The three rules of customer centricity

RULE NO 1: KNOW ME

Customers expect companies to be using technology to deliver intimacy. A pizza joint fails when it consistently sends special offers for meatlovers’ pizzas to a vegetarian customer. Customers are used to Amazon being able to make sensible book suggestions linked to their past reading history. They won’t tolerate the pizza company not noticing that 100% of their previous online orders were for vegetarian pizzas. And the excuse that your backend system can’t link past purchasing with email specials won’t wash.

RULE NO 2: MAKE IT EASY FOR ME

Customers expect it to be easy to connect with an organisation. That means fast response times, mobile-friendly transactions, having a presence on social media sites, and making sure you communicate with customers in a friendly and easy-to-understand way. British Telecom has introduced what it calls the “Net easy score”. And carmaker Fiat took easy accessibility to a new level when it introduced web-cam-enabled car browsing in Brazil. Showroom staff wearing head-mounted cameras can talk customers through a car they are interested in buying, answering questions and discussing purchasing options.

RULE NO 3: BE RELEVANT

Customer drivers may be similar, but pathways to information and purchase, and methods of feedback and experience sharing have changed radically. So the ways companies interact with their customers need to reflect that. Digital customers are using multiple channels to get information about products and services before they buy. For example, they might view a Facebook post, “like” it and click through to a link to that item, then progress to web chat with a query, and finally come back to the website to place their order. They might be doing everything on their mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). However, many businesses are slow to match their offering to the channels their customers are using. Whether it’s a mobile app or a responsive website, companies need to offer users a mobile-friendly option with the opportunity to click to call. 2015 is the year for companies to think about how to add channels to their service offering to meet consumer demand for choice.