Customer Centricity: Why it matters

Companies that focus on customer experience reduce churn and increase revenues.

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What is Customer Experience (CX)?

Customer experience is the sum of all experiences a customer has with a business during their entire lifetime relationship, taking in not just the key touch points (product awareness, social contact, the transaction itself, post purchase, feedback) but also how personal and memorable these experiences are. Generally, a company that focuses on a good customer experience practices customer centricity. ‍

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Why does Customer Experience matter?

McKinsey has evaluated that companies that use customer centricity as a guiding principle achieve 5-10% revenue growth and 15-25% cost reduction within only three years of implementation (source: www.mckinsey.com).

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And in a recent PwC report, customer centricity among millennials was stated as one of the leading decision making factors when it comes to making new purchasing decisions.

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Customer experience: Reality vs. Expectation

Creating consistent, top-class customer experience in all levels of the organization is no easy task. While 80% of companies say they deliver superior customer experience, only 8% of surveyed customers agree. It takes twelve positive experiences to make up for one negative experience - about 2.4 people hear from unhappy customers for every happy customer they hear of (Source: Recontour magazine).
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News of bad customer service reaches twice as many people as praise for good service experience.

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A key differentiator in customer centricity is omni-channel interaction. In their 2020 retail report, PWC found that the number of companies investing in the omni-channel experience has jumped from 20% to more than 80% (Source: PWC retail 2020 report). Customers want to interact with brands on multiple channels, may it be through a form on a website, on social media, the telephone or on a mobile page.  

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Five easy ways to create better customer experience

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So, it is obvious that focusing on Customer Experience is a wise business decision. But how do you actually achieve great CX? Below are 5 ways we identified at Stagecast that guided our CX efforts.

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1. Speak in your customers’ language:

Collect feedback data to identify common customer pain points, and explain how you can solve them. Include testimonials that show how you’ve done it for other customers in the past. Provide Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that provide real value to curious prospects. Re-use your customers’ actual words wherever you can — sales language doesn’t make for very human interactions or enjoyable texts to read.

2. Train your team to listen:

Train your sales staff to listen first, so they can resonate with a prospect. Then, and only then, can they work to turn the prospect into a customer. Extra tip: If you are running a B2B high-sales touch business, the lessons learned from your sales staff are gold for your product team.

3. Don’t make customers wait:

Provide fulfilment and shipping information instantly, offer fast delivery and easy returns, and give access to customer support. Good customer experience minimizes friction, maximizes speed and efficiency and maintains a human element, embedded within the automation, AI or technologies. It leaves consumers feeling heard, seen and appreciated.

4. Map your customer’s journey:

A customer journey map (CJM) allows you to experience the customer journey from the view point of the customer. You’ll see what their needs are at each lifecycle stage and point of interaction, how well you meet or fall short of their expectations, and where opportunities for improvement lie. A customer journey map is a timeline document where you simply draw out and then analyse all the interactions a customer had throughout the lifecycle. A great source to learn how to create CJMs is "Service Design Thinking" by IDEO.

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5. Get the data right:

‍Many companies keep data silos across the organization: Sales data in one bucket, marketing data in another; product and service somewhere else, and digital data another entirely. All of this customer data needs to be integrated and easily accessible across your organization, so employees can truly “see” the relationship between you and your customer, and make decisions as a result.

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