The term “customer centric” refers to all companies that focus on the customer. It refers to all brands that place the customer at the heart of their organization, strategy, and decision-making.
It’s therefore very close to customer culture or customer orientation. Particularly fashionable, it’s also claimed by many brands.
Being customer centric goes even further than simple customer orientation and customer relations.
According to marketing professor Peter Fader of the University of Pennsylvania, it’s “a strategy that aligns the development of services and products with the current needs of a restricted segment of customers, with the aim of maximizing their long-term financial value to the company.”
In simple terms, this means placing the customer at the heart of the company's strategic objectives, in order to give the company a competitive advantage, build loyalty and achieve long-term goals.
A customer-centric approach involves the following steps:
- using customer data and feedback to better understand your customers and segment them,
- identifying your best customers,
- identifying the best products and services for the best customers,
- analyzing customer journeys,
- making certain decisions, and
- training all employees in line with decisions made.
Amazon, for example, was one of the first companies to incorporate a customer-centric approach into its strategy. In this sense, customers are always valued, and their satisfaction comes first.
The notion of customer centricity revolves around a key question: how much do my customers earn me over the long term? In this sense, lifetime value is particularly important.
According to a study by Northwestern University's Center for Retail Management, 15% of the most loyal customers account for 60% of a company's sales.
When we look at this indicator, the value of a customer-centric strategy becomes clear.
To create an effective customer-centric approach for your business, you need to do the following:
- Understand the sources of satisfaction of your most loyal customers and adapt them to your customer base as a whole.
- Detect and prevent the risks of dissatisfaction.
- Implement action plans to improve the customer experience (e.g., using effective cross-selling and clienteling tactics when appropriate).
All of these elements help to increase the rate of loyal customers and boost product or service sales, which can also lead to great word-of-mouth marketing.
All employees must share a common goal: ensure that customers are happy and as loyal as possible.
