Creating a Customer-Centric Company: 4 Practices to Promote Change and Innovation
Several decades ago, the company who could create the best products and services used to reign as king. Today, the customer holds the titles of both king and queen. And, they aren’t likely to fall from their thrones any time soon.
In our hyper-connected global society, customers have more choices than ever before. They are also able to do their own research and can decide in a matter of minutes, rather than days or weeks, if they want to do business with you.
In the same way, the overall commerce model has changed completely. Gone are the days in which relationships between companies and customers were built in physical store locations or with call center agents. Customers aim to build relationships in the way they feel the most comfortable – through a wide array of digital channels.
With that in mind, one big question remains:
“How can businesses ensure a positive customer experience in an increasingly face-paced, and often faceless, digital marketplace?”
To maintain customer loyalty and retain business, companies now must focus on being customer-centric. These 4 practices can help executives promote change and innovation throughout their organization’s departments:
1…Empower employees with data to personalize the customer experience and with feedback to facilitate learning.
2…Adopt a learning mindset; view mistakes as learning opportunities.
3…Give customers multiple ways to provide unstructured feedback, and use technologies like text analytics to discover opportunities for innovation.
4…Reward risk taking.
These simple practices can have a profound impact on how companies go about creating environments of change and innovation. It also helps to create a strong culture in which employees share a common ideology and commitment to putting the customer first.
If you want to know more about how to ensure your culture develops and maintains a sustainable competitive advantage.
