Building A Customer-First Culture

In this age, building a customer-first culture is critical to success. But that doesn’t make it easy to do. According to Andrew Birmingham, the editor and publisher of Which-50, it’s important to put the customer first when designing customer experience.

New technology, new challenges

Technology has changed the customer experience mindset forever.  In some industries, consumers may have as many as 20 to 25 different ways to connect with a brand.   All touch points need to be connectable and data needs to flow seamlessly across all the various internal boundaries.  This make up the departments of the modern enterprise, in order to get the immediate customer requirement.

The emergence of new channels, combined with complexities and challenges, becomes a big part of the challenge in applying measurements.

“We need to understand who is the real audience. So it’s about getting the DMP [data management platform] in place. It’s about partnering with companies that are really rich in data, and having that second-party data partnership to help us better understand who is actually engaging on our websites with us. That also means finding a compelling reason for people to register or log in with us so we can properly track them.”

Andrew further explains by giving examples from the banking environment.  The challenges in banking are even more complex, where there are greater needs on security and strict regulatory compliance rules.

“We have seen a big change in the percentage of telephone inquiries. People don’t want to sit on the phone, whether it’s a very short or long call. Emails are ramping up, and inquiries through our Facebook channels, our social media is incredibly strong. So now we’re looking at options with chat.”

Technology has changed the way we communicate, and the way that customers engage.

Improve the lifetime value of customers

Companies need to change how they encourage their teams, how they think about their budget to prioritize KPIs which drive loyalty or customer lifetime value.  Moreover, improve the lifetime value of customers by building a deep embedded relationship. The more companies understand the needs of their consumer and the faster they are able to respond to those needs, the more competitive they will be in a market where the customer experience sits at the core.

Enable the right technology, get the right culture piece, and connect the right customers.

Read the full article here.