A customer-centric marketing approach to grow your business

Unsatisfied customers tend to abandon brands, according to PWC a third of customers abandon brands they love after only one bad experience. Putting customer experience at the center of your business is thus increasingly important as without customers you don’t have a brand or business.

By implementing strategies and fostering a culture that focuses on creating the best experiences for your customers you can build brand loyalty that is fueled by keeping your customers satisfied. This is the basis of a consumer-centric approach to business. Customers stick with brands that they love and that bring them joy.

What is the customer-centric approach?

The customer-centric approach refers to a business model which begins with deep insight into your customers and developing products, services, and campaigns that fulfill your customers’ needs, desires, and/or expectations. When you truly understand your customers you are able to anticipate their wants, needs, and desires which will enable you to create meaningful experiences, build lasting relationships, and communicate efficiently.

The ever-growing importance of customer experience means that businesses that put customer satisfaction at the forefront of their business are more equipped to build long-term customer relationships and ensure brand loyalty through consistently providing the best experiences for their customers. Using a consumer-centric business model ensures enhanced customer satisfaction throughout the customer lifecycle.

Where should you be considering the customer-centric marketing approach?

A customer-centric organization places its customers at the center of its philosophy, operations, ideas, process, and strategies. When you truly understand the importance of customers to your business you understand the importance of putting them at the center of the following elements of your business:

Strategy

The customer-centric approach requires a long-term evaluation of success. By focusing on what that means to your business, you look toward retaining your customers and building loyalty which ensures great consumer experiences and keeps them satisfied in the long run. A long-term success strategy requires a more solid definition of success, which, in the case of a consumer-centric model, is aligned with consumer perceptions.

The key performance indicators within your organization should also align as all departments should be working towards a common goal of serving the customers to the best of their ability. Key performance indicates will thus reflect what customer satisfaction looks like within your organization. How do you measure customer engagement and satisfaction throughout your company? In this increasingly digital economy are you measuring how your customers are engaging with your digital platforms?

Processes

The customer-centric approach considers how each business decision, process, and touchpoint, affect the customer’s experience. Each process should use customer insights to influence the product and project road maps. The internal information and workflow should allow for the efficient transmission of consumer insights inter-departmentally.

A long-term success strategy is backed by processes that direct the organization towards its desired goals. The processes are unique to each company’s sales and marketing campaign strategies; however, they are all centred on the customer.

Websites have become increasingly popular platforms to aid the gathering and transferring of information between customers and organisations. Whether it’s engaging and transacting with customers, receiving feedback, examining demographics, or communicating with customers websites improve the efficiency of communication with customers while allowing organisations to gather insights.

Platforms

The platform choices your organizations make affect how you can provide value to your customers. They allow you to connect to customers, interact and share information with each customer profile and thereby increase customer-centricity. These platforms should also allow you to keep customer insights throughout the customer lifecycle and easily transmit them within the organization.

By communicating with your customers through their preferred methods, presenting them with offers at the exact time they plan to purchase, and consistently providing easy, efficient, and personalized experiences.

Employees

Hiring employees that already have a focus on customers can streamline your adaption of the consumer-centric approach. Creating a customer-centric culture where employees are empowered to make the best decision for both the customer and the company requires employees that have a good understanding of your consumers and how to act on that understanding.

Becoming both employee-centric and customer-centric in a digital manner provides the tools necessary for both parties to engage online and achieve their objectives quickly, and efficiently while ensuring both employees and customers are satisfied.

Why go customer-centric?

Here are some of the benefits of the customer-centric approach:

• Increased customer loyalty and potentially new customers
• Acquiring new customers through word of mouth & good brand reputation leads to an increase in your brand growth and creates an enduring competitive advantage
• Higher chances of sales and conversions as you have built trust with your customers
• Dissatisfied customers rarely talk, they abandon your business which can be avoided by keeping your customers satisfied
• You increase your customer retention thereby increasing revenue.

How can Ignite Media help you?

Ignite Media is here to assist you to achieve your objectives and unlock sustainable competitive advantages by helping you create the most satisfactory customer experience via your website platform. As a digital marketing agency in Cape Town, we design customer-centric website solutions to help your organisation overcome marketing, sales and operational challenges so that it can advance and grow. Contact us today to find out more.

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