leadership - c3centricity

Top 10 Challenges Facing Companies When They Adopt a Customer-First Strategy

Posted on August 29, 2023August 29, 2023 by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

In an era where customer expectations are rapidly evolving, businesses have finally recognised the importance of adopting a customer-first strategy.

However, despite this awareness, many companies still struggle to fully embrace customer-centric practices. Numerous barriers can hinder the journey toward customer-centricity, impacting both customer satisfaction and long-term business success. In this article, I propose ten reasons that often prevent companies from becoming more customer-centric and offer suggestions on how organisations can overcome these challenges.

Introduction

We all know that customers exert unprecedented influence today and that business success hinges on one core principle: customer-centricity. The shift from product-centric models to customer-focused strategies has become not just a preference but a clear necessity for every company aiming to thrive in today’s dynamic market landscape. Yet, despite acknowledging its significance, many organisations still struggle to genuinely embrace customer centricity.

The journey towards adopting a customer-first strategy is not merely about altering a few processes; it’s a transformative endeavour that necessitates rethinking organisational culture, strategies, and operations. These are all covered in detail in my book Winning Customer Centricity: Putting Customers at the Heart of Your Business – One Day at a Time. (Click the link to learn more and get a free download.)

For now, I want to share some ideas on how these challenges manifest, why they persist, and, most importantly, how visionary leaders can lead their organisations to conquer these roadblocks and establish a new paradigm that places customers at the forefront of everything they do.

The 10 Challenges of a Customer-First Strategy

As the market continues to evolve and customer expectations soar to new heights, the need for customer-centricity becomes a strategic imperative and a distinguishing factor that separates industry leaders from followers. Here are ten keys to unlocking the full potential of a customer-first strategy.

1. Lack of Customer-Centric Leadership: Without solid support from upper management or executives, initiatives to become more customer-centric might not receive the necessary resources, attention, or priority to succeed.

When executives don’t prioritise customer satisfaction or fail to embody customer-centric values, they send a clear message throughout the organisation that customer-centricity isn’t a core focus for the business. Leadership buy-in is essential for creating a culture that places the customer at the heart of decision-making.

Actions: Host workshops or training sessions for leaders to emphasise the strategic importance of customer-centricity. Share success stories highlighting the positive impact of customer-centric practices on business outcomes. Encourage leaders to actively participate in customer feedback sessions to demonstrate their commitment.

2. Silos and Departmentalism: Departmental silos can be formidable barriers to customer-centricity in larger organisations.

In most companies, departments operate autonomously, focusing on their own goals and metrics without considering the broader customer experience. These siloed departments lead to disconnected efforts and inefficiencies, as well as confusing customer experiences and a fragmented customer journey.

To tackle this, companies should encourage interdepartmental communication, establish cross-functional teams, and align goals to ensure a seamless and consistent customer experience.

Actions: Establish cross-functional teams or task forces with representatives … Click to continue reading

7 Ideas from Great Leaders to Make Your Leadership Style More Effective

Posted on October 11, 2022May 3, 2024 by Alan Hale

I’d like to start this post with a story about some great leaders. As you know, I published my book Winning Customer Centricity a few years ago. And being the customer centric champion that I am, I wanted to ensure that people could buy it wherever they were and in whatever format they preferred.

This meant offering hardback, paperback and Kindle versions. It also involved recording an audiobook. Now you’re probably thinking, as I myself did going into it, “How difficult is it to read out loud?”

I went for my first day of recording with not much more preparation than getting my book printed off. What a mistake! Luckily we had technical problems and Tony Johnston, who helped me with the project, decided to redo the first part again a week or so later.

That extra time gave me the chance to do two invaluable things. Firstly, to get some coaching from two incredibly talented – and patient! – actors, Pamela Salem and Michael O’Hagan. Secondly, to better prepare myself by reading the book aloud several times, then marking it up with pauses, emphases and other notes, to make the recording more agreeable to the listener.

However, after successfully recording the first half of the book, I again fell back into my usual way of presentation mode on the second day, and Tony generously offered to re-record it. So I went back to my dream team of coaches and did some intensive voice training and exercises. And lucky for me – and Tony – it was third time lucky. You can judge for yourself by listening to a sample on Amazon.

By now, you’re probably thinking “Nice story Denyse, but what does all of this have to do with me and my business?”

It’s a great question; let me answer it by saying “A lot!” Read on, to find my easily applied learnings that will make your leadership style more efficient and effective, no matter what industry you work in. And in addition, by adopting all seven behaviours, you will be portraying a more customer centric style and become a great leader yourself.

1. We should never stop learning

As we rise in the corporate world, we seem to forget that we don’t know it all! We sometimes even think that we should have all the answers, or worse still, believe that we do!

I’m often quoted as saying:

“A day without learning is a day without living”

It’s vital that we continuously strive to keep learning and challenging our everyday habits and behaviours. Lifelong learning should be everyone’s mantra.

This has become increasingly important because technical advances are coming almost daily, so we must constantly rethink how we work. We should adapt and integrate those technologies that could improve our business processes.

BONUS: #8 Prepare for the Unthinkable

I would encourage all leaders to revise their vision considering these seven points.

But I’d like to add a bonus idea that will truly impact … Click to continue reading

Never Give Up! How to Succeed in Business When Everyone Else is Failing

Posted on November 2, 2021May 3, 2024 by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

I was recently reminded of a famous and inspiring quote from Winston Churchill’s address to Harrow School in the UK back in 1941. It was certainly one of his shortest speeches, but probably also one of his most quoted. He said:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never”

You can read his full speech – which is not much longer! – here.

Hearing this quote got me thinking about failure. Failure in our lives, our businesses, our jobs, our relationships. And more importantly, about how we often fail merely because we give up too quickly. Unfortunately we’ll never know, but we can do something to avoid failure. In fact we can do a lot!

Now whereas I believe that advising you on your private life is best left to my other platform https://finding-your-happy.com, I do feel sufficiently knowledgeable to speak about your business failures here.

I recently wrote about the 7 reasons most companies fail to adopt a customer first strategy. They were the conclusion to a post on what a customer first strategy is, and what it isn’t. If you missed it, then click the link above to read the full article. And if you want to learn more about how to adopt a customer-first strategy, then I’m sure you’ll be interested in checking out my new course on Udemy called “A Customer-First Strategy for Accelerating Brand Growth.” It is a success roadmap for putting your customers at the heart of your business for faster growth & profitability.

Over the many years of blog posting, I’ve written many posts on numerous topics, including my solutions to failing in countless areas of marketing. I therefore thought it would be useful to share four summaries of the most important articles related to failure in business and innovation in a single post. Let me know what you think.

How you React to Failure could Make You a Success

For this first summary of a post, I’d like to share not a list of solutions but a selection of inspiring quotes on reacting to failure. I think it sets the stage beautifully for the three other summaries to come.

In the full post (which you can read by clicking the above link) you can also find suggested actions for each of them. They will make you realise that there is great opportunity in every failure! So don’t be afraid to fail. Just don’t miss the chance of learning a valuable lesson!

1. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” Bill Gates, American Businessman

2. “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” John Wooden, American Coach

3. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” Benjamin Franklin, American Politician

4. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently” Henry Ford, American Businessman

5. “The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure” John C. Maxwell, American … Click to continue reading

How to Succeed in Leadership, Marketing, Innovation and Insight

Posted on July 21, 2020May 3, 2024 by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

Although I love quotes, especially about how to succeed, I love success even more. Do you?

One of my favourite quotes on the topic of success comes from Winston Churchill during his address to the Harrow School (UK) during WWII in 1941. It was one of his shortest speeches but probably one of his most quoted. He said:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never”

If you are interested, you can read his full speech – which is not a lot longer! – here.

Hearing this quote again recently, got me thinking about failure. Failure in our lives, our businesses, our jobs, our relationships. And you must admit that we are just at the beginning of the impact of covid on the world and I know we need to prepare for a lot of failures in the coming months and years. But I ask myself how often we fail merely because we give up too quickly?

Another of my favourite quotes on success and failure comes from Napolean Hill:

“Most great people have achieved their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”

Now whereas I do advise people today on how to find more happiness in their lives (See my new website on intuitive coaching at Finding-Your-Happy.com), I want to address here the many current and possibly future failures in business.

Another recent post of mine concentrated on why companies fail in their adoption of a customer-first strategy. You can read it here: 7 reasons most companies fail to adopt a customer first strategy. This was a follow up to another popular post on what a customer-first strategy is, and what it isn’t. If you missed it, then you can read it here: “What Customer First Strategies Really Are (And What They’re Not!)”

Over almost a decade of blog posting, I have written many other articles which include my solutions to failing in countless areas of marketing. I, therefore, thought it would be useful to share four of the most popular ones here in a single post (Links to original full-length posts in titles). Let me know what you think.

How you React to Failure Could Make You a Success

For this first summary of a post, I’d like to share not a list of solutions but a selection of inspiring quotes on reacting to failure. I think it sets the stage beautifully for the other articles to come.

In the full post (which you can read by clicking the above link) you can also find suggested actions for each of them. They will make you realise that there are great opportunities in every failure! So don’t be afraid to fail. Just never give up!

1. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” Bill Gates, American Businessman

2. “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” John Wooden, American Coach

[easy-tweet tweet=”“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” John Wooden, … Click to continue reading

Tag: leadership