Unless you have been living under a rock, you must be aware of the latest trends of ‘customer obsession‘ and being customer-oriented. Taking the world’s largest online company, for example.
Amazon is also the world’s largest internet company and have made $75.5 billion in sales revenue in the first quarter of 2020.
One thing is for sure. Amazon’s customer-oriented Policies are working. And how!
Things we can learn from Amazon
After 25 years of setting up Amazon as an online bookseller in Seattle in 1994, in January 2019, Amazon surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable public company with a net value of about $797 billion.
Customer Focus
In 2013, Bezos told Charlie Rose that the customer comes before business innovation: “I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer centricity, putting the customer at the center of everything we do.”
Get inside your customer’s head. 💭
Market Research is imperative here.
Gathering information through different strategies will furnish you with fundamental data about what individuals anticipate from you, and how you can satisfy their desires.
Aside from a portion of the conventional ways organizations gather such information, watch out for Facebook remarks, online discussion forums where your clients spend time, (for example, Reddit),
Additionally, run catchphrases pertinent to your business through Google to perceive what results spring up (look on industry/market-explicit web journals, for example).
Customer Empowerment
Bezos declared, early on, that Amazon would not simply sell stuff but “help customers make purchase decisions.”
This attitude led to the key differentiator of allowing customers to post book reviews and, eventually, reviews of the entire range of products offered on the website.
Feedback is placed directly on the product’s page, and users are provided with multiples ways to parse the information to their liking.
Customer Loyalty
Amazon focuses on one simple measure of customer service quality: helpfulness.
They regularly interact with customers through non-intrusive and easy-to-use satisfaction surveys.
Surveys are an effective tool for building sales and turning customers into loyal enthusiasts.
Analytics is at the heart of the company’s success, with surveys acting as a critical tool for understanding the customer experience.
For example, asking about customers’ habits: “How often do you browse an online store on your cell phone/mobile phone device?”.
Source: myfeedback.com
It is quite evident from Amazon’s growing success that the reason behind their success is their customers.
A happy customer is almost equal to another potential customer.
With this, we come to the reasons why your company needs to be entirely customer-oriented.
Why customer-orientation?
Every business needs to retain customers.
Customer retention is fundamental for building your company.
Its importance is further amplified by the fact that it is
“Finding new customers is 6 to 7 times more expensive than retaining the old ones“
24% of respondents in a MyCustomer survey said they’d change to an alternate brand after only one negative understanding.
A customer-oriented culture ensures that every customer is satisfied and happy.
These loyal customers are an asset to the company in the long run.
More Sales
Considering the impact service can have on retention, it should come as no surprise that companies that make their customers a priority are more profitable.
Research from Deloitte and Touche found that companies with a customer-centric focus are 60% more profitable.
This directly ties to the fact that the happier a customer is with a brand, the more they tend to purchase. In one study, Xerox found that customers who rated them a 6/6 were six times more likely to buy more products than those who rated the brand with a 5.
In this case, just one extra point on their rating scale led to a noticeable difference in purchasing habits — illustrating that even a little extra effort could be all it takes to boost your revenue.
Brand Image
For what reason do individuals purchase an iPhone each year?
For what reason does the iPhone – and Apple as an organization – keep on overwhelming consumer loyalty results quite a long time after a year?
Notwithstanding the rise of solid rivalry, ostensibly better and more grounded telephones with predominant working frameworks, and organizations, for example, Samsung burning through billions into promoting?
For one basic explanation: Apple recognizes what individuals need, and viably fulfills their needs through its items.
Which is the reason it has had the option to construct a solid multitude of steadfast clients who are glad to pay for an iPhone or an iPad every year!
Get inside your customer’s head. Market Research is imperative here.
Gathering information through different strategies will furnish you with fundamental data about what individuals anticipate from you, and how you can satisfy their desires.
Aside from a portion of the conventional ways organizations gather such information, watch out on Facebook remarks, online discussion forums where your clients spend time, (for example, Reddit), and additionally run catchphrases pertinent to your business through Google to perceive what results spring up (look on industry/market-explicit web journals, for example)
How to be more customer-centric?
Invest more in research
Spend more time and resources on research.
Join all relevant groups, sign up for the newsletter and analyze customer feedback on the competitor products.
Collect all relevant informations which help you navigate your product or service in the right direction – customer satisfaction.
Social media, blogs, or discussion websites like reddit.com are the best sources of your potential customers’ information.
Feedback
Allow your customers to handily leave you their reviews, feedbacks, and suggestions and additionally connect with you through different various strategies – telephone, email, website, or a mobile phone application (if relevant), or through an online discussion.
Dell, for example, has a discussion forum devoted to help.
Not exclusively is this discussion forum efficient in offering help to individuals through publicly supporting, but it is likewise an enormous information base for Dell to screen what their clients are stating about the organization and its items.
Good Customer Support
- Enough stress cannot be laid on the importance of a good, responsive and responsible support system for your customers.
- Thank them through various methods – from a simple personalized ‘thank you message’ over social media. Speak with your customers and clients, respond to them, talk with them, and get to know them.
- Always keep them update about all the developments in your products and ensure that your customers get easy access to every single one of your products and services at all times. Whether you decide to do this yourself, or through a partner/service provider, is your call.
Reward your customers
Prize your customers every once in a while. You can do this through different various ways – discounts, sales or rebates, running promotions, setting up a gathering, running a challenge (with an expensive prize, etc.) Give something back to your customers.
Be as inventive with this as you can, consider some fresh possibilities!
Conclusively,
“If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing, and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.” – Ray Kroc.
For one basic explanation: for a company to be profitable, it needs to consistently change and adjust to their customer’s ever-changing necessities and needs. If they neglect to do as such, they will miss out to their rivals who are better at it, straightforward as that.
Along these lines, putting the client initially is fundamental for client maintenance and client dependability.
