Are you always looking for the gap in your market? The want/need/desire that isn’t being fulfilled by a competitor? In 2024 and the post-Covid Era, there is ONE gap in the market that is affecting every industry. No one is immune to the power of customer centricity. 

This year we’ve seen…

• Supply chain challenges
• Poor productivity and quality of work
• Cost cutting
• Rapid decline in team culture 

And what is the root cause? A lack of focus on customer-centric business strategy.  (A lack of focus on people.) Embracing customer centricity means you put your customer first, and at the core of your business decisions, in order to provide a positive experience and build long-term relationships. 

It’s a way of doing business that focuses on providing a positive experience before and after a sale. And for the leaders who embrace delayed gratification, it leads to repeat business, enhanced customer loyalty and improved business growth. 

There is not a single founder, in any industry, who wouldn’t benefit from leveraging customer-centric selling to grow their business in 2024. 

A customer-centric business is more than good customer service, and creating customer centricity takes TIME. It requires a genuine interest in delivering customer value. 

Amazon and Zappos are examples of brands who embraced customer-centric selling for long-term growth, and they have spent years creating a culture around the customer and their needs. Zappos is known for firing employees who do not fit within their customer-centric culture. 

And even though many studies point towards customer centricity being most important when establishing a strong company and client culture, a CMO Council study found that only 14% of marketers believe that customer centricity is a hallmark of their companies. Why? Because executing a (successful) customer-centric strategy doesn’t happen overnight, and most leaders fall victim to the pressures of instant gratification. 

I truly believe the business owners who lean into customer centricity (as others run to AI and automation) will stand out and consistently increase their market share over time and have a competitive advantage in 2024.

What is Customer Centricity? 

When you put your customer at the center of everything, and combine it with Customer Relationship Management, you collect information that allows you to take a 360 degree approach to growing your business. This information is then used to improve your customer’s experience.

How? 

• Customer data helps you understand buying behavior, interests, and engagement
• You can identify opportunities to create products or services to re engage your best customers
• You can use client lifetime value to segment customers based on revenue numbers 

Customer-centric businesses have “clients for life”.

Customer-centric businesses have a positive and thriving team culture.

Customer-centric businesses are more profitable, because they put PEOPLE FIRST.

Challenges of Customer Centricity

For most businesses, competition boils down solely to customer experience. (Whether you are a small business or a Fortune 500 company). However, the bigger the business, the harder it is to create customer centricity. 

A few reasons businesses struggle to adopt client-centricity:

• A weak definition of their brand’s client-centric strategy 
• Failure to properly collect and distribute client data (What gets measured, gets managed…and whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or lead a large team, data gives you important insight into your customers’ wants and needs.) 
• Putting profits BEFORE people 

5 Ways to Develop Customer-Centric Selling 

Customer-centric selling is the anticipation a business creates for its customers’ needs so that you can delight them with products and services. Adopt Apple CEO Tim Cook’s philosophy, “Our whole role in life is to give you something you didn’t know you wanted. And then once you get it, you can’t imagine your life without it.”

Your path to becoming a customer-centric business should focus on five things. These five things will help you stand out in your industry. 

• Define Your Customer Experience Strategy: Lay out exactly what customers expect from your brand and how you will meet those customer expectations. 
• Put Relationships First: Fully embrace a People Before Profits mentality. What is the mutually beneficial relationship that needs to exist between your brand and customers?
• Hire for Customer Success: Every team member hired should align with your brand’s customer-centric thinking and the client experience you wish to provide. 
• Create a System for Sharing Customer Data: All team members should have centralized access to customer data and insights. The goal is to have a unified approach to interacting with customers with the goal of improving customer experience. 
• Build Customer Outcomes into Team Culture: Nothing will motivate team members more than knowing their efforts lead to successful client outcomes. 

Focus on Customer Centricity in 2024

While planning or reviewing your business goals, shift your focus from “What can I do for my business?” to “What can I do for my customers?” Use the tips from this article to create customer centricity in 2024.

If you are ready to scale your business in 2024, learn all of these tips about customer centricity and more in our Scale to CEO program.