Customer Centricity: What, Why, And How To Evolve In Your Company

Republished with permission. Written by Dr. Debbie Qaqish.

Customer centricity 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 lead its inception?

What Is Customer Centricity?

It’s a company focus that asks the question “how does this serve our customer(s)?” at the heart of everything, from product development to customer service to marketing.

You need two key documents to fuel this growth: Buyer Personas / an Ideal Customer Profile, and a customer journey.

Buyer persona documents provide the details that drive customer centricity. When the content you produce delivers insights into the actual person you’re targeting, that is when you have truly put your customer first. You then increase the potential for not only achieving higher engagement, but having your persona see you and your brand as a trusted thought leader.

Building out the stages for your customer’s buying journey is critical to understanding what your persona(s) need to know as they venture from becoming aware of your solution to eventual loyal customer advocates.

When you know what it takes to move your prospect from one stage to the next, everything you develop in marketing is done so with more confidence and opportunity for personalization. You can anticipate what your buyer needs before they need it, putting you top of mind as not only a brand, but as the ‘go-to’ resource in your industry.

Why is Customer Centricity Important?

The more you focus on the customer, the more likely they’ll be to buy from you!

It really is that simple in concept, but it’s difficult to do in practice. Many companies adopt a product-centric view instead because that’s more company-focused and easier to control.

Customer centric vs. product centric

Barriers / Accelerators

Simply put, after working with 1,500+ medium and large-sized companies, we’ve noticed some trends!

Barriers:

• Marketing credibility: There are still many companies that view marketing as the “make it pretty” department. Events, trade shows, brochures, pens, etc. Typically, these departments haven’t shown a key contribution to bottom-line revenue as well (and often there isn’t enough resources devoted to their digital space).
• Who “owns” the customer: This often revolves around a sales-vs.-marketing alignment issue. We have worked with many organizations that had sales in charge throughout the process, limiting data access to other teams. This prevented marketing from being able to better understand how to get more leads!
• One customer view: Do you have an ideal customer profile that’s agreed-upon by all teams? If not, the door opens for competing viewpoints / audiences to confuse the process and slow progress.

Accelerators:

• Attach to company initiatives: Your leadership has aligned to particular commitments and priorities for the next few months and years. This will be a far easier sell if you can align it with a core company focus, as any executive will understand how it helps them drive the company’s strategy forward.
• Marketing owns customer data: This works especially well if you have a marketing automation system because you already are tracking customer behavior online.
• Passion: Simply put, any good marketer is passionate about better serving the customer!

So, how do you implement this in your own company … and what does “good” look like?

Continue reading to get the full story!

Originally published at https://www.pedowitzgroup.com on November 20, 2018. Original article last updated Oct. 2020.