Most growth-focused businesses have processes in place for ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, but what does it mean to have a truly customer-centric business, particularly as it relates to marketing?
According to the Future Marketing Organization study, a little over 42% of marketers believe a customer-centric model is the right way to organize a marketing practice, but only 5.8% of companies support this organizational structure. So it’s no wonder that most marketers give a low score to their company’s ability to optimize customer experience through data-driven insights.
But how do you move to a more customer-centric business model? In this article from Marketing Week, Maeve Hosea outlines four key strategies for pivoting toward a customer-centric marketing approach.
1. Remember, customer-centricity comes from listening to customers.
Use video feedback (like Voxpopme) to ensure the voice of the customer is truly present in the C-suite and consider organizing your operations around customers versus around products and brands.
2. Connect your brand purpose to customers.
A purpose-driven approach ensures that both customers and employees know what your brand stands for and drives engagement and brand affinity. For more on the importance of brand purpose in driving high performing marketing teams, read this article from Harvard Business Review.
3. Collaboration is key.
A mere 9% of marketers believe their organizations are structured to achieve cross-functional collaboration, particularly between those in marketing and those with customer-related responsibilities. Likewise, businesses need to be collaborating directly with consumers. The smartest brands are using video insights combined with custom consumer panels to create ongoing conversations with their customers, providing fast and interactive communication to deliver more consistent feedback.
4. Marketing’s focus must change.
It’s not enough for marketing and customer success teams to simply reply to feedback. Real-time customer feedback means that customers also expect to see change quickly. Businesses need to ensure that the feedback received gets a high level of visibility with the right people in the organization (not just marketing or insights), and that change (if needed) is prioritized.
Interested in learning more about how to create greater customer centricity within your own business? Click here to read more.