Taken from the website of the San Francisco Chronicle , this article gives a couple of hints at what to do to make your company more "customer-centric"
There's a trend in business today for companies to become more customer-centric. Your company's objectives should highlight the quality of your product and the support of your customers.
Customer focus goes hand-in-hand with customer loyalty. More than customer satisfaction, customer loyalty extends to all customers in your business, from those who supply to those who buy. It includes your first customer too -- your employee.
Customer-centricity also plays a role in defining and guiding the customer's experience. Walt Disney was the master of controlling a customer's experience. Disney's theme parks today control what visitors see, what they smell, when those sights and smells hit them, the emotions they feel, and much more. Every detail is attended to by park employees. Disney is now the yardstick against which other companies' performances are measured. There's even a term for what Disney does and others try to emulate. It is "imagineering," the engineering of our imagination.
So, what exactly is a customer-centric company? It is one that recognizes the only way to add lasting value to the company is to value the customer.
Here are seven guiding principles of successful customer-based firms:
-- Focus extensively on delivering value to customers.
-- Forgo short-term results and look instead at long-term business value.
-- Include senior-level buy-in in your customer-based program.
-- Share your customer-focused initiatives with employees, partners and customers.
-- Recognize that traditional measurement tools may not adequately track your customer values, such as emotions and loyalty.
-- Incorporate employee (and contractor) training as part of the customer-centric movement.
-- Identify internal stakeholders (owners, employees, partners, suppliers) and work to build support within this group.
Consider how you may be able to work one, two or even all seven of these habits into your daily work. You can add these customer-centric initiatives incrementally to your business.
This may sound a bit intimidating for startups. Entrepreneurs in the startup phase spend much of their waking moments occupied with their business concepts. However, it is important to focus on those individuals -- the customers -- who will make or break the business. Keep them in sight, if only on the periphery.
How they do it
Consider companies with which you like to do business and emulate their practices.
-- Why do you like doing business with this company?
-- Why do you return
to it?
-- How many other potential customers have you told about your positive experiences with this company?
-- What part of this company's business operation can you use in your business?
-- Are you loyal to this company? Why?
-- As a customer, do you feel like an important part of the company's success?
Break your own rules
Good customer service involves departing from company policy on some occasions. While clerks who are scared that they may lose their job can say "that's our policy," customer service representatives and managers should be able to find ways to bend policies to build customer relationships. The phrase "If I do that for you, I'll have do to it for everyone" is one of the fastest way to lose customers.