Why Customer Centricity Is the Key to a Competitive Advantage

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To develop a booming business in today’s world, there are many factors that you have to put into place. One of such crucial factors is the customers. In recent times, we place more emphasis on the customer’s experience with a personalized and positive brand or business. 

🚀Read Customer Service: A Guide for Successful Business Growth🚀

Having a business model that revolves around customer-centricity is essential. It helps the organization to achieve a positive and personalized experience for their customers. It also makes it easier for your employees to pay more attention to your customers. In return, you will have a loyal customer base and a competitive edge over your rivals. 

Customer centricity is not just ‘talks,’ it also has a robust financial appeal for your business. One recent study noted that an increase in positive customer experience could lead to additional revenue increase worth $823m. This will happen within three years for a big company with average annual revenue of $1 billion. Another study also shows that many companies lose as much as $98 billion annually. This is because of their failure to provide a better customer experience in their business. So, even though customer centricity is in the customers’ interest, it also favors the company’s interest. 

So, what then is customer-centricity? How is it defined?

Customer Centricity – What It Means 

According to Gary Geldart, business CEO and custom essay service author, customer centricity is an ideal business model. It involves everyone within the business organization structure thinking ways to create positive customer experiences. 

It is a mindset that an organization has that puts the customer as the focal point of their business. They focus on the customer rather than their product and service, or sales. 

Any business organization with a customer-centric culture will never think of customer centricity aftwards. Neither will they think of it as the result of their customer service. They have a strategic and intentionally planned customer experience, putting the customer on the throne right from the start.

Everybody within the organization’s structure seeks to create a pleasant experience that pleases the customers. It does not matter whether they come in direct contact with the customers or not. The customer is the priority, and all steps, processes, and decisions are to be in their favor. 

Read Building a Customer-Centric Company Strategy – Guide & Tips

Importance of Being Customer-Centric

Many businesses are built in a way that success is dependent on how much sales they make. For this reason, they must be able to create a positive experience for their customers throughout the entire process. For this to function, every member of the organization must be on board. 

It’s best to design employee roles to play their part in the organization as a whole being customer-centric. This makes the organization more appealing to customers. Even if an assignment writer provides dissertation help for the company, they have to be on board with the organization. They have to fulfill their own role towards customer-centricity. 

As mentioned earlier, customer-centricity is not only favorable to the customers. It also helps the company massively and gives it a competitive edge over its rivals. Here are a few benefits of customer centricity for a business organization. 

• Customer-centric companies make more profit than other companies that do not focus on customers. 
• They can retain more of their customers and attract new ones more easily. Customer loyalty to the brand is usually high as they are satisfied with the products, service, experience, etc. 
• They tend to outperform other rival non-customer centric business organizations. 
• Customer-centric companies have happier and more satisfied employees than other companies that do not focus on customers. In one survey, 82% of customer-centric companies have their employees glad to continue working with the company. This is in stark contrast to 20% of employees in other non-customer centric companies.
• Customers are more satisfied with their experience and product from customer-centric companies, making much more sales.

Picture 1. Customer obsession maturity

How to Create a Culture of Customer Centricity in Your Business 

In a customer-centric organization, everybody understands prioritizing the customer and focuses on this. This is essential for the long-term success of the business. So, the decision-making and thinking processes always put the customer at the center to provide a quality experience. To create that culture of customer centricity within a business, you must create awareness within the employees. This is what makes the culture stick. 

Employees are able to uphold this culture even when no one is watching them. This will make it a part of them, and they will pass it on to future employees. This will continue until it’s ingrained in the organization’s culture. To achieve this, here are a few things you can do:

Make Everybody Work as a Team 

We cannot overstate this. It takes teamwork to achieve customer-centricity in your business. If different departments and individuals try to please customers individually, they won’t go far.

Everybody has to work together. Every department has to consider the other departments’ work to achieve this goal. Everyone has input in delivering the products or services to the customer. So everyone has to work as a team, and individuals while ensuring that the customers remain the priority. This will require more interaction between the different departments. 

Read How to Motivate Your Team?

Seek Everyone’s Input 

Put customer-centricity in the people’s thoughts first before you see it in their actions. The best way to put the customers in your employees’ thoughts is to ask them for their input. The more they think of ways to improve customer experience, the more customer-centric they get. 

Another advantage of this is that it provides you with different perspectives to help you achieve this goal. All of these opinions have to be respected and put into perspective. 

Picture 2. Employees can give you valuable feedback on customer experience

Align Behaviors 

Since you are trying to build a new culture, you have to start carrying out specific actions in line with that culture. This means that your employees have to start doing things they did not use to do before. In the same vein, they have to stop some things that they are used to doing. 

You must make sure that the new thought pattern aligns with the people’s actions and behaviors. You have to ensure that everybody knows what they need and how exactly they have to do it. This is crucial for a customer-centric culture.

Always Promote the Vision 

In trying to achieve something like this, you can’t focus on goals alone. You have to make sure that everyone sees the vision and feel like they can be a part of it. You must continue to demonstrate this goal and share it consistently. That’s why it is vital to share. An understanding of the view can be the driving force that your employees need. It will make them think and act to promote positive customer experience. 

Read Setting Small Business Goals

Develop Confidence 

There might be times when employees need some help to understand their role in this ‘new’ customer-centric approach in their job. Be sure to provide all the support and help that they need. Certain people will indeed require more help than others. But that’s more the reason to be closer to them and make sure they get the support. 

You have to make them see that everyone is learning and growing together.  This will make it easier for them to catch up with others. When they’re slow to catch up, do not criticize them. Focus more on positivity instead of negativity. This will go a long way to develop their confidence in learning to become customer-centric. 

Provide Training for Customer Centricity 

This is something that they are new to, so you do not expect that they suddenly become customer-centric. It is a process, and it might require some time. You must be patient and willing to give that time. 

A big part of the process is the learning process, and again, you play a significant role in this. As much as you provide the right atmosphere for your employees to be customer-centric, they need training. Undergoing some training will increase their knowledge and skills to learn customer-centric behaviors. 

Read 11 Customer Service Training Tips for Customer-Centric Companies

Conclusion 

There are not many win-win situations and policies for a business organization to adopt, like customer-centricity. It is the surest way for a business to grow fast, make more sales and profit. You also generate more revenues and have satisfied employees and loyal customers. The list goes on and on. All of this put the business in a more comfortable position. With this, you have a competitive edge over your rivals, especially the non-customer centric ones.

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Tobias Foster is a journalist and editor with big ambitions at custom papers. He has more than 5 years’ experience working at online assignment help where he provides professional writing services. Philosophy, marketing, and business are his passion and has a wealth of knowledge in that field. He is a master of his craft.