What Customer-Centric Really Means: Seven Key Insights
Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Lots of research and past experiences point to it, everyone is talking about it, particularly in reference to CRM... the future of the successful organisation lies in its ability to become truly customer-centric. So what is customer-centric really? What does it mean? What are the results of being truly customer-centric? The following is a précis of a longer Harvard Review article which really hit the spot for relevance this month.

1. It goes beyond handling customer calls efficiently. It means addressing all customer issues fully and resolving them completely.

2. It’s not just ensuring that your support departments regard front-line workers as their internal customers. It’s ensuring that everyone adopts an external focus.

3. It involves more than telling your employees how to treat customers right. You’ve got to give employees the authority and tools to decide the right way to treat customers.

4. It’s not a matter of steering customers through your Web site or store just the way you envisioned. Customer-centrism means letting customers interact with your locations just the way they want.

5. It’s not just giving customers what they want, it’s giving them what they will want.

6. It’s not organizing the company to serve customers. It’s letting customers determine how you organize.

7. Customer-centrism isn’t just about winning new customers from recommendations of current customers. It’s about having customers say your product / service is such amazing value you should raise your prices.

NEWS^