• by Ross Andrew Paquette , Columnist, July 26, 2018

There’s nothing groundbreaking about the concept of a customer-centric business model. After all, who hasn’t been told “the customer is always right” at some point in their life? While the idea of a customer-centric business is nothing new, it’s never been more essential. 

We’re living in a digital age, an age where customers have unlimited options and competition for their attention is fierce. Customers have the upper hand now—and they know it.

Winning them over means treating them as individuals—with personalized experiences to match. 

Econsultancy’s  2018 Digital Trends Report even found that 52% of consumers will switch brands if a company doesn’t provide a personalized experience, while 51% of consumers will buy from new brands if they offer more personalized experiences. 

So, how do you keep up with these customer expectations? 

The Fundamentals

Every successful customer-centric strategy starts with one thing: customers. The customers buying and using your product or service should be at the core of every decision you make—in every area of your business. 

When departments align through customer-centric strategy, you create the experiences your customers expect. From marketing to sales to service (and everything in between), your entire organization needs to come together. 

Whether that means marketing building behavior-responsive customer journeys, or sales creating complete profiles of every customer, or service routing tickets based on purchase history, everyone plays a part.

Digital Transformation 

The most important tool customer-centric companies have today is technology. From artificial intelligence, to marketing automation, to chat bots, to content and product recommendations, to IoT, and mobile devices, technology is fueling customer-centrism across industries. 

For a customer-centric business, adopting your customer’s perspective is key, which is exactly what companies try to do when building customer journeys. Technology takes the guesswork out of this process—tailoring them to what customers really want.

AI drives meaningful insights on where journeys are failing, prescriptive analytics provides next best actions, and machine learning directs customer behavior. All this comes together to produce more personalized customer experiences—and a more customer-centric business. 

Competing on CX

So, what can you do to stand out from the competition? To start, you need to shift your focus from your competitors to your customers. 

Keep customers in mind when you assess your product or service—looking for anywhere you might be failing them—and then improve, improve, improve. Seeing how your product or service affects customers and looking for ways to provide value, or solve a problem, or improve a process—this is how you stay ahead.

With all this in mind—from fundamentals, to technology, to competition—you can start to build a customer-centric business strategy that keeps customers happy and keeps you ahead of the competition.