How do organisations achieve enduring success? By understanding, predicting and acting on change. But when change is exponential in its pace and multi-dimensional in its impact on businesses, you need to always be one step ahead. If you can’t recognise when change is coming or don’t have the capability to act, you risk being left behind.
Companies can put themselves in a position to turn change into an opportunity, by continuously capturing, understanding and acting on customers’ needs and behaviours. We call this Always-On Customer Centricity and it’s how leading organisations capitalise on the opportunities change presents.
Björn Dufwenberg explains how STRAT7 Advisory can help clients become truly customer-centric.
Let’s unpack this in more detail.
A closer look at Always-On Customer Centricity
Always-On Customer Centricity puts the customer at the heart of all decision-making.
You do this by capturing, understanding and acting on their needs and behaviours at pace — with a high frequency and short lead times (gone are the days of updating your customer understanding once every few years). And at scale — in a connected way across the whole organisation and its processes.
Whether you’re designing a new product, planning a new marketing campaign or building scripts for your customer service teams, every action is fuelled by accurate customer insight. And aligned through a shared vision of who the customer is and what they want.
It means you’re consistently delivering value and staying ahead of the competition. You’re embracing change when it counts, never fading into irrelevance.
Pranay Jeyachandran explains the importance of understanding, predicting and acting on change for organisations to stay ahead of the competition through Always-On Customer Centricity.
But how do you “do” customer centricity?
Always-On Customer Centricity requires a continuously updated understanding of your customers’ needs and behaviours, your category and your competitors. This means investing time and resources in your operating model as well as your insight gathering toolbox and data sources, and your collective ability to interrogate insight and act quickly and appropriately.
It’s a lot to handle. Many businesses struggle to embrace change despite their best efforts. They lack the resources and capabilities to pull everything together. You need best-in-class technology. And collaboration between specialist teams across data, analytics, culture and insight to make customer- centricity work.
Providing a critical advantage
At STRAT7, we deliver the right expertise, technology and strategy consultancy to make your organisation truly customer-centric.
It begins by systematically understanding your business and its level of customer-centricity maturity. We tailor our solutions and consultancy to your needs, depending on what you’re struggling with and how well you’re addressing change.
There are four areas of Always-On Customer Centricity that we analyse and help you improve.
- Who are your customers?
- How do you find and attract them?
- How do you serve and retain them?
- How are you set up for execution?
1. Who are your customers?
Who are they really? What do they do, what do they value, and how much are they potentially worth to you? And if you know who they are, does everyone else in the organisation have the same understanding? And is this understanding used to make decisions with a real business impact? We draw on multiple data sources, from inside and outside your business, to understand this. This insight helps you recognise your customers as individuals with unique needs and desires, providing the power to make impactful decisions with confidence.
We help you see what’s important to your most valuable stakeholders. This intel becomes your secret weapon — it’s easier to pivot, jump on valuable opportunities and stay on top of your game when you know what matters most.
2. How do you find and attract them?
Where are your customers? How can you be relevant to them? Does your brand and products do the job? And how can you convince them to choose you and not your competitor? We shape strategy by interrogating the data to understand consumer demand. And design the best way to get in front of those with buyer intent.
This highlights opportunities across the business: brand, innovation, marketing and sales – often generating excitement around new ideas for products and services, or revealing tactics on how to reposition your brand, launch a new marketing campaign or fine-tune your messaging. Sales increase as you create propositions that are truly differentiated.
3. How do you serve and retain them?
We generate insight on how to create a world-beating customer experience. One that treats consumers like individuals and gets better with every interaction. It helps drive the effectiveness of your sales and customer service teams. You improve customer loyalty and retention as you consistently meet and exceed their expectations.
It all equals a better brand image aligned to your wider vision. No matter what change brings, you’re in the strongest position to adapt and progress because of the unparalleled service you deliver.
4. How are you set up for execution?
We also look at your business through an operating model lens: do you have the right vision, processes, organisation, systems, performance management, governance and shared knowledge to use all the insights you can generate? If not, you will only get a fraction of the impact you could with your customer-centricity investments.
Perhaps your teams are working in silos — the decisions made across the business are unaligned. To unify teams, the ‘why’ behind this shift towards customer-centricity has to come from the top. And you need the right processes and systems in place to make sure everyone can work from the same understanding. We help you embed a new way of working that ensures everyone is on the same page and that you stay responsive to changes in consumer behaviours, needs and motivations.
Make change an opportunity
89% of companies that lead with customer experience perform better than their peers. Always-On Customer Centricity takes you even further with insight that helps you rapidly change gears and seize opportunities.
At STRAT7, we know the importance of embracing change and progress, and being Always-On helps you get that right. It’s why we don’t just do the analytics, explain what to do next and leave you to it. We stay and drive transformational insight through your business; guiding strategy, planning and execution.
Gain a critical advantage in this volatile world.
Win at change.
