How do we leverage on Insights to Identify, Analyse, and Engage with Customers for a personalised customer journey?
There is a great quote from Michael LaBoeuf that says: "A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all."
You may be wondering why I am starting like this, but this statement, in its purest meaning, drives the same message as customer-centricity.
If a business strategy is center around a customer's preference, likes, and satisfaction, businesses will be more likely not to lose a single customer. However, the opposite happens for most companies.
A report from Accenture states almost 1.6 trillion dollars in cost is attributed to customers switching due to poor services. It doesn't end there; another study conducted by the CEI survey suggests that 86% of customers are more likely to deepen their pockets if you provide them a delightful customer experience. What this tells us is that a strategy that provides a satisfying customer journey can spike growth even more than a traditional driven or product-driven approach.
So, here's is the hook:
Implementing a progressive customer-centric plan isn't an overnight success. It would help if you planted the first seed, so let's begin by knowing what customer centricity is.
What does customer centricity stand for?
Customer centricity is a marketing strategy that puts the customers at the heart of your business, to foster a delighted customer experience at every level of the customer's journey. Understanding who your buyer personas will significantly influence the right decisions about the product or services, will go a long way in creating an enjoyable experience, customer loyalty, and of course, customer satisfaction. To put it a blunt way; without your customers, your business is as good as dead. No profit. No brand.
Importance of personas
When you know a lot about your buyer — where they come from and a host of other vital indicators, businesses can focus their ideas around customers' preferences, eventually guarantee engagements.
Investing in your buyer persona is like digging a well, the more you dig, the closer you get to the water. According to a survey from Wunderman, 79% of consumers want brands to show their care before they will even consider making a payment. Knowing your buyer persona might need an extra effort. But you will need to have valuable insights about them and their preference.
In conventional methods of marketing, businesses will probably have a department that calls clients to know what exactly they want. And this method worked marvels. Yet, due to the connection of everything online, it's tough to have a one-on-one meeting with clients these days, and this is one of the challenges today. You must be ready to put a balance to everything, the traditional and the digital.
A framework to the identified customer journey
The seven pillars of customer-centricity can be used as a framework for action. It is used to analyse customers' perceptions against these seven core areas of your organization to ensure your business strategy is genuinely customer-centric and borne of data-driven customer science.
Customer experience
The customer experience must be convenient, comfortable, enjoyable, and seamless.
Loyalty
Recognising customers and rewarding them in a way that is meaningful to them can go a long way to keeping them happy.
Communication
Highly communicative companies tend to have more engaged and loyal customers. They take the time to talk to their customers, listen to their needs, and personalise their communications to show they care.
Assortment
While you don't need to have the largest selection of products, the variety you have should meet your customers' needs.
Promotions
Successful promotion programs promote the products that are most appealing to customers.
Price
With customer feedback, you can ensure your costs are in line with what your customers are willing to pay for the value you offer.
Response
Prioritising customer feedback will enable you to create a secure emotional connection with your customers.
Turning insights into actions and decisions
It may seem simple, but in today's digital world, frequently communicating with customers will go a long way to build a tremendous customer-centric company, and what you do with those feedback matters a lot.
Customer intelligence is both smart and actionable.
To gather the intelligence you need to put the customer at the core of every decision you make, you need to not only get to the Who, What, When, and Where, but to the Why of consumer behaviour and motivations. Understanding why customers behave as they do, purchase as they do, and need what they need enables customer-centric brands to adapt to meet consumer demands.
The right customer intelligence guide, inform and advise business leaders to make informed decisions. Intelligence isn't useful if it isn't actionable. That's why market researchers need to be able to turn intelligence into customer insight. This is how you get to the "Why"
Moving forward
Being customer-centric is necessary to keep clients connected with, fulfilled, and steadfast. Studies have revealed that a compelling emotional connection with a brand is a more grounded dependability driver than reasons. If you need to shield your clients from undermining you, it's critical to comprehend the significance of client-centricity before they pass the point of no return.