The Top 5 Traits of Customer-Centric Organizations

以客户为中心的组织的五大特征

2021-03-10 13:00 unbabel

本文共1058个字,阅读需11分钟

阅读模式 切换至中文

If you ask a company’s leadership team if they’re customer-centric, chances are they’ll say “yes.” In reality, very few companies are taking the steps needed to be considered truly customer-centric. It’s a topic that’s easy to posture about externally, but as the saying goes, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” True customer-centricity means that the customer is a part of your DNA. Late last year, Bloomberg Media and Salesforce broke down some of the qualities of the top customer-centric companies. These included things like anticipating customer needs, delivering exceptional service, and being easy to do business with, among others. While these are all true, I wanted to learn more from people on the front lines with customers every day. I recently chatted with some friends in customer experience leadership across a variety of industries to ask about the traits of truly customer-centric organizations. For many companies, it’s the cornerstone of what makes their brand truly “loved,”and the foundation of their entire business. Here’s what I learned. They go above and beyond to create brand ambassadors. It’s easy to rest on your laurels when CSAT scores are satisfactory, but the most customer-centric brands in the world go above and beyond to create ambassadors. Think of the experiences you really love from brands you use on a regular basis. My colleague Sophia Malia and I recently talked about how much we love Grammarly’s end-of-week emails that show how much your writing has improved. A little reminder that your vocabulary is better than 90 percent of the population leaves you feeling good about your progress – and wanting to use the software even more. For tech companies, it’s easier to bake these experiences directly in the product. But for consumer goods, the journey might look like a formal ambassador program that rewards superfans for sharing the love. Brands like Rothys rely mostly on word of mouth to recommend their sustainable footwear and bags to the masses. They recently launched an ambassador program called “The Collective” to engage a selection of influential superfans in product decisions. This customer feedback is invaluable because it shows customers you’re listening, while creating a legion of loyal supporters in the process. Their entire company is incentivized on creating value for customers. You might think customer centricity starts and ends with the customer service team. While these employees are on the front-lines of customer care, everyone should be directly incentivized on creating value for the customer. Value for the customer translates to more revenue, so prioritizing this should stem from management down to every employee at the company. As Kate Forgione, director of customer success at Redgate Software says, “Over the last 12 months, the fancy offices are moth-balled, culture as a concept has been stress-tested by business uncertainty and widespread redundancy. We these pillars are taken away, what we are left with are uniting around those we serve, our customers.” Making this a reality at your company may involve some organization-wide changes, such as adding customer-centric or revenue-focused KPIs to everyone’s role across the board. These changes will pay off not only through happier customers, but also in increased sales. They look for soft skills in the hiring process. People who interface with your customers every day should be the ones that you’d like to interact with socially (whenever we’re back to all meeting in person, that is). These soft, interpersonal skills can be hard to detect in an interview setting, where you’re laser-focused on the person’s qualifications and competency. However, customer-centric companies pay attention to the anecdotes prospective employees tell in the interview process. Did they stay in touch with their former managers after they ended their employment? Did they share an experience of making a customer laugh out loud? These types of stories can uncover a lot about a person’s character, and their willingness to go above and beyond to impact the customer’s experience with your brand. They are transparent. “A company that is customer centric is one that is transparent about its product, and gives the customer what they need, not what they think they want,” said Mick Frederick, VP of customer experience at Eaze. For companies in emerging or fast-growing markets, transparency is key to gaining a customer’s long-term trust and loyalty. In fact, 9 out of 10 customers would stop purchasing from brands that lack transparency. For established brands, transparency may come in the form of admitting your mistakes quickly and being clear about how you’re going to make it right. Or, it may mean having your leadership team reveal more about what’s happening behind the scenes at your company on social media. In either case, transparency can make customers feel bought into the company’s mission, vision and values. They prioritize employee wellbeing. Above all else, customer-centric companies prioritize their own employees’ well being. While that may sound counterintuitive, (“Shouldn’t we be putting the customer first,” you say?) happy employees are more likely to care about the quality of their work and its impact on customers. As Sir Richard Branson told Inc. Magazine, “If the person who works at your company is not appreciated, they are not going to do things with a smile.” By treating employees poorly, companies risk the negative impact of their decisions on customers. Even if you’re a fast-growing company like Shopify, you can take definitive actions to put your employees first. The company instituted Fridays off last summer to help alleviate some of the stress of the pandemic. In addition, no-meeting Wednesdays help employees be productive with uninterrupted work time. While these actions may have seemed disruptive to the business, the company still experienced unprecedented growth in 2020. Making customer-centricity part of your DNA Being customer-centric isn’t a “fake it til you make it” proposition. It requires real action on behalf of the company to ensure that every employee is bought into the customer experience – even if they’re not in a customer facing role. As Kate Forgione aptly put it, “Customer centricity isn’t something we do; it’s who we are.” Nothing could be closer to the truth.
如果你问一个公司的领导团队他们是否以客户为中心,他们很可能会说“是的”。事实上,很少有公司采取必要的措施来被认为是真正以客户为中心的。这是一个很容易在外在表现出来的话题,但正如俗话说的那样,“最重要的是内在的东西。” 真正以客户为中心意味着客户是你DNA的一部分。去年底,彭博媒体和Salesforce对以客户为中心的顶级公司的一些品质进行了分析。这些包括预测客户需求,提供出色的服务,以及易于做生意等等。虽然这些都是真的,但我想从每天与客户在第一线的人身上学到更多。 最近,我和一些从事客户体验领导工作的朋友聊了聊,询问了一些真正以客户为中心的组织的特点。对许多公司来说,它是使他们的品牌真正“受人喜爱”的基石,也是他们整个业务的基础。 这是我学到的。 他们超越一切,创造品牌大使。 当CSAT得分令人满意时,你很容易躺在功劳簿上休息,但世界上最以客户为中心的品牌会超越以往,创造形象大使。想想你经常使用的品牌给你带来的体验吧。我和我的同事索菲亚·玛利亚最近谈到,我们有多喜欢Grammarly的周末邮件,这些邮件显示出你的写作有多大的进步。一个小小的提示,你的词汇量比90%的人都要好,这会让你对自己的进步感觉良好--并且想要更多地使用这个软件。 对于科技公司来说,直接在产品中烘焙这些体验更容易。但对于消费品来说,这趟旅程可能看起来像是一个正式的大使计划,奖励那些分享爱的超级粉丝。像Rothys这样的品牌主要依靠口碑向大众推荐他们的可持续鞋类和箱包。他们最近推出了一个名为“集体”的大使计划,让一些有影响力的超级粉丝参与产品决策。客户的反馈是无价的,因为它向客户展示了你在倾听,同时在这个过程中创造了一大批忠实的支持者。 他们的整个公司都被激励为客户创造价值。 您可能会认为以客户为中心始于客户服务团队,并最终于客户服务团队。当这些员工处于客户关怀的第一线时,每个人都应该直接被激励为客户创造价值。为客户带来的价值转化为更多的收入,因此优先考虑这一点应该从管理层到公司的每一位员工。 正如Redgate Software的客户成功总监凯特·福尔乔内所说:“在过去的12个月里,豪华的办公室都成了蛀虫,文化作为一个概念已经经受了商业不确定性和广泛冗余的压力考验。我们这些支柱被拿走了,我们剩下的是团结在我们所服务的人周围,我们的客户。“ 在你的公司实现这一点可能涉及到一些组织范围内的变化,比如在所有人的角色中添加以客户为中心或以收入为中心的KPI。这些变化不仅会通过更快乐的顾客获得回报,而且还会增加销售额。 他们在招聘过程中寻找软技能。 每天与你的客户打交道的人应该是你想要与之进行社交互动的人(也就是说,每当我们回到所有人见面的时候)。这些软性的人际交往技巧在面试环境中很难被察觉,因为面试时你会把注意力集中在对方的资历和能力上。 然而,以客户为中心的公司注重准员工在面试过程中讲述的轶事。他们在离职后是否还与前任经理保持联系?他们有没有分享过一次让顾客大笑的经历?这些类型的故事可以揭示很多关于一个人的性格,以及他们愿意超越和超越影响客户对你的品牌的体验。 它们是透明的。 EAZE客户体验副总裁米克·弗雷德里克说:“一家以客户为中心的公司,其产品是透明的,给客户的是他们需要的,而不是他们认为自己想要的。”对于处于新兴市场或快速增长市场的公司来说,透明度是赢得客户长期信任和忠诚的关键。事实上,10个顾客中有9个会停止购买缺乏透明度的品牌。 对于知名品牌来说,透明的形式可能是迅速承认错误,并清楚地知道如何改正错误。或者,这可能意味着让你的领导团队在社交媒体上透露更多关于公司幕后发生的事情。无论哪种情况,透明度都能让客户感觉被公司的使命,愿景和价值观收买。 他们优先考虑员工的福祉。 最重要的是,以客户为中心的公司会优先考虑员工的福利。虽然这听起来可能有悖常理,(你说:“难道我们不应该把客户放在第一位吗?”) 快乐的员工更可能关心他们的工作质量及其对客户的影响。 Richard Branson爵士告诉Inc.Magazine,“如果在你公司工作的人得不到赏识,他们就不会面带微笑地做事。”如果公司对员工态度恶劣,他们的决策就会给客户带来负面影响。 即使你是一家像Shopify这样快速发展的公司,你也可以采取明确的行动,把员工放在第一位。去年夏天,该公司设立了周五休假制度,以帮助缓解流感大流行带来的压力。此外,不开会的星期三可以帮助员工在工作时间不受干扰的情况下提高工作效率。尽管这些行动似乎对业务造成了破坏,但该公司在2020年仍经历了前所未有的增长。 让以客户为中心成为你DNA的一部分 以客户为中心并不是一个“在你成功之前假装它”的主张。它需要代表公司采取实际行动,确保每个员工都融入客户体验--即使他们不是面对客户的角色。 正如Kate Forgione恰当地说:“以客户为中心不是我们做的事情;这就是我们的本来面目。“没有什么比这更接近事实了。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

阅读原文