If your organization has done any thinking about customer centricity, you’ve likely read buckets about the importance of enabling strategies and tactics based on a deep understanding of your customers.
The core message of all this writing around “customer understanding” is pretty simple: this understanding must be centered both on what customers want and need, as well as their value as defined by the contribution each makes to the profitability of your company.
After all, it’s pretty darn hard to put your customer at the center of your organization if you don’t know who they are. Assuming you’ve at least begin the process of better understanding your customers along these axes, I’d like to offer eight capabilities for you to consider along the way, as you continue to build momentum for customer centricity across your organization.
The journey to customer centricity isn’t an easy one; there will be many challenges along the way as you align objectives, rewards and recognition with customer needs. Which is why you’ll need to focus on developing critical new sets of capabilities, like these, to help redefine how you interact with and serve your customers.
Of course, the list above is at best a partial one. But it’s informed by over a decade of working with companies of different sizes across different industries, and is a sound start for any organization working to get closer to and create a “win-win” relationship with its customers.
This blog originally ran on CMO.com, where Michael Hinshaw writes the weekly “Get Customer-Centric” blog.