Being Customer Centric (In the Social Era)

Customer centric approaches over the years have had many philosophical flavors and technical implementations including CRM, customer infallibility, consultative selling, NPS, loyalty programs, employee comp plans tied to customer satisfaction and others.

Social media has finally given companies the tools they need to really attain customer centricity.

The Internet created the Age of the Customer, enabling and empowering customers to be very selective, demanding, and even fickle. Customer loyalty has become harder than ever to attain.

Social analysis tools are now enabling companies to be much less at the mercy of empowered customers. Companies can now see trends developing in real-time. They can more readily hear the voice of the customer and act accordingly. If companies are committed to listening, they may never get caught off guard again by a crisis, a market shift, or unhappy customers.

Here's our short list of attributes companies must commit to in order to be customer centric especially in the context of social :

• Listening to customers more than talking to them
• Enabling customers to help and teach each other
• Creating communities for distinct customer segments where content is specifically relevant and intentions are common
• Being fixated on customers experiencing what is promised to them
• Empowering employees to care for customers and each other
• Believing that customer experience is everyone’s job

What do you think? How is your company demonstrating its commitment to being customer centric? How are you using social media to get there?

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