Create a Customer Centric Culture
We have some tips to get you started!
Sure, many businesses tout “We Provide a Great Customer Experience,” and sometimes they even deliver – however, developing a Customer-Centric Culture is the key to gaining and keeping those ever-important loyal customers!
Businesses are spending lots of cash implementing Customer Experience Training Workshops to ensure their front-line people are fully trained and knowledgeable in providing exceptional service. Often, the front-line Managers are trained as well in how to coach and develop their teams and the metrics to watch in delivering a great Customer Experience.
However, businesses should also strive to delight and excite the Customer – create a Customer-Centric Culture – as a way of doing business – it is a game-changer!
What Is This Culture and How Is It Created? What Are the Advantages?
In the Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, author Michael Armstrong defines company culture as a “pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions that may not have been articulated, but shape the ways in which people in organizations behave.”
A “Customer-Centric Culture” therefore should be a pattern of values, norms and attitudes that focus on the Customer Experience and shape the way in which the business behaves. It is consistent and repeatable and becomes the basis of the business’s’ culture.’
Make the customer experience core to what you do. It should be in conversations surrounding changes to product and processes – always asking “how will this affect the customer?” The question should be a part of both internal and external communication.
Creating a Customer-Centric Culture is not only a goal of your Customer Service Team. It is a requirement of the entire business. From Accounting to Project Management, the customer’s satisfaction must be a major element of how you function.
All business units should be aware of how they influence the level of service being delivered. Measure your customer’s satisfaction and deliver those messages to the entire organization – let each unit know of their impact. Hold them accountable to build and implement objectives, goals, deliverables, and targets to this end.
So does this sound like extra work for you? For some businesses, yes. However, doing so could help retain earnings, improve your Customer Satisfaction and Net Promoter Scores, increase loyalty, and bring in more leads and sales. Everyone likes to work with a business where they are treated as though they matter, where their satisfaction is most important!
Not Interested? Consider This:
- Customers have stopped using a product or service four times on average because of poor customer service
- Research by New Voice Media revealed an estimated $75 billion is lost by US companies each year due to bad customer experiences
- Of the consumers surveyed, 96% say Customer Service is a particularly key factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand.
- More than half of Americans have moved back from a planned purchase because of bad customer service
- On average, consumers tell fifteen people about a poor experience – that is a lot of negative advertising for any business, large or small
A great Customer Experience has many advantages, including increased revenue, reducing customer churn, and improving employee engagement. According to a recent article in Forbes:
Temkin Group built a model to show the impact of small improvements on a typical $1 billion business. Using this model, they estimated an average revenue increase of $824 million over three years just by making small adjustments. Those could include reducing wait times or simplifying transactions for customers.”
So, Are You Ready? Here Are Some Tips to Get You Started:
- Hold all units accountable – make it everybody’s business. The Customer Experience will suffer if it belongs to only one group or department. Collaboration, education, and full ownership are all critical for businesses to improve in this area.
- Hire for the culture you want to build. From the beginning, regardless of the position, your job requisitions and interview questions, should reveal the candidates’ customer orientation. Doing so will send the message to HR, business units, the candidate, and everyone in between, that you support a ‘Customer-Centric Culture.’
- Ask customers what they think. Create an Advisory Board. These Boards can help develop the corporate strategy toward your new culture. Customers would have valuable input.
- Facilitate direct interaction with your customers – get to know them and let them know you! This will get you on the inside and you will learn what makes them tick, what they like, and what they need to remain loyal.
Beverly Hathorn Consulting are skilled, enthusiastic, and fluent in the Customer Experience arena and can help you facilitate those changes. Collaborating with our Consultants will free your Team to perform their normal duties, minimizing the impact to production while implementing these changes.
It is time to get to work! Your competitors are already engaged in creating such a culture!
