Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing trend of focusing on consumers. Putting your consumers at the core of your business leads to several benefits. The success of such an approach is evident in e-commerce brands, which are ideal examples of customer-centric business models.
Read on to discover how customer-centricity has changed the economic landscape and why it’s important for businesses to consider this strategy.
-
Understanding Customer-Centricity
-
Exploring Various Examples Of Customer-Centric Strategies
-
The Rise Of Customer-Centricity In Marketing
-
Cementing Customer-Centricity
Understanding Customer-Centricity
Customer or client-centricity puts the customer at the center. It’s a business strategy where you put your customer or client first. It helps you connect your business to the unique needs of customers. Furthermore, you provide a positive experience and build long-term relationships, making room for loyal customers and clients. As the approach prioritizes the customer, everyone in an organization works toward designing and implementing a good customer experience. The decisions, processes and strategies involved are all geared toward understanding and prioritizing customer satisfaction.
Customer or client-centric approaches have huge business value. There are several benefits of adopting a customer-centric strategy, such as:
-
When businesses work closely with customers, they co-create the value of products and services. This enhances the quality as customers contribute to the design and other underlying processes required for the finished product.
-
Customer experience helps us connect to different business outcomes and identify concerns from sales to operations. You can see the experience holistically and deliver outcomes accordingly.
-
The more time you spend on a client, the more they will listen to your recommendations about purchasing particular products.
-
Customer orientation helps in efficient client segmentation. In other words, you attract the best clients or customers as you simultaneously adjust your strategies to meet their expectations and needs.
-
When you pay attention to details such as specific customer needs and expectations, they feel appreciated. This paves the way for customer loyalty.
Therefore, being customer-centric is more important today than before and organizations should work toward such a culture to gain a competitive advantage in the market.
Exploring Various Examples Of Customer-Centric Strategies
There have been several studies on examples of customer-oriented business models. Enterprises that follow a customer-focused strategy have been found to be more profitable than the ones that don’t. Here are some real-life examples of client-centricity that’ll help you understand the factors necessary for building an effective strategy:
-
IKEA
A Swedish multinational conglomerate that sells ready-to-assemble furniture and home appliances, IKEA tests for product attributes on its website. In other words, they offer choices for color, material and shape, which further helps them gather data about customer segments. This helps identify exactly what customers are looking for and what drives their purchase behavior.
-
Adidas
A German multinational corporation, Adidas primarily designs and manufactures shoes. One of its top examples of customer-centric strategies has been the addition of onsite customization functions. By allowing consumers to customize their shoes, the brand removes decision stress and streamlines the consumer journey. This further helps them create unique shopper profiles and gather relevant data to enhance their offerings.
-
Sephora
Among the various examples of consumer-centricity, this is quite unique. Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products. It uses virtual reality to track consumer behavior. It allows them to track which trends are popular and what products people choose, among other advantages. This data-driven approach enhances the quality and type of product offerings.
The Rise Of Customer-Centricity In Marketing
As customer-centricity gains prominence in today’s marketplace, let’s look at various examples of customer-centric marketing to understand its scope and success.
-
One of the most popular examples of consumer-oriented marketing is Slack, the business communication platform. It encourages users to leave reviews or feature in case study videos, which fuels word-of-mouth marketing.
-
Zappos, an online shoe and clothing retailer, focuses its efforts on building a strong customer service system. Instead of being purely business-focused, Zappos prioritizes human relationships and bonds.
-
McDonald’s, a leading fast-food chain, captures customer feedback through digital conversations. By being active on social media platforms, the brand has a transparent marketing strategy in place. It continues to evolve based on customer feedback and data.
Such examples of consumer-oriented marketing show that to create a seamless experience, putting consumers at the center isn’t enough. You need to design or make changes to your products to accommodate and meet consumer needs.
Cementing Customer-Centricity
Successful businesses around the world have started to recognize that workplace culture and consumer-centric strategies go hand-in-hand. You need to link employee culture to customer outcomes and you can achieve this by establishing trust among internal stakeholders.
Harappa’s Establishing Trust course will help you build and maintain trust-rich relationships. Powerful frameworks will teach you how to build credibility and establish reliability. Customers will not only trust your brand but have faith in you as a professional. Put your trust in Harappa and schedule your free trial today!
Explore topics such as What Is A Customer-Centric Approach, Importance Of CSR, Benefits Of CSR and Need For CSR from Harappa Diaries to establish trust through your work or your business.