Why Customer Centricity Matters

John Follett

A customer centric company can be defined as being a business that provides customers end-to-end services, from the beginning pitch to after the time of the sale. This approach can provide your company with a strong reputation and can set your business apart from competitors.

It's important to note though, that customer centricity is not the same as being customer friendly. Customer centricity is not about doing everything that a customer wants, although offering outstanding services and being friendly are part of the customer-centric experience. Embracing customer centricity means going above and beyond for important customers, the ones that are the most loyal and that bring a lot of value to the business.

Customer Centricity

Being a customer-centric company requires that you understand and can identify customers based on whether or not they are valuable. This does not necessarily mean you should ignore the non-focal, occasional customer. You should certainly meet their needs as well, but you have to sort your customers into groups and focus more on the largest customers.

Additionally, you need to be capable of organizing and operating at a level that allows you to deliver different types of services and products to various types of customers. When it comes to customer value, it’s important to look at customer lifetime value, or CLV. This is about the value or worth of the customer to the business in the future. If you have a business that can provide services and products to customers for a prolonged period of time, this can be great for a business.

Any company, firm, or business that strives to become customer-centric needs a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Without CRM, there is little hope of developing customer centricity. It is important to keep a CRM simple and streamlined, without allowing it to become a massive system that gets out of hand. It is also important to create a customer centricity checklist to be sure you have all the tools you need to take steps toward becoming customer-centric.

 

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