You stand a greater chance at success when you make the customer the centerpiece of your brand-building and business strategies. It’s not enough to say, “The customer is always right.” That’s more reserved for customer disputes if you’re a customer-focused company. Hopefully, you will rarely encounter these incidents, if any at all.
However, the emphasis on your customers is the right approach to running a business. You should align different aspects of your Customer-Focused Company to match what a customer would want.
Here are 10 steps to build a customer-focused company from the ground up:
1. Write a Vision Statement
Every business should have a vision statement. A vision statement often shares a lot about a business’ story. It should also include the customer in that and work to establish a customer-focused culture. If your customers are not satisfied or not prioritized, no brand will be able to capitalize and grow as much as it should. Work out before anything else a customer-based vision statement.
2. Existing Customers Over New Customers
A lot of marketing, advertising, and business building is mistakenly exclusively geared towards finding new customers. The reality is acquiring new customers costs more than maintaining an existing clientele. Don’t neglect your base. Always work to satisfy those that have already opted into what you’re selling. A customer-focused company is one that consistently prioritizes its audience.
3. Human-Centered Design Strategies
There are several human centered design strategies you can use to deliver a solutions-focused brand. This approach emphasizes perceiving your customers as human beings. You focus on understanding their motivations and values. You acknowledge opportunities to improve a product or service by thinking from the customer’s perspective. The technique sets a business up to deliver excellent performance for all stakeholders involved, including the customer.
4. Listen to Feedback
A customer-focused company optimized for ten years ago will not be equipped to handle today’s target audience. That’s because customer needs are constantly changing. As a business, listen and read comments. Monitor what the trend is. See where you might be losing customers, then adapt and change. Remain relevant instead of thinking that building a customer-focused company happens in one swoop and then you’re done.
5. Solve for the Customer’s Need
Design thinking is all about solutions-focused troubleshooting. Its process is to empathize with the customer, ideate, prototype, test, and ultimately arrive at a user-centred solution. Design thinking does this by solving problems users or customers are having.
Your business will become a brand focused on problem-solving on behalf of the customer. You’re going to have no issue building market share and establishing loyalty from what will hopefully be a growing customer base.
6. Involve the Customer in Your Brand
Make the customer feel like a part of your brand. This can come in the form of many things, like social media contests, giveaways, or an affiliate program. When a customer feels like they’re involved with building your brand, many people take ownership in their efforts, which fosters loyalty. At the same time, you remain in tuned with customer wants and needs.
7. Communicate with Customers
Open up lines of communication with customers. Have a responsive customer service team. Respond when customers send in inquiries, comments, and suggestions. If there are negative reviews or complaints, handle them quickly. No customer-focused company gets to call themselves by this description if they aren’t following up with customers and ensuring customers’ comments aren’t being ignored.
8. Look for Ways to Add More Value
When you have a solid grasp of who your customer is, their values, their motivations, and what’s important to them, you can take this information and look for ways to add value. This could include restructuring certain products or services, adding things to certain purchases, or making unique accommodations for your customer. When a user feels like you work hard to make their experience a positive one, this will be noticed.
9. Reliability and Trust
A customer should be able to rely on your products and services. If you are getting customer complaints about certain processes or even people, this should be a cause for concern. Every interaction with a customer is unfortunately an opportunity to lose their business.
You want to establish trust with every customer and be seen as a reliable brand. Do not wait to address weak points anywhere in your Customer-Focused Company. Work to make your business the type of business your ideal customer would run if they were in your position.
10. Hire the Best People
Every employee is a representation of your business. If you hire rude or untrained people, this will translate to customers becoming frustrated and thinking negative thoughts about your brand. One of the best things you can do to build a customer-focused company is hiring the right people. Furthermore, invest in them. Ensure they are trained and are aware of expectations for them in their roles. Empower them. Invest in them. Every employee’s an asset in a customer-focused, solutions-oriented business.
