Just because you exist for your customers, doesn’t mean your business is always nailing what it means to make the customer the core of your business.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 10 seconds
No matter what industry you’re in, the quality of customer care and service you provide is your biggest competitive differentiator - whether you’re B2C, or in the challenging B2B environment.
HubSpot’s development of the flywheel shows that the most important voice should be your customer’s, and as they explain, “No amount of time, energy, and resources poured into your marketing efforts can override the negative impact of poorly executed customer service.” Many businesses are guilty of not making the customer the core of their business and focusing too much on themselves in their messaging.
No business goes out with the goal to NOT be customer centric, but the truth is that there are many reasons why this is challenging for businesses to get right. The biggest one is because it can be a hard, time-consuming task to truly understand your customer and take the time you need to gather feedback from them.
As a business, you completely understand your vision and mission, but have not taken the time to understand who your customer really is. CEO of A Real Change International, Sandi Krakowski, says that having a conversation with your customers is important to find out who they are. She says “Use social media to stretch your ad dollars by engaging directly with your clients.” She explains that having a relationship with your customer and truly knowing who they are, not just what they want, will get you the best ROI. It can be seen through Facebook’s latest algorithm change for business pages, that authentic engagement is important to customers. However, the biggest challenge facing businesses today is how to have human relationships at scale? Automation can be deployed to help with the day to day service enquiries which satisfy the customers expectations, when they need specific help that can’t be automated the hand over to an empathetic human should be seamless.
It’s understandable that many businesses observe their top competitors for tips and tricks on how to make their own business better and keep up with the industry. Keeping up with your customer should be more important than keeping up with your competitor. A Harvard Business Review post explains that “customers’ expectations are also more liquid and no longer based on industry boundaries.” The importance of finding out who your ideal customer is, and keeping up with how they make their consumer decision should be your focus to stay ahead of your competitors.
It is understandable that in the world of digital marketing, your business has forgotten about the oldest form of marketing. Top web influencer and New York Times bestselling author, Neil Patel says “Word of mouth marketing is hands-down the most effective and reliable type of marketing.” If your customers do not feel that your business truly cares about them or know who they are, you may receive negative feedback, which could result in negative word mouth marketing which makes it more difficult and expensive to attract new clients.
Jerry Colletti, owner of Colletti-Fiss, LCC, says, “It’s always easier and less expensive to sell to your existing customers than to cultivate new ones.” In the world of sales and marketing, you are always trying to expand your customer base, but you forget the important of customer retention.
A company that truly has their customer at the core of their business has spent time and resources for training their employees on how to find out who their ideal customer is and to build a lasting relationship. Management Issues explains that by embedding customer-think at every level of your business, the customer truly becomes the core of your business. Part of this strategy could be focusing less on PR, and more on creating truly helpful content for your customers (like this blog!)
Many corporations collect large amounts of data on their customers through sales and other interactions, but many utilise that data to its full potential. Red Point Global explains that, “Truly customer-focused companies will take those insights and use them to make decisions that impact the customer at their moment of engagement.” Understanding and using your customer data could be the difference between making a sale or not.
Having a customer-centered business plan is the best thing you can do for your business. A happy customer will always guarantee a great ROI for any marketing strategy.
Lastly, always take the time to ask them - why did you choose us, and who else did they consider?
We hope that these actionable tips help you make your customer the core of your business. Contact us to help you improve - and measure - your customer care.