This is the 2nd
of two posts. The first post (here)
raised the idea that culture is changing in the
digitising economy, in part driven by the competitive environment, ‘customers
are a click away, so are competitors’.
This levitated the once less important priority of firms, customer
service, to significance.
Customer-centricity
With heightened competition,
new respect is natural but that’s only part of the trend.
“From the outset, the key to Jeff Bezos’ success has been his
intense and unwavering focus on customer satisfaction and on his audience: the
end user. He refined and perfected this
model in books, and then scaled and expanded it while always keeping consumers
front and center, often anticipating their needs before they realised them”
– Jamie
Dimon, CEO JP Morgan Chase on Amazon, Time, 30 April ’18
An aside - I consider Amazon a prime example of a traditional
business, remade brilliantly for the digital era, applying the new rules and
methods, with the right ethos.
It can also lead
to a new sales funnel. Traditionally
marketing develops would-be customers.
Today, it can be customer-led.
‘OnePlus, which sells about 70 per cent of its phones outside China,
has become a must-have phone for techies who appreciate its clean build and
fast performance, according to analysts. Like Xiaomi, the company has built up
a dedicated following through user engagement forums and events and it uses
that feedback to develop new products.’
– How popular phone brands Oppo and Vivo win without celebrity
executives, South China Morning Post, 30 Sept 2019
Even more
impactful are comments left on products and services online. Good remarks lead
to more sales, conversely for adverse customer experiences.
As the economy
digitise, customer service cannot now remain a marketing line. It is no more a cost centre. It boosts revenue.
Some personal experiences....
I don’t know if
it’s only me but many organisations I interact with seem to priorities
internally, making things simpler for the staff. And if it makes it easier internally, it
makes it less convenient for those they serve, like filling multiple forms and
in full when the first form has 90% of the details, like asking me to call back
instead of leaving my number, filling in full details for an auxiliary service
when they already have 95% of the data, ......... long list!
Such broken
processes lose a percentage of customers, particularly online. Curious consumers included.
It could be the
lack of manpower but if the manager is endowed with a digital mindset, he would
not stop there but ponder alternatives, perhaps taking a leaf from Omidyar who
demonstrates externalised thinking.
‘Omidyar had built eBay to be not just a shipping site but a
community…for practical reasons. As eBay
gained popularity, so many buyers & sellers came that he could not possibly
answer all of their questions about how to use the site. By including their email, Omidyar allowed
users to communicate directly among themselves to solve each others’
problems. And Omidyar created a message
board that allowed users to share information with the entire community without
routing it through him. The more
self-sufficient the users became, the fewer demands they put on his limited
time.’
– The Perfect Store…This book is about Amazon; the first two chapters
show how the community can be engaged and how important that is
show how the community can be engaged and how important that is
The manager
would likewise iron out kinks in the end-to-end customer processes over time in
a deliberate manner.
Customer-centricity is the act of putting the customer centre in a
company’s strategy, and meaning it…. and in decision making, with the aim,
always, of seeking to make things easier/faster/convenient, continuously, for
customers and treating it as a relationship.
The organisation innately believes this is the best way forward and for
it to profit.
In the digital
economy, it is about end-to-end experiences, more respect for customers and if
possible inclusion of customer/consumer in the processes. Being involved may please them. Humans are social creatures. But a business
may want to do that not because more sales can then be pushed to them but
because their satisfaction brings more sales, directly and indirectly, like
leaving good comments. These days,
online feedback is as impactful, if not more, than brands.
As the processes
are end-to-end, a customer-centric mindset should permeate all levels of the
organisation, not left to customer service.
Perhaps even to the extent of framing goals in terms of customers. So applying tech is to make it easier for customers,
creating a community to empower customers is to assist other customers and so
on.
We’ve heard this
“customers are the sole reason why companies exist” so is it not time we mean
it?
With that, a
final point. To deliver the best
possible service, personalisation is likely the most impactful where the idea
is to know each customer well enough so that personal experiences can be
tailored. That’s where data comes in.
Data-conscious
Data supports
the customer process. And in turn the
business, like improving loan loss ratio for a bank.
Okay, data
privacy is a major issue but who says it can’t be used legitimately for the
benefit of customers, like for car or health insurance that incentivises
consumers to be more careful. I actually
like it if an ad pops up as though it knows I am looking intently to buy a door
knob, rather than hoping because I viewed an eCommerce site.
There is already
an overdose on this subject and what with The Economist hailing it, placing it
squarely upfront and into our nomenclature.
Here I would
just like to suggest that like customer-centricity, data awareness should be
nurtured into every nook of the organisation, all, cognisant on the role of
data. Data-driven decisions cannot be
made only at the strategic levels. Data
possibilities are best recognised at the point of origin, whether from the
marketing personnel manning event registration, technicians fixing problems or
the sales folks. Organisations have
internal suggestion boxes to make an improvement to the organisation, perhaps this
should be extended to data.
Lastly
businesses may want a thought through plan, less they regret specific data in
the future that they can’t now have to make a critical decision. That’s the data plan.
Digital-mindset
It is a people
issue. To transform, carry out
digitisation or adjust to the digitising economy requires a slight shift in
thinking.
Be open!
What do you think? Input, comments appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment