Over the years in my consulting and training work with businesses of all sizes and across industries, I’ve seen this a lot;
A tendency among business owners, leaders, entrepreneurs, service providers, to focus inward, on our wants, desires, goals, hopes, dreams and KPI’s with questions like :
"This is what I want to accomplish this year..."
"My KPI’s for this fiscal year are..."
"How much more revenue can my business generate for me?"
"I want to achieve double digit growth YOY"
I believe this approach is fundamentally flawed. What if you shifted your focus to the needs and desires of your customers instead? Placing customers at the centre of your business strategy changes everything. Simply put, without customers we don’t have a business, so this makes complete sense don’t you think?
Begin with your customer in mind. Here are some great starter questions to ask;
"What is truly important to my customers?"
"What problems can I solve for them?"
"How can I help my customers/clients achieve their hopes and dreams?"
“How can I super-serve them this year and make them the heroes of my business?”
From this perspective, the value we get is no longer the driving force in our decision-making. Instead, our reward is the by-product of super-serving the needs of our customers/clients.
Think about the value we create as the cause. The value we receive in return as the effect. The power of reciprocity unleashed.
Absorb this for a moment. It's important for you to really get this.
Begin with feeling our customers' frustrations and desires deeply. This is the core from which we begin to craft our business strategies, design our interactions and create our products and services.
When our focus shifts to developing deep relationships with the people who have chosen to give us their time, engaged or bought from us, everything from here on gets easier and better. You are now in the process of becoming a truly customer-centric company. Moving from just thinking of your customers as a one-off transaction to creating a life-long customer who keeps buying from you and does your marketing for you as well.
By adopting a “leading with empathy and serving first” approach, you create a gravitational force around your business that pulls customers in and creates ultra-loyal customers who love what you do and become your brand ambassadors.
This is what is meant by being truly customer-centric or better still customer-obsessed.
This is how Amazon, Apple, Nordstrom, Zappos, Disney, Hubspot to name a few have built customer super-serving businesses and become immensely successful.
So let’s take a leaf from their playbook.
To your transformation and success.
Ashok
About the author
Ashok Miranda is a Business Transformation Architect and founder of Transform and Transcend, based in Singapore. He is the author of the book Culling Cuturitis: How To Rid Your Company Of This Toxic Disease and Build a Winning Company Culture.
Ashok is a much sought-after consultant, professional speaker and trainer and has helped businesses (startups, SME's and MNC's) reach their full potential and rise to greatness.
He has also transformed the mindset of thousands of businesses professionals across the region.
Ashok is driven by his passion and purpose to architect a better business world. He is on a mission to help companies be massively successful in these turbulent times by building winning company cultures that foster happy and engaged employees. Building strong and emotionally resonant customer-centric brands and designing transformative customer experiences that create ultra-loyal customers and true brand fans.
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