3 signs your company is not customer-centric
“Customer is king!” This age-old business mantra underlines the importance of the customer in every business. What I believe the truth is, most entrepreneurs understand the importance of the customer and talk about providing quality customer experience, yet a significant number of companies are still a long way off ensuring their business functions like a well-oiled customer-centric machine.
Even with the best intentions, some factors may ripple through your organization and hold you back. Here are three signs your company does not have a customer-centric culture:
1. There is no customer-focus in the strategy
Though it is not cast in stone that a company must be customer-focused to achieve business success, you would still need customers whether you’re offering an innovative product or you sell cheaper or faster services than your competition. If providing an enabling environment for your employees to make customers happy, creating quality service experience, and including customers in your plans do not form the base of your strategy, your company is driven by something else other than the customer’s interest. This could impact negatively on your company in the long run.
2. No social media presence
Social media and its impact cannot be ignored in today’s connected world. Today’s consumer prefers to engage with brands by leaving comments about the company’s service and offerings. It is a fast and mobile-friendly way they can reach these brands, so you’ve got to make your presence felt. The social media space does not just provide a platform for you to sell your brand or broadcast a marketing pitch. More and more consumers now turn to different social media networks to narrate their customer experiences. This means that the social media space offers brands a channel where they can quickly identify and resolve any lingering issues before they exacerbate.
3. No customer-focused strategy for those in the back office?
Culture drift is a common mistake within organizations. In this case, the employees at the frontline think they are responsible for the customers, while everyone else is in charge of production. Those at the back office barely see the ripple effect. This is because when a shipment or service is delayed or even truncated, only the sales or service team feels the heat. So when everything is fine and the customers are happy, the sales team also gets all of the glory.
However, the truth is, everyone plays a significant role in impacting the customer relationship. It is essential that all employees understand how vital a role they play in the customer experience, and all hands are on deck to deliver superior customer experience.
Customer-centricity isn’t all there is to a successful organization, but if your company shows signs that it’s got different priorities other than the customer, then you may be in for a difficult time. Whether it is due to limited resources, workplace politics, or merely old-school thinking, the absence of customer-centricity in your company many costs you market share or even more…