Adopt the “Customer Centric” approach

Published on April 02, 2020  - Updated on December 01, 2023

Improve your business strategy : adopt a Customer Centric approach

Placing the customer at the center of your strategy and your concerns is essential. New technologies make it possible to take the "Customer Centric" approach further.

1) What is the "Customer Centric" approach?

Putting the customer first is nothing new in itself. However, as new technologies emerge, digital tools allow you to analyze your customer data more and more through the web. The possibilities are multiplying for companies to personalize their customer relationships.

Adopting a "customer-centric" approach means adopting a strategy where you put the customer at the center of your concerns. Each of your decisions will be systematically taken according to their impact on the customer. It is a true corporate culture that then takes precedence over all your interactions.

2) What advantages come with this strategy?

What is the added value of this approach? "Customer Centric" is profitable. Understanding what the customer wants and needs, will give you a better idea of growth opportunities. Indeed, the best source of information will always be your customers! Instead of justifying yourself if your customers are not satisfied with your services, you can adopt another approach which consists of surveying dissatisfied customers and finding possible areas for improvement!

By meeting their expectations more precisely by following a regular work of listening and understanding with your customers, you will greatly increase your customer satisfaction. You will be more inclined to retain your customers, who can eventually later, become regular consumers.

Making decisions with the sole intention of your customers will allow you to boost your income! Your financial prospects will be automatically revitalized if you are more in tune with it because you are more likely to sell your product or service to your customers if you satisfy them more accurately.

Understanding your customers, allow you to personalize your customer experience more adequately. In fact, by satisfying the expectations expressed, you will build, over the long term, a much more solid customer relationship. Ultimately, you will then be able to note an increase in customer loyalty.

- Stand out from your competitors, especially if you are a small business. Indeed, by creating a close relationship with your customers, the link will be stronger and your customers will tend to recommend you to their friends and family, thus increasing your market share.

- Increase your profitability. Growth opportunities are easier to detect. A customer-centric company regularly surveys its customers. It is therefore aware of dissatisfactions that can actually turn into real business opportunities as the company seeks to provide an appropriate response to the customer's needs.

An example: what are the secrets of the success of Amazon?

⁠"If you don't take care of your customers, your competitor will." - Jeff Bezos

One of the undisputed secrets to Amazon's success lies in its deep commitment to the philosophy of Customer Centricity. For Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, this quote holds paramount importance. Since the early days of the company, he instilled a corporate culture focused on customers, considering their satisfaction as a fundamental pillar of the company's success.

Amazon has chosen to stand out by emphasizing customer retention over customer acquisition. Jeff Bezos understands that word of mouth is the most powerful customer acquisition tool available. To achieve this, Amazon strives to ensure a seamless online shopping experience, thereby building a trust-based relationship with consumers and encouraging them to return and recommend its services.

Amazon's added value is evident through a highly personalized shopping journey that takes into account the preferences of each customer. The company also provides dedicated and responsive customer service, real-time order tracking, and a reliable transaction environment. The entire customer journey is designed to bring simplicity and convenience to everyday life. This obsession with customer satisfaction undoubtedly underlies Amazon's success. The numbers bear witness to this, with 89% of shoppers stating that they are more likely to buy products on Amazon than on other e-commerce platforms.

In summary, the Customer Centric approach is one of the pillars that has enabled Amazon to rise to the top of the online retail industry. This underscores the importance of placing the customer at the heart of the strategy for any company wishing to build a loyal and enduring customer base.

3) How do you implement this approach?

Being customer-centric can be a challenge for any new company that wants to embark on this approach for the first time. Indeed, choosing this culture can take time, and a lot of trial and error to really make it work. Making all your business decisions based on the impact on the customer will require you to increase your knowledge of the customer.

Putting the customer at the center of your business strategy

For the implementation of this "Customer Centric" approach to be successful in your company, it must be integrated into the overall strategy. Indeed, by adding the customer to the company's values, you will be able to bring the whole company into line on the subject and communicate by placing the customer at the center of attention.

Make all teams aware of the importance of the customer experience.

In connection with the previous paragraph on the strategy and values of the company, for the success to be total it is necessary that all the employees of the company go in this direction. And not only those who are in contact with the final customer! If every department in the company believes in the importance of this strategy and feels involved in it, it will be all the more effective.

Nothing is more important than communication! Make employees aware of this approach, why it is important, what their role is, etc. If they trust you and believe in this strategy and these values, they will be more likely to move in the same direction as you.

You can also reward them based on results, for example when there is a significant increase in NPS (Net Promoter Score) or CES (Customer Effort Score) or when a major irritant has been corrected.

Use customer reviews

It is also very important to understand that the customer experience does not stop after the purchase, it is global. It goes from the first point of contact to the after-sales service and sometimes, unfortunately, attrition. That's why customer reviews will be of crucial help in your Customer-Centric strategy. Indeed, not only can positive comments and feedback serve as motivation for employees, but negative verbatims are essential to identify your points of improvement!

The use of an automatic semantic analysis tool will greatly help you in this task by allowing you to quickly process a large volume of customer comments. This way, you can focus on implementing an action plan.

Q°emotion's Customer Emotion Analysis solution provides a good basis for this strategy. This approach allows you to analyze and understand the opinions or comments of your customers on the internet or in your surveys. It is possible to segment the different emotions that customers feel.

Data analysis is essential for the customer-centric approach. By effectively exploiting the traces that your customers leave on the web about you, you will be able to predict the best decision to take, in case of negative reviews for example.

4) How to measure the effectiveness of a Customer Centric strategy?

After seeing what a Customer Centric strategy is and how to implement it, the work does not stop there. Indeed, it is now necessary to approach the follow-up of your strategy to measure the effectiveness of this one. Overall, there are two indicators particularly effective for this. Namely :

- The churn rate. This is a key indicator that aims to quantify the proportion of lost customers. Churn rate is very relevant to track the effectiveness of your Customer Centric strategy. Indeed, if your attrition rate is high, it may indicate that the customer-centric strategy is not effective, probably because customers do not feel valued or have not been satisfied with their experience. On the other hand, a low churn rate may indicate that your strategy has been successful in meeting your customers' expectations and increasing their commitment to your business. By regularly measuring your attrition rate, you will be able to identify problems and opportunities for improvement to continue to improve your customer-centric strategy and strengthen the relationship with your customers.

- The Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Also known as customer lifetime value, this is another important metric to track. This metric is used to calculate the total value delivered to your business over the "lifetime" of a customer. By calculating the CLV, you will be able to understand how much you can invest to acquire and retain your customers, which can significantly help you determine your marketing and customer service budgets. If your CLV is high, it can indicate that you are on the right path, your customers continue to buy products or services, and are more likely to recommend your company to their circle. Conversely, if the latter is low, this may indicate that there are areas for improvement in your strategy to increase the satisfaction and loyalty of your customers.

Conclusion

In the long term, adopting this strategy to put the customer at the center of your priorities, will bring much more, than a more traditional approach can provide. You would consolidate the reputation of your business as well as your customer relationship with other significant advantages that allow you to go further.