Introduction
Customers usually compare their experience gained in terms of quick, easy and personalized experience that they have experienced from best of the best. The customer- focused business primarily gets the chance to reap the benefit of customer loyalty and competitive advantage in comparison to other businesses surviving within the same dynamic environment.
The foremost principle of Total Quality Management includes the customer focus where focus remains on the people who buy goods and services. It is the customer only who helps in determining the quality of the product offered. It refers to keeping your customer needs and preferences first which clearly reflects that customer’s experience is most valued at every step of the organizational journey.
The businesses which are customer focused foster a company’s culture which is dedicated to enhancing customer satisfaction and building stronger customer relationships.
If a product crosses the expectations of the customers in terms of needs fulfillment or longer sustainability then it leads to customer satisfaction as they feel money is spent upon the right and quality products. When a business entity gets an idea regarding customer’s needs and wants then they have the chance to figure out what type of raw material is needed and how to attain it, how to employ people and how to operate the processes so that customers’ desired expectations are met.
Majority percentage of the companies compete on the basis of customer experience. It mostly serves as a fundamental tool to the organisation as without the customers their organization would cease to exist because of which every organization must strive to achieve the quality.
To implement this principle needs the following:
• Research and fully understand the customers needs and expectations
• Need to align customer expectations with the objective of the company
• Effectively communicate with the customers to measure their level of satisfaction and make use of outcomes to gradually improve the processes and operations
• Managing customer relationship
• They need to maintain a balance between satisfying customers and other interested parties like- owners, employees and investors.
Benefits of being indulged in customer- focused includes:
• It leads to increase in sales, revenue, market share and mindshare as well.
• It helps in building strong customer loyalty leading to repeat purchase business.
• The satisfied customers would further recommend the product and services ahead to use.
How to build an effective customer focused strategy ?
An effective customer focused strategy enables one to form real and transparent relationships with customers. There lies series of steps for developing good and effective relationship with customers and managing it up :
• Encourage collaboration– to turn into a customer focused organization there need to develop a collaboration between the teams to get an overall better experience. Supporting the team along with the sales team can lead to generation of more leads, more leads are created, as collaboration shouldn’t slow down a team’s productivity.
• Hearing the grievances of the customers– making our customers feel heard is the essential part to customer focus. They need to maintain the same connective layer of tissue with the customers to make them feel valued in the eyes of the organization management.
• Catering customers needs wherever they want through– focusing upon a single communication channel and enabling them to encounter great experience is easy but to communicate them through the customers choice is defined as a powerful driver of loyalty. This allows customers to reach out to your product wherever they want.
The feedback given by the customers can serve as a eye opener and industry and experts can suggest the best option which option stays relevant that suits customer needs like- reaching the customers through mobiles and messaging is quite easy and reachable rather than following other channels of communication.
• Make use of feedback to get better– rather than ignoring the customer grievances one must try to give them a chance to amplify their voice and use their valuable feedback to get a better experience.
One can do so:
Sending customer survey forms
Another option is to open an online community where customers would share their valuable experiences on using a product or services and their requirements with respect to new features.
It’s important to maintain a two-way flow of communication where customers are treated like partners and collaborators and setting up a good customer focused organization.
Wrapping up– It stays relevant and effective for every business to stay customer-focused so that customers loyalty in terms of repeat purchase of products is arrived. As customer is the king of the market so every business needs to evaluate the needs and requirements of their potential customers so that ultimate value is added not only to the product but also to the company by accelerating its growth and success of the business through rapid sales and revenue generation.