I have not met a CEO in the last 12 months who has not had customer centricity as one of her main strategic initiatives. It is a great idea … putting the customer at the centre of the organisation … it should result in winning new business, retaining more clients and ultimately improving results. So the real issue is … why hasn’t the customer always been at the centre of the business?
Here are some of the reasons that I have heard:
“as the business grew, became more complex, we spent more time on dealing with shareholder demands, and developing our people … the customer became less of a priority”
“tough economic times meant that we had to pour our energy into cutting costs and reducing risk”
“our value chain has become so complex, it now hard to define exactly who our customers really are?”
“if we do not focus on new product development … we will get left behind”
These are all very valid reasons … HOWEVER, they are not going to disappear just because a new strategic initiative has been launched.
So how do you build a customer centric organisation that is going to stay customer centric?
To start … there needs to be a clear understanding of why the customer is no longer at the core of your business … what factors have shifted your focus from the customer? You now have a platform to build the tactics that address conflicting demands on the business yet still place the customer at it’s centre. It is the difference between going on a crash diet … or deciding to change your lifestyle!
Now turn your attention to what your customer really needs … has this been an intuitive guess in the past, where are they right now, what is keeping them awake at night?
Most companies attempt to segment their customer base … but the danger is that they create convenient groups that have a nice heading … is it time to rethink how customers are defined? Who do you really need to keep happy?
Identify where customer centricity is alive and well. Companies are excellent and finding fault in their organisation … but often weak at identifying excellence. There are always pockets of customer centricity … where are these in your organisation, what can be learnt from them, how can they be scaled?
From here you can move to the nitty gritty of aligning systems and processes and importantly … building the right culture. Not easy … but it can be done with the confidence that a solid foundation has been built to deliver a long-term solution rather than a quick fix.
Mary-Clare Tomes 