by: Alain Thys
I’m on a mission to help marketing catch up with the realities of today, and one of the areas I believe still requires some attention is the way businesses focus on their customers. Or in modern day jargon, how far they are “customer centric”. Sure, by now we know that focusing on the customer can help you grow sales, build loyalty and even get customers to recommend you to others. There are even a growing number of people that deploy the Net Promoter Score or similar metrics as a tool to achieve just that.
But while these numbers and theories can point you in the right direction, they do not change the way your company operates. That needs to be done by the people in the business. And marketers need to make sure they want to play ball too. They need to make people in the business understand why it’s important to focus on the customer. They need to be prepared to walk the customer talk. Truly listen to the customer. Change their habits and behaviours. Even re-organise the business if that’s needed.
Management Centre Europe specialises in getting people to develop a customer-centric mindset (disclosure: MCE is a long standing Futurelab customer), and from working with them on a number of customer projects, I’ve learned that this bit of getting people to act is a completely different ball game. In fact, at MCE they found that only companies that place equal value on the mindset of their people, stand a fighting chance.
But when it comes to the internal – people – aspects of customer-centricity, most marketers are no where to be found (nor – to be fair – are most other departments). Still, for those who would like to take up the gauntlet of really making something happen in their business, I propose six attention areas which have been proven in other places, and they could work for you.
Attention area 1: Show them the money
No matter which way you look at it, businesses are about money. Shareholders want returns. Staff wants to be paid. So marketers should start every conversation about customer centricity by talking about money, and the measurable profits the business can make by making customers “happy”. Talking about the bonuses that can be earned by growing customer delight helps too. After all, only if the leaders of the business and their staff clearly see what’s in it for them and for the company, will they consider changing their behaviour.
Attention area 2: Involve everyone
Customer centricity is not about graphs and PowerPoint presentations. It is about having your people experience what customers are looking for. Showing them why customer focus matters. How their job, no matter how customer-remote, can have an impact. That is why marketers must involve everyone in the business in the customer research conversations taking place. And rather than prescribe the right behaviour, encourage them to formulate for themselves what being customer-centric means in their job. You cannot script human behaviour anyway.
Attention area 3: Adapt the KPI’s
Getting the people in the business to understand the importance of customer centricity and what it means to their job is a start. But if the KPI’s they face tell a different story, the initial enthusiasm will quickly disappear. Efficiency measures can eliminate staff time to deal with the customer. Cost controls can create bad profits. Project priority sheets can lead people astray. As a third – crucial - step marketers need to work with other stakeholders to review every KPI of the business. Does it encourage people to do what is right? Or does it get in the way? Is it customer-centric, or is it customer-toxic? After all, only when every KPI is aligned, will the people be able to put their intentions into practice.
Attention area 4: Back it with leadership support
Once people are willing to do what is right for the customer and have formulated a vision of how this applies to them, they need to be empowered to act. This is where marketers need to encourage the leadership of the business to come into play. They need to allocate resources to the right places, encourage the right behaviours and forgive well-intended mistakes. They need to set the example by actively talking to customers, and doing what is right. And when processes, habits or politics get in the way, they need to be decisive and clear that the customer centricity drive is not up for debate.
Attention area 5: Break the silos
But even empowered employees can only achieve so much. After all, customer feedback typically doesn’t fit the processes and silos of the business. That is why – even though they should advocate it - customer centricity should not become the responsibility of the marketing or any other department. Instead, cross-functional teams should be created and resourced to understand what being customer centric means across departments. And subsequently align individual parts of the organisation so they "deliver what is right for the customer and for the business."
Attention area 6: Focus on mindset and completion
Any customer feedback system is a rear view mirror for your business. It can tell you how well the business has done and trigger improvement projects, but it cannot predict the future. Every new situation will be different. Marketers need to help all employees and subcontractors instinctively select the right actions.For this they should rely on the customer facts, but above all on a mindset in which they know what matters most, and are free to do this.
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So what do you think. Am I crazy?
This blog reflects the personal opinions of individual contributors and does not represent the views of Futurelab, Futurelab's clients, or the contributors' respective employers or clients.
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Denise Lee Yohn says:
20 May 2009, 21:06
thank you so much for your response, alain -- it's refreshing to reconsider the common perspective we share -- i really like âmaking a relevant promise that engages your customer and making sure your company (over)delivers against thisâ!!
there's a bottle of chardonnay waiting for you in san diego!
Alain Thys says:
15 May 2009, 12:01
Hi Denise
Thereâs one downside at this global economy thing. With the long distances, itâs not as easy to say âletâs get a bottle of Chardonnay and have a long conversation about itâ. Especially as you put your case so eloquent Iâd need a few page to respond with the right nuances. Still, my feeling is that â after a some lively push back & forthâ weâd probably end up violently agreeing with each other.
The reason I say that is that I have done what you suggested. I re-read the article with the word âbrandâ in all the right places, and still agreed with everything.
You see, if pressed to oversimplify customer centricity in less than 4 paragraphs, Iâd say it is about âmaking a relevant promise that engages your customer and making sure your company (over)delivers against thisâ. Once you know what this promise is, you use it to drive every aspect of your business uncompromisingly. I typically equate âthe promiseâ to âthe brandâ. Which â I think - gets me very close to the âoperationalising brandsâ approach you stand for.
So I have the feeling that â in a way â weâre starting at different ends of the spectrum, but ending up at (more or less) the same space.
In this the âlessâ bit weâd probably find me more optimistic than you about companyâs ability to embrace the customer, albeit that I live very much in the Philips philosophy of âit may take us 10 yearsâ. Also, Iâd probably challenge Best Buyâs investment levels as being too high. But then again, if we agreed on everything, life would get boring quickly.
But to conclude, you did influence my thinking in that I need to make some room in the dialogue for the brand (i.e. the promise the company stands for). Only talking about the customer gives the wrong impression too (as while I think sheâs very very very important, the customer is not the be all and end all). So thanks !
Pity about the wine though J
Mirela says:
15 May 2009, 11:14
Hi Denise
Thereâs one downside at this global economy thing. With the long distances, itâs not as easy to say âletâs get a bottle of Chardonnay and have a long conversation about itâ. Especially as you put your case so eloquent Iâd need a few page to respond with the right nuances. Still, my feeling is that â after a some lively push back & forthâ weâd probably end up violently agreeing with each other.
The reason I say that is that I have done what you suggested. I re-read the article with the word âbrandâ in all the right places, and still agreed with everything.
You see, if pressed to oversimplify customer centricity in less than 4 paragraphs, Iâd say it is about âmaking a relevant promise that engages your customer and making sure your company (over)delivers against thisâ. Once you know what this promise is, you use it to drive every aspect of your business uncompromisingly. I typically equate âthe promiseâ to âthe brandâ. Which â I think - gets me very close to the âoperationalising brandsâ approach you stand for.
So I have the feeling that â in a way â weâre starting at different ends of the spectrum, but ending up at (more or less) the same space.
In this the âlessâ bit weâd probably find me more optimistic than you about companyâs ability to embrace the customer, albeit that I live very much in the Philips philosophy of âit may take us 10 yearsâ. Also, Iâd probably challenge Best Buyâs investment levels as being too high. But then again, if we agreed on everything, life would get boring quickly.
But to conclude, you did influence my thinking in that I need to make some room in the dialogue for the brand (i.e. the promise the company stands for). Only talking about the customer gives the wrong impression too (as while I think sheâs very very very important, the customer is not the be all and end all). So thanks !
Pity about the wine though J
Alain
Patrice F says:
13 May 2009, 16:32
Some more attention areas:
Denise Lee Yohn says:
14 May 2009, 00:25
I don't know, Alain
It may sound heretical to say, but I'm skeptical about heralding customer centricity as the be all and end all.
It's just not financially and/or operationally feasible for a scaled enterprise to satisfy all desires of all customers. Todayâs customers are too diverse and too demanding. In an attempt to be all things to all people, company's end up being nothing to no one.
While several company's customer centricity efforts have been successful, they are the outcomes of significant operational expense and cultural transformation. Case in point: Best Buy reported spending over $250MM to initiate its corporate change.
This level of investment is simply not feasible for most companies. So itâs not surprising that 75% of retailers surveyed by IDC Global Insights, for example, rate customer centricity a top success factor but over half indicate that incorporating insights into their daily job remains a challenge.
If you were to substitute "brand" for the word "customer" everywhere it appears in your post, it would make a lot more sense to me. A brand can have immense direct and lasting impact on all areas of a business because of its unique ability to explain to all constituents -- customers and internal stakeholders -- what the company is all about, and to ensure they deliver on it.
I hope you don't mind the pushback here -- I'm just interested in some dialogue on this -- thanks for listening.
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