Written by Sarah
Chambers
When Salesforce set out to identify the most customer-centric businesses in
the world, they needed a way to quantify something that wasn’t easily
measurable.
Being customer-centric means focusing every
aspect of your business on the needs of your customers, which might mean doing
something that is right for the customer but jeopardizes sales, profits, or
efficiency. But that mindset is not something that’s easy to measure directly.
Salesforce surveyed customers to see which organizations
excelled across the following six categories:
·
Easy
to do business with.
·
Anticipates
customers’ needs.
·
Cares
about customers.
·
Offers
relevant products and services.
·
Honest
with the public.
·
Delivers
exceptional customer service.
Businesses that ranked higher in these categories are
considered more customer-centric, meaning they keep their customers front and
center in their decision making. And that’s important, because brands that offer a “superior customer
experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors.”
If you want to become more customer-centric, focusing on
one of these themes will point you in the right direction. The following six
customer centricity examples showcase the different ways organizations are
putting their customers first.
1. Salesflare: Easy to do business with
Making it easy for your customers to succeed is a
hallmark of customer-centric businesses. Eliminating roadblocks and friction
takes work, but it pays off when your customers love doing business with you
and continue to recommend you to friends and family.
Salesflare has put a lot of effort into
designing an easy-to-use CRM, which is highlighted by their frictionless
onboarding process.
When you sign in, you can choose to walk through the
tooltips on your own time, following a to-do list to get set up. Each step
offers links to help documentation and video tutorials, so customers can choose their
preferred method of learning.
This attention to detail has brought Salesflare a number
of fans and great reviews.
Bring this principle into your own business: Customer Effort Score is a great metric
to measure how difficult customers find it to do business with you. Combining
insights from this survey with “dog-fooding” (using your own product) will
reveal opportunities to make things easier.
2. Asana: Anticipates customers’ needs
Everyone loves that magic moment where a business offers
you something you didn’t even realize you needed. It feels like magic, but in
fact, anticipating customers’ needs isn’t about mind reading. It’s about
executing on a thoughtfully designed customer journey while listening to what
customers want.
Asana does this very well through a five-part Voice of Customer (VoC) strategy. They’re
constantly listening for and sourcing customer feedback about what to build
next.
Once they have the feedback, they take time to
understand what the customer is really after. Only then can they develop,
launch, and iterate on new functionality with the customer in mind.
“VoC is a process with collective input,” explains
Michael Nguyen, Head of Customer Journey at Asana. “We’re a customer-obsessed
company, so when we start the Listening part of VoC, the customer is who we
listen to first. For us to listen to the customer, our starting point is the
customer-facing teams of Asana.”
That strategy has built a delightful product that
customers find extremely useful.
Bring this principle into your own business: Build customer
feedback into your product development process so that you can anticipate what
your customers need. Create a customer journey map that shows your customers’
next steps for each interaction; that way you can always stay two steps ahead
of them.
3. Nature’s Path: Cares about customers
The biggest cause of churn or disloyalty is due to the
fact that 68% of customers feel that companies don’t care about
them. For companies like Nature’s Path, that leaves an opportunity
to stand out as a customer-centric business.
For example, when Nature’s Path discontinued their maple cinnamon waffles,
they probably didn’t think anyone would really notice. But for Jerico, a boy
with severe autism, those waffles were the only thing he wanted to eat. His
distressed mom put out a call for help, and Nature’s Path responded.
Not only were they able to locate and ship her the last
six cases of waffles available, they also set their research and development
team to work converting their commercial recipe for home use so Jerico didn’t
have to go without. That’s the sign of a business that truly cares.
Bring this principle into your own business: Empower your
frontline teams with the means to care. That means having the space to adjust
policies when needed (e.g., giving a refund outside of the normal time period)
or put in extra time helping a customer with something special. When agents are
stuck following scripts and sticking to narrow policies, it’s easy for
customers to feel uncared for.
4. 3M: Offers relevant products and
services
3M is a company known for its innovative products that
solve specific customer problems. This commitment to customer-centric solutions
has provided 3M with consistent returns.
To continue in their mission to innovate, 3M has opened
Innovation Centers where customers can visit, collaborate on design, and test
out new products. 3M defines their centers as “a space where
people can discover and experience new ways of thinking and learning,
observing, and doing work that impact people and reach mutual goals.”
By investing in customer research, 3M ensures that they
are always offering relevant products and services.
Bring this principle into your own business: Set up your own
“center of innovation” to focus on meeting the needs of your customers. Whether
it’s a physical space where feedback is displayed and customers are interviewed
or an online Trello board where user research lives, an innovation center will
keep your product and service development focused on solving customer problems.
5. Buffer: Honest with the public
Customers want businesses to be honest with them,
because honesty breeds trust. One of the best examples of a company being
honest, even when it’s not easy, is Buffer. They’ve routinely shown their
audience what’s happening behind the curtain, even when it’s not pretty.
For example, consider when they were hacked in 2013.
Instead of trying to hide it and quietly patch the leak, they were open with
what was happening and how they planned to fix it. Customers appreciated their
transparency and candor, which cemented Buffer’s reputation as a
customer-centric company.
In the years since, they’ve continued their radical
transparency, including sharing their salaries and their diversity dashboard publicly. Because of
this, customers trust Buffer to do the right thing.
Bring this principle into your own business: Where can you find
places to build trust with customers? While radical transparency may not be
your thing, there are always times where you can choose to be more honest and
open. Apologize when you make mistakes, and don’t mislead clients for the sake
of a sale.
6. Chewy’s: Delivers exceptional customer
service
Chewy’s is fast becoming a regular addition to “best
customer service” lists. They’re kind, thoughtful, fast, and effective. How
does Chewy’s consistently delight their customers with noticeably good service?
According to Veronica Krieg on Business2Community, “they
give their employees trust and space to make judgment calls that will create a
happy, loyal customer. Then, they train them on what more of those moments
might look like in the future.”
Employees at Chewy’s really love their jobs, and their
fun, supportive work environment is reflected in their conversations with
customers.
Bring this principle into your own business: Customers
routinely identify speed, accuracy, and personalization as the most important qualities of customer
service. Once you’ve nailed the basics, you can start to deliver those moments
of delight.
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