Every business should strive to improve their customers’ experience with their products and services. Adopting a customer first strategy is therefore often mentioned as a company objective. Unfortunately, it rarely goes beyond the theory in most organisations, so I decided to help out with these six suggestions.
Hospitality is perhaps one of the most visible industries where customer satisfaction, or lack of, is quickly shared with the world. (Read my last post for more on this)
It is true that without satisfaction, customers will not return to a hotel or restaurant. And they will almost certainly share their (bad) experiences with anyone who will listen – including online!
Hospitality is also one of the industries that receives the most comments online, thanks to TripAdvisor and other booking sites. There is no hiding from their clients!
Now while I empathise, this is not all bad news. Because it means that great service will also be more quickly known about online. Therefore you can make changes and see the results almost immediately, or at least far quicker than in most other businesses.
However, despite this, I believe that the hospitality industry has a lot it can learn from consumer packaged goods (CPG) where improvements take the consumer longer to appreciate. In fact most other industries could benefit from taking a look at some of CPG’s best-in-class processes.
Both the hospitality and CPG industries have their customers at their heart; after all it’s in their name. They are both founded on pleasing and hopefully delighting their clientele in the quality of the products and services they offer.
However, as the world changes, customer demands do too and companies need to stay current if not ahead of these requirements, in order to ensure continued growth.
The 6 essentials of a customer first strategy
#1. From ROI / ROR to ROE
There has been a lot of talk recently on moving from a return on investment to a return on relationship metric. While I agree with the importance of relationships, I believe that what we should be talking about is engagement. Be honest, other than the author of the once popular book that started talking about brand love, who wants to have a relationship with a brand?!
Brands that have a high following and loyalty have found a way to consistently engage their fans and keep them coming back. They become involved and interested in the brand, the product, their website, even their communications.
While the hospitality industry is based on serving and satisfying its guests, in today’s connected world, it also needs to consider people who are currently strangers – but who could potentially become clients.
These might be the friends of current guests, who for example the Rosewood Mayakoba resort in Mexico tries to attract. Let me explain.
This wonderful hotel encourages its guests to photograph their experiences during their stay at the resort and then to share them with their friends on Facebook. This not only provides free publicity for the hotel, but also enables it to start engaging these potential clients, since they probably have similar lifestyles to their current guests.
User generated content (UGC) works well because customers trust each other a lot more than they do brands.Research from Forbes shows that 81% of consumers’ purchase decisions are influenced by their friends’ social media posts.
Having additional control in their lives today means that customers are re-evaluating what they are offered. They have higher expectations and are more discerning in their choices. They expect recognition at every touchpoint, even if in reality their peers influence their decisions more than does traditional marketing. This is important to keep in mind as you build your customer first strategy.
The internet enables people to compare offers, so they are less interested in bundled propositions, preferring to decide what is best value for them personally for each element. Several brands have understood this and now offer their customers the possibility to define their own, personal bundle of options. Liberty Mutual is one such example of this.
According to research by Walker, 86% of consumers would be willing to pay more for a better experience. So don’t get fixated on price; find ways to add value that consumers may appreciate far more than its actual cost to you.
Most CPG companies have targets for innovation and renovation; sometimes it can be as much as 30% or more of annual revenue. They also have mid-term innovation pipelines which can include partnerships in joint ventures with what were previously mere competitors. These have mutual benefits as each partner can concentrate on their individual skills, which enables each partner to then develop better new products and services.
Consider building partnerships and joint-ventures into your own customer first strategy. They will enable you to satisfy and delight your customers far more quickly than you could do when working alone.
For hospitality, innovation can no longer be purely physical or rational; we need to consider more emotional and relational ways to satisfy. The Rosewood Mayakoba resort, already mentioned above, is one good example of this. The Art Series Hotels were another, until they were bought by the Accor group. Check out one of the latter’s last campaigns to appreciate how they excelled at understanding their guests: Art Series Overstay Checkout. Sadly they have now become just another chain hotel, despite trying to communicate something different. I also recommend reviewing the amazing pictures posted on MayaKoba’s Facebook page?
One of the reasons that I believe we need to work on building engagement in all industries, and not just in hospitality, is because customer demands are constantly evolving. What satisfied them yesterday, can bore or even disappoint today.
To acquire and retain our customers, we need to be constantly upgrading our products and services, so that they remain surprised and delighted. This means that loyalty is much less long-term than in the past, and lifetime value is now measured in years rather than in decades.
Ensure you build loyalty actions into your customer first strategy, not just for attracting new customers. Remember it costs far more to get new customers than to keep and grow your current ones. So don’t ignore them by considering that they don’t need further efforts once won. Loyalty doesn’t last for ever!
#6. Dialogue and Exchange, Don’t Just Communicate
In today’s connected world, customers want a say in not only what they consume, but also where, when and how they are marketed to. They want a say in what they buy and expect a rapid resolution to any queries or complaints.
According to SuperOffice nearly half of all customers (46%) expect companies to respond to social media postings within 4 hours, while 12% expect a response within 15 minutes or less. This means that 24/7 monitoring is essential for all organisations if we are not to disappoint our most engaged customers.
These are just six of the many ideas I shared during a talk I gave to the faculty of a world- renowned hospitality school. If you are interested in seeing the full talk, I am happy to share it. Just email me with your details and what your biggest business challenge is currently in adopting a customer first strategy.
Are you struggling to improve your own customer centricity? Whatever people-facing industry you are in, we would welcome the chance to catalyse your growth. Check out our website for more information about our services and training programs, then contact us here.
In most countries, the population have a love / hate relationship with their police. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, to find myself writing about how they appear to be adopting a customer first strategy in Switzerland!
Let me explain. A few years ago they introduced a new-style speed radars in the villages around my home town. The elements are not that new per se, I know, but last week it suddenly hit me why these speed cameras seem to be so effective. It’s simple; they’re customer centric! The Swiss police have adopted a customer first strategy! And that’s why I want to share more about this story here.
Background
Image Source: Wikipedia
One of the reasons why the Police are disliked in many (dare I say most?) countries, is because of their insidious speed controls.
Whether they are permanent fixtures as on the right, or temporary ones, we all dislike the flash that tells us it’s too late, that we’ve been “caught.”
We then wait a few days, to weeks or even months, naively hoping that it wasn’t our car that was flashed. But eventually the letter arrives asking us to pay a fine.
I think the worst of them all are the laser guns that the Police have been using for many years now. We don’t even know we’ve been flashed until the communication arrives at our home! Or we are pulled up a few hundred meters down the road.
Image source: Alibaba
The relatively new types of radar that are being introduced in my home area don’t flash either. But that’s because we never get “caught” as such.
You see they measure our speed and give us immediate feedback. Take a look at the photo on the right; I’m sure you’ve seen such installations before in your own area.
Now if we make the assumption that all four types of equipment are to get road users to decrease their speed in critical areas – and not just to gather money as I’ve heard suggested – then the results must vary widely.
So let me share my thoughts from the perspective of a customer first strategy champion.
Permanent radars
Everyone quickly knows where these are located. In fact, in some countries there are warning signs and they are actually highlighted on the GPS mapping system you may have in your car.
Image source: Pixabay
In some places, the permanent radars are not always functioning, as the cameras inside them are rotated between installations. It is therefore not possible to know which radars are active and which aren’t. The Police then get a multiple deterrent effect, beyond the number of cameras they have actually installed.
A driver’s behaviour when passing this type of installation, tends to be the following. The traffic is rolling along “normally” and probably over the speed limit. Then everyone brakes hard just in time to pass the radar below the maximum speed allowed. They then speed up again to continue along the road at their previous faster pace.
This phenomenon is in fact well known by the Police. In fact, they sometimes add a second, mobile radar a few hundred meters down from the permanent one, to catch those who are once again speeding!
Even the warning signs, as on the left, don’t have much impact on drivers and the speed limitation is quickly forgotten.
Whether they get caught with the first or second radar, the impact on the end customer, the driver, will be the same.
They feel angry and frustrated, which makes them less attentive, and may result in them driving more erratically. They may even speed up feeling that now they have been caught, there is nothing more to lose!
Not good for the driver nor the Police’s objective of maintaining a slower, safer speed in the vicinity. Clearly not a part of a customer first strategy!
In Switzerland they did try painting the cameras to make them stand out in a fun way. The Emmental cheese on the right used to be close to Geneva airport, but I have seen giraffes and other designs here too. Of course I have also seen other radars that have been painted, but these were done by angry motorists!
Temporary radars
Temporary radars have a similar function to the permanent ones, but it usually takes a day or two for drivers to become aware of their location. Their reactions will then be similar to the permanent radars, with the slowing down before and the speeding up after the radar has been passed.
This is not good for traffic fluidity, nor for slowing it down. And the drivers’ reactions if flashed will be just the same as with the permanent installations. Again, not good for making the roads safer by slowing down the traffic, and clearly not a demonstration of a customer first strategy.
Laser speed guns
Image source: Wikipedia
These are probably the most hated form of speed control by drivers. They have no knowledge of where they are, nor even that they have been flashed. It could be argued that they are therefore not a deterrent to speeding, but a pure money-making exercise for the Police.
I admit that the Police do tend to stand in certain places where speeding is a common occurrence. Knowledgeable, local drivers look out for them when approaching the areas and adapt their speed accordingly.
But overall they are not really a device to deter speeding and therefore the associated sentiments are very negative.
Once again this type of radar would not be used if the Police have adopted a customer first strategy.
Speed Information
The speed radar that prompted this post measures your speed but then immediately gives you feedback. You are rewarded with a happy green smiley if you are within the speed limit. Or a red frown with a message to slow down if you are speeding.
I have witnessed people approaching these devices and slowing down whether or not they are speeding. And they don’t speed up after they have passed them either. How’s that for having a positive influence on behaviour?
Also, if the drivers are like me, they also get a feel-good feeling for being congratulated for not speeding. I find these by far the most efficient at controlling traffic speed and fluidity, but of course the Police don’t get any money.
What This Has to Do with Your business
So why is this example relevant for you and your own customer first strategy? Well, ask yourself what you really want for your business?
In the case of the police, I am assuming that they want to reduce the speed of drivers in certain areas and make the roads safer for everyone. In this case, the customer-centric approach, which has by far the most success at slowing drivers down to within the speed limit along a larger portion of the road, is the information panel. If that is their objective, then the Police in every country should adopt these new style radars.
But if those who consider speed checks to be a mere money-making operation are right, then the Police will continue to use one of their other options. And they must accept the negative consequences on so many levels, not just on their image or speeding in their localities.
So, take a hard look at your own business actions and ask yourself what you really want for your business? If you are sincerely customer centric, you will stop any practices that you know your customers wouldn’t like.
Half filled packaging – gone. False claims and promises – deleted. Getting credit card details for free trials in the hope customers will forget to cancel and you can automatically charge them for a service that haven’t specifically requested. Not any longer! These all might get you that first sale but you won’t get you happy and loyal customers who become advocates for your brand.
I dedicated a whole post to the ways that companies try to cheat their customers. If you’d like to read it click on this link and see many more ways of cheating the customer that you should avoid: “https://c3centricity.com/how-to-cheat-your-customers/”
If you don’t want to cheat your customers – and who would as it is not a viable long-term business model? – then you must objectively evaluate your current practices. Ask yourself what you want your customers to think and feel about your brand. What are the objectives you have for your business and your customers? What changes in your customers’ attitude or behaviour are you looking to encourage? How does your brand provide a solution to your customers?
These questions are just a small selection that we use in our highly successful 7-step insight development process that is called CATSIGHT™.
If you’d like to know more about it, or get trained in insight-development and adopting a customer first strategy, then check out our new courses in the C3Centricity Academy. You could learn how to develop actionable business insights in under two hours!
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Every few days there seems to be yet another customer service disaster that fills the newspapers and swamps our online social media feeds. The mistakes companies are making in serving their customers are becoming ever more frequent, at least it appears that way to me. You too?
I find this strange, since almost every organisation, big or small, recognises the importance of satisfying their customers. They all talk about customer centricity but very few actually go beyond voicing their opinions. Why do you think that so many organisations continue to struggle?
After all, a customer first strategy is not that difficult, at least in theory. Just think customer first in everything you do. So how come most businesses get it spectacularly wrong? I think the reason is because they don’t see the immediate return and it costs – a lot of – money to implement.
There has been enough research done to prove that the return on a customer first strategy is significant. Here are just a few of the numbers I found.
86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. But only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations. CEI Survey
The price premium for great customer experience is real—and it’s big, up to 16% PWC
89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service. RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report
By 2020, customer experience was expected to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. I haven’t heard if it did! Customers 2020 Report
A 10% increase in customer retention levels results in a 30% increase in the value of the company. Bain & Co
Those numbers would make any CEO sit up and take notice! But will it make them act? What’s holding them back from investing in their customers rather than (just) in the products and services they offer?
I believe that those numbers can no longer be ignored. It’s time every CEO started initiating a move to a more customer centric organisation. NO more excuses; this has to be (OK, one of) your top priorities!
If you’re ready to put your customers first, then why not sign up for the C3Centricity Academy and follow the course on the topic? FIND OUT MORE.
Marketers are too busy building brands
With so much information available today, marketing is being challenged to demonstrate its ROI. This might explain why they are still putting their efforts into brand building, sometimes to the detriment of their customers, consumers and clients.
However, an analysis run by IBM on research carried out in the UK last year by the Callcredit Information Group gives a different reason. They found that the majority of marketers is feeling overwhelmed by all the data that is available to them these days. Their explanation for this is that:
“Only 29% of marketers believe they have the necessary skills to analyse data, with 44% planning on investing in further training over the next two years to boost confidence within their organisations around the handling of information.”
According to a Forrester report, 44% of B2C marketers are using big data and analytics to improve responsiveness to customer interactions. But of equal importance in terms of top two mentions, is the desire to generate insights. ( Source)
It disappoints me that despite the constant flow of data into companies most companies still lack insights into their customers. As I’m often quoted as saying:
“We’re drowning in data but thirsting for insights.”
Marketing is clearly so busy using data to manage pricing, distribution and communication channels, that they are not using the information to also get to know their customers better.
This conclusion is confirmed by a Forbes article which mentions that marketing is using big data to provide answers to
“which content is the most effective, how to increase conversion rates and customer lifetime value.”
It would be good if they used it to increase satisfaction and loyalty too, no?
Big data has actually done customer understanding a disfavour since organisations are hardly increasing their spend on market research according to ESOMAR’s latest industry figures. The industry grew 6% in 2021 and is expected to grow around 8% this year. As the graph below shows, these are the first increases after several years of stagnation.
Source: Statista
Now compare this to the more than 22% increase recorded for ad spend in 2021!
But there is some hope. A recent report on the KPIs used by marketing showed that Marketers are using a variety of metrics to measure the impact of their brand marketing activities. In surveying more than 560 global brand managers and CMOs, the analysis concludes that new customer acquisition (75%) and social media engagement (72%) are the two primary ways they use to determine the success of their brand marketing efforts.
However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. A 2016 Spencer Stuart survey shows data analysis and insights are one of the three main areas where CMOs need the most development as a leader. Unfortunately, they are also the skills which more than a half of them say are most difficult to find when building a team!
So if CMOs can’t develop insight about their customers, shouldn’t market research be more not less important to them? After all, it’s the one profession which spends its whole time trying to understand the market and its customers. So what’s going wrong?
Market research is seen as a cost, not an investment
Companies still need market research to understand their customers. Yes, there is a wealth of information flooding into organisations with the IoT, but those numbers don’t tell you their “why.” That’s where market research comes into its own. It needs to provide more answers and not just the mere statistics researchers seem comfortable dropping on the laps of executives and marketers alike.
I believe that (a large?) part of the issue is also the researchers themselves. They’re often not very sociable, speak a language others don’t always understand and yet they also seem afraid to voice their own opinion let alone make recommendations.
This was confirmed in The Vermeer Millward Brown Insights 2020 research. It clearly showed the advantages of a senior market research position at board level. But to get there, most researchers need new skills. The critical capabilities which were said to highlight the biggest differences between leaders and laggards were in business acumen, creative solution thinking, storytelling and direction setting.
It seems a real pity to me that the very people who should benefit from the explosion in data availability are not profiting from it. As if their needed skills are not enough, there is also a real opportunity for them to lead the customer first strategy in many organisations.
Customer services are seen as complaint handlers
When I was first hired to head up the global consumer excellence division for Nestle, I found a group of siloed departments which rarely shared information. Even worse, the customer care centre was seen as mere complaint handlers. Their image was of a group of women who spent their days on the telephone talking to other women!
I don’t think Nestle are the only ones who had this image at that time, now more than a decade ago. Have things changed since? Not much in my opinion. I still find similar perceptions in many organisations today, which thankfully become my clients through a desire to make those much needed improvements.
You only have to look at companies which excel at customer care to realise the business benefits of putting the customer first, Amazon, Southwest, Zappos to name but a few. And recent Temkins research concluded that SaaS companies can expect to double their revenue within 36 months of adopting a CEX strategy.
An excellent article by Shep Hyken called “Ten Customer Service Tips for Customer Loyalty Month” details the essentials of a forward-thinking customer-first strategy and what it means today. In it, he mentions that
“According to Forrester, 72% of businesses say that improving the customer experience is their top priority. A study from NewVoiceMedia indicates that companies lose more than $62 billion due to poor customer service. No company can afford to be a customer service laggard.”
The Forrester report from which Shep quotes was from an ongoing analysis that has been run each year since 2010. The key findings from the 2016 report showed:
In all five sectors they covered, companies with higher customer experience (CX) scores outperformed their rivals in revenue growth
CX leaders showed an annual growth rate of 17% compared to just 3% for the others.
The cable and retail industries beat the field in CX by 24% and 26%, which is a huge boost to the bottom line.
Even in the sector with the smallest range (airlines), there was a 5% difference between companies.
This also translated into subscriber growth – in the cable industry leaders grew internet subscribers by 23.9% more than others and video subscribers by 13.9%
Along with the previously mentioned statistics, I can see no reason for a company not to invest in a customer-first strategy. If you can think of any yourself, then I’d love to hear them in the comments below.
In Conclusion
A customer-first strategy needs an organisation to recenter itself behind this company-wide objective. It can make a real difference in terms of both sales and profits to those who follow this direction. But it is essential to have executive support and true commitment from every employee to think customer first.
This will take skill upgrades for both marketing and market research departments to translate the data and information gathered into actionable insights.
And it will mean every employee having the chance to regularly get up close and personal with customers. This is the only way for them to understand the role that they play in satisfying and delighting them. After all, that’s what we all want, whether we are buyer or seller isn’t it?
Are you ready to adopt a customer-first strategy? If so, then check out the C3Centricity website for your first steps. Also, why not answer our free mini C3C Evaluator tool (https://www.c3centricity.com) and see just how good your customer-first strategy really is? It’s always better to know from where you’re starting and what changes to prioritise in order to have the most and fastest impact!
I know, you probably don’t want to read yet another article about the post-pandemic era, especially when the infection numbers in many countries are once again headed in the wrong direction!
But with people having changed their purchasing habits and perspectives due to lockdown, this seems the perfect time to reconsider your customer-first strategy.
Up until the covid-19 virus hit across the globe, almost every single organisation, big or small, recognised the importance of satisfying their customers. But most of them were only giving lip service to customer-centricity and very few were actually going beyond voicing their opinions. This is no longer possible as customers are sharing their experiences of companies and brands far more than just six months ago.
After all, what else have they to do than surf the internet all day long! According to the latest global statistics, social media usage saw an increase of 21 per cent, and news consumption has risen by 36 per cent. You can see the individual country breakdowns at Statista.
A recent NYT article clearly confirms these significant changes in behaviour in the US. Another study summarised on Forbes and run across 30 markets globally, shows that engagement has increased 61% over normal social media usage rates. Companies can no longer hide like they once did; customers are out to highlight their dissatisfaction and point the finger when they are less than happy with a product or service.
A customer-first strategy is not so hard. Just think customer first in everything you do. So how come most businesses get it spectacularly wrong? I think the reason is that they don’t see the immediate return and it costs money to implement. What do you think?
And even when an organisation decides to become more customer centric, there are many mistakes that are commonly made. This article “7 Reasons for Failure When Adopting a Customer First Strategy” gives the main ones and makes a complementary read to this post.
But today’s world has accelerated the upward trend in the importance of a customer-first strategy and makes it one of the most, if not the most important one for all organisations. It is no longer the norm or even the new-norm, of successful businesses, it is becoming the make or break criteria in surviving the pandemic. And many companies are already failing fast, although it is said that for many retailers, the pandemic only sped up their likely appearance in bankruptcy courts. For more on this I suggest you read “As pandemic stretches on, retail bankruptcies approach highest number in a decade.”
While retail is clearly suffering as purchases in lockdown went online, it is not the only industry to have been hit hard. Another CNBC articlehighlights others including cruises, fitness, energy and airlines. Whether or not these too were headed downwards or not, customers hold the key to success more than ever before as their spending becomes less impulsive. The 20 biggest companies that have filed for bankruptcy because of the coronavirus pandemic are listed in this article on Forbes.
Reasons for having a customer-first strategy
There has been enough research done to prove that the return on a customer-first strategy is significant. Here are just a few of the numbers I have found.
86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. But only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations. CEI Survey
Walker forecast that by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. Customers 2020 Report
A 10% increase in customer retention levels result in a 30% increase in the value of the company. Bain & Co
94% of consumers say they are more likely to be loyal to a brand that offers transparency. Label Insight
These are numbers that would make any CEO sit up and take notice! But will it make them act? What’s holding them back from investing in their customers rather than (just) in the products and services they offer?
I believe that those numbers can no longer be ignored. It’s time every CEO started initiating a move to a more customer centric organisation. NO more excuses; this has to be (OK, one of) your top priorities!
If you’re ready to put your customers first, then C3Centricity can help, inspiring your team, no matter where in the world you operate. Contact us today for more information on adopting a customer-first strategy.
Marketers are too busy building brands
With so much information available today, marketing is being challenged to demonstrate its ROI. This might explain why they are still putting their efforts into brand building, sometimes to the detriment of their customers, consumers and clients.
However, an analysis run by IBM on research carried out in the UK last year by the Callcredit Information Group gives a different reason. They found that the majority of marketers is feeling overwhelmed by all this data. Their explanation for this is that:
“Only 29% of marketers believe they have the necessary skills to analyse data, with 44% planning on investing in further training over the next two years to boost confidence within their organisations around the handling of information.”
According to a Forrester report, 44% of B2C marketers are using big data and analytics to improve responsiveness to customer interactions. But of equal importance in terms of top two mentions, is the desire to generate insights. ( Source)
It saddens me that despite the constant flow of data into companies they still lack insights into their customers. As I’m often quoted as saying:
“We’re drowning in data but thirsting for insights.”
Marketing is clearly so busy using data to manage pricing, distribution and their communication channels, that they are not using the information to get to know their customers better. This conclusion is confirmed by a Forbes article which mentions that marketing is using big data to provide answers to “which content is the most effective, how to increase conversion rates and customer lifetime value.” It would be good if they used it to increase satisfaction and loyalty, no?
Big data has actually done customer understanding a disfavour since organisations are hardly increasing their spend on market research according to ESOMAR’s latest industry figures. The industry grew a measly 2.1% in 2018, once again confirming that there continues to be no “significant” growth recorded in the past seven years! Compare this to the more than 4-6% increases recorded for ad spend over the past five years.
But there is some hope. A recent report from OnBrand Magazine on the KPIs used by marketing showed that Marketers are using a variety of metrics to measure the impact of their brand marketing activities. In surveying more than 560 global brand managers and CMOs, the analysis concludes that new customer acquisition (75%) and social media engagement (72%) are the two primary ways they determine the success of their brand marketing efforts.
However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. A 2016 Spencer Stuart survey shows data analysis and insights are one of the three main areas where CMOs need the most development as a leader. Unfortunately, they are also the skills which more than half of them say are most difficult to find when building a team!
So if CMOs can’t develop insight about their customers, shouldn’t market research be more not less important to them? After all, it’s the one profession which spends its whole time trying to understand the market and customers. So what’s going wrong?
Market research is seen as a cost, not an investment
Companies still need market research to understand their customers. Yes, there is a wealth of information flooding into organisations with the IoT, but those numbers don’t tell you their “why.” That’s where market research comes into its own. It needs to provide more “why” answers and not just the mere statistics they seem comfortable dropping on the laps of executives and marketers alike.
I believe that (a large?) part of the issue is also the researchers themselves. They’re not sociable, speak a language others don’t understand and seem afraid to voice their own opinion, let alone make recommendations.
This was recently confirmed in The Vermeer Millward Brown Insights 2020 research. It clearly showed the advantages of a senior market research position at board level. But to get there, the majority of researchers need new skills. The critical capabilities which were said to highlight the biggest differences between leaders and laggards were in business acumen, creative solution thinking, storytelling and direction setting.
It seems a real pity to me that the very people who should benefit from the explosion in data availability are not profiting from it. As if their needed analytical skills are not enough, there is also a real opportunity for them to lead the customer-first strategy in many organisations.
Customer services are seen as complaint handlers
When I was first hired to head up the global consumer excellence division for Nestle, I found a group of siloed departments which rarely shared information. Even worse, the customer care centre was seen as mere complaint handlers. Their image was of a group of women who spent their days on the phone talking to other women!
I don’t think Nestle were the only ones who had this image at that time. And sadly I still find similar perceptions in many organisations which become my clients through a desire to make the much-needed changes.
You only have to take a look at the financial results of companies which excel at customer care to realise the business benefits of putting the customer first: Amazon, Southwest, Zappos to name but a few.
An excellent article by Shep Hyken called “Ten Customer Service Tips for Customer Loyalty Month” details the essentials of a forward-thinking customer-first strategy and what it means today. Even if it is now quite old, I still believe the article is of immense value, which is why I mention it here. In the post, he mentions that
“According to Forrester, 72% of businesses say that improving the customer experience is their top priority. A study from NewVoiceMedia indicates that companies lose more than $62 billion due to poor customer service. No company can afford to be a customer service laggard.”
The Forrester report from which Shep quotes was from an ongoing analysis that has been run each year since 2010. The key findings from the 2016 report showed:
In all five sectors they covered, companies with higher customer experience (CX) scores outperformed their rivals in revenue growth
CX leaders showed an annual growth rate of 17% compared to just 3% for the others.
The cable and retail industries beat the field in CX by 24% and 26%, which is a huge boost to the bottom line.
Even in the sector with the smallest range (airlines), there was a 5% difference between companies.
This also translated into subscriber growth – in the cable industry leaders grew internet subscribers by 23.9% more than others and video subscribers by 13.9%
Along with the previously mentioned statistics, I can see no reason for a company not to invest in a customer first strategy. If you can think of any yourself, then I’d love to hear them in the comments below.
In conclusion
To answer the title of this article, a customer-first strategy needs an organisation to recenter itself behind what must be a company-wide objective. Customer centricity can make a real difference in terms of both sales and profits to those who follow this direction. But it is essential to have executive support and a true commitment from every employee to think customer first.
It will take skill upgrades for both marketing and market research departments to translate the data and information gathered into actionable insights. But that is a small investment for the huge returns that have been proven.
And being customer centric will mean that every employee finally has the chance to get close up and personal with customers. This is the only way for them to understand the role they play in satisfying and delighting them.
Are you ready to adopt a customer-first strategy? If so, then check out our website for more tips and answer our free assessment here: https://www.c3centricity.com. You will immediately see how to prioritise your actions.
I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.
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