Mastering customer centricity is the approach to be followed in today’s world.
In a multi-polar world, where consumer needs and preferences can differ significantly market to market, a customer-centric approach to acquiring and keeping new customers is essential. Companies should believe that customer centricity is founded in mastery of three key elements
They are: knowing the customer,reaching the customer and delivering an experience differentiated according to consumer needs and preferences.
Mastering these three elements involves many activities—but ultimately just one prerequisite: a sustained commitment to developing deep customer understanding and to operationalizing these insights across marketing, sales and customer service through intensive capability development.
To protect the value of existing relationships and help minimize the cost of churn and acquiring new customers—particularly during periods of economic uncertainty— companies are well served by confirming their understanding of what consumers expect and value and ensuring they are reaching and serving their consumers in ways that are customer-centric.
To achieve these goals, a high performance business will develop a segmentation model that provides a complete, multidimensional picture of target segments—one that complements demographic, value and behavioral variables with information about buyer attitudes and needs.
This integrated view will be especially powerful for identifying the most attractive segments and designing value propositions and experiences aimed at these target segments. The organization’s specific customer objectives—e.g., new market entry, retention, etc.—should determine which specific dimensions to focus on when developing this view. Actionable segmentation is not a goal in itself, but a step towards creating true customer relevance.
High-performance businesses also build the operational capabilities in marketing, sales and customer service required to translate a deep understanding of customers into differentiated propositions and the consistent delivery of differentiated experiences. Moreover, they focus on generating profit, building a strong business case that reflects a clear understanding of the potential value to be created by developing and delivering differentiated customer experiences.
