver for great customer experience in hotels and
- Over half of positive customer experiences are driven by customized support by Attentive staff
This culture of devotion will inspire customers to buy more, spend more and be the advocate of your brand to their family, friends and colleagues.
I believe the more customers feel valued, the more valuable they become to a business. Devotion drives demand.
It reminds me of one of Albert Einstein’s quotes on organization relationships with customers “Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master.”
