Cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty is wide­ly acknowl­edged to be an end goal for any brand. It’s one of the gold­en rules of mar­ket­ing, and also one of the pil­lars on which momen­tol­ogy is based. How­ev­er, while many seek to adopt cus­tomer cen­tric­i­ty as a cul­ture, prov­ing its val­ue as a rev­enue gen­er­at­ing strat­e­gy is an alto­geth­er dif­fer­ent chal­lenge.

One of the biggest goals for most brands is to be more cus­tomer-cen­tric. It’s one of the gold­en rules of mar­ket­ing, and also one of the pil­lars on which momen­tol­ogy is based. How­ev­er, while many seek to adopt cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty as a cul­ture, prov­ing its val­ue as a rev­enue gen­er­at­ing strat­e­gy is an alto­geth­er dif­fer­ent chal­lenge.

What is the cur­rent state of cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty for lead­ing brands? A sur­vey of more than 300 senior mar­ket­ing exec­u­tives at B2B and B2C orga­ni­za­tions across North Amer­i­ca con­duct­ed by SAP researchers found that 73 per­cent of mar­keters view cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty as “crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of their busi­ness.”

How­ev­er this makes a strik­ing con­trast with the num­ber of mar­keters who say their brands aren’t yet cus­tomer-cen­tric enough. Only 11 per­cent of mar­keters strong­ly agreed with the state­ment that “we excel in deliv­er­ing rel­e­vant, per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ences based on cus­tomer insight and ana­lyt­ics.”

Here are some key find­ings from SAP’s report:

• 73 per­cent of mar­keters view cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty as crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of their busi­ness and role at the com­pa­ny
• Only 14 per­cent of mar­keters say cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty is ranked high­ly with­in their orga­ni­za­tion.
• Only 11 per­cent of mar­keters say that their cus­tomers would say cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty is ranked high­ly with­in their orga­ni­za­tion.
• 66 per­cent of mar­keters say quick response times to cus­tomer requests or com­plaints are core to demon­strat­ing cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty.
• 22 per­cent of mar­keters high­light­ed peo­ple and exper­tise as a chal­lenge for the busi­ness. With busi­ness­es requir­ing the right tal­ent and the right cul­ture to achieve suc­cess.
• 52 per­cent of mar­keters say that it is a ‘triple‑P’ com­bi­na­tion of peo­ple, process­es, and plat­forms, that are need­ed to prop­er­ly devel­op, man­age, mea­sure and con­tin­ue the deliv­ery of a great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence.
• 47 per­cent say prod­ucts that reflect a customer’s own needs and wants are cen­tral to demon­strat­ing an organization’s cus­tomer focus.
• 56 per­cent of mar­keters are only “mod­er­ate­ly sat­is­fied with their company’s abil­i­ty to lis­ten and respond to the needs of the cus­tomer”.
• 20 per­cent of mar­keters say that busi­ness­es as a whole have a com­pre­hen­sive view of engage­ments and touch­points across the stages of the cus­tomer life­cy­cle.
• 45 per­cent of respon­dents do not have a uni­fied view of the cus­tomer, or a sin­gle ver­sion of cus­tomer truth.
• 10 per­cent of mar­keters are high­ly con­fi­dent in their organization’s abil­i­ty to lever­age data and turn it into action­able intel­li­gence.

What Does Customer-Centricity Mean For Businesses Today?

When asked what the most impor­tant attrib­ut­es were for brands, as a mea­sure of cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty, a major­i­ty of mar­keters placed great val­ue in hav­ing “a senior man­age­ment team that is com­mit­ted to under­stand­ing the needs and behav­iors of the cus­tomer and mar­ket.”

Also impor­tant for brands is to have a “func­tion­al align­ment and sup­port of a holis­tic cus­tomer expe­ri­ence strat­e­gy”, as well as a cor­po­rate cul­ture that places val­ue on cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty and the respon­si­ble use of data and insights to advance the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence.

Ingrid Lind­berg, chief cus­tomer expe­ri­ence offi­cer at Prime Ther­a­peu­tics, spoke of the impor­tance of cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty for her brand:

“Cus­tomer cen­tric­i­ty is an ever-mov­ing tar­get based on cus­tomer expec­ta­tions, so it’s always a jour­ney. Although we are excep­tion­al­ly respon­sive, we are still forced to evolve as the def­i­n­i­tion changes. Luck­i­ly, we are agile and able to adapt to those changes quick­ly.”

Personalized Experiences

A key out­put for cus­tomer-cen­tric brands high­light­ed in the study was in the abil­i­ty for brands to deliv­er per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ences to build con­nec­tions with cus­tomers on a unique one-to-one basis.

Six­ty-three per­cent of mar­keters agreed that cus­tomer expec­ta­tions for per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ences are high­er than ever, but just 5 per­cent felt that their brands are “excelling in the deliv­ery of a data-dri­ven, per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence.” Twen­ty-eight per­cent of senior mar­keters felt their brands were able to “deliv­er a per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence, regard­less of chan­nel.”

“Engag­ing cus­tomers through a per­son­al­ized, high­ly tar­get­ed approach is key,” said Eri­ka Szy­chows­ki, senior vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing at Nine West. “Tai­lored con­tent devel­op­ment and exe­cu­tion are incred­i­bly crit­i­cal to reach­ing cus­tomers today.”

Over­all the sur­vey formed a fas­ci­nat­ing study of the areas which mar­keters felt their brands need­ed to focus on in order to deliv­er cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty. Here’s an overview:

2 Key Takeaways For Brands Looking To Be More Customer-Centric

SAP’s researchers sin­gled out two key take­aways for mar­keters look­ing to tack­le the chal­lenges around cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty for brands.

1. Learn to Capitalize on Customer Engagement Opportunities

Cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty needs prov­able val­ue as a over­ar­ch­ing strat­e­gy for brands. By instill­ing orga­ni­za­tions with the abil­i­ty to cap­i­tal­ize on new prece­dents in cus­tomer engage­ment, and embed­ding core prin­ci­ples of improv­ing cus­tomer expe­ri­ences in a com­mit­ted way, orga­ni­za­tions will pave the way to more rapid­ly respond­ing to cus­tomer feed­back, and ulti­mate­ly stay ahead of cus­tomer needs and grow­ing expec­ta­tions.

2. Cross-Functional Partners And Integration Are Critical

Mar­keters were unit­ed in their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of relat­ed core busi­ness func­tions, such cus­tomer ser­vice, sales, and IT, as being the stew­ards of pro­vid­ing an opti­mized cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Rapid response rates, always-on access to prod­ucts, and cus­tomer sup­port is regard­ed as a key com­po­nent of reach­ing long-term cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty goals.

Tell us about the cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty chal­lenges for your brand. Do you agree with the find­ings of SAP’s report?