Be me, be more … What do the world’s most customer-centric companies really do, beyond having deep insights and delivering great service?

June 14, 2024

Joshie the Giraffe

A family staying at a Ritz-Carlton hotel accidentally left behind their son’s stuffed giraffe, Joshie. When the hotel found the toy, they went beyond simply returning it. The staff took photos of Joshie enjoying various hotel amenities, like lounging by the pool and getting a spa treatment. They sent these photos along with the giraffe, creating a delightful and memorable experience for the family. What can we learn? Adding a personal touch and a bit of creativity to customer service can turn a potentially negative situation into a positive and shareable story.

Molly the Bride

Molly, a regular Zappos customer, needed shoes for her wedding and expressed concern about receiving them on time. A Zappos representative upgraded her order to overnight shipping at no extra charge. Molly received the shoes the next day, in time for her wedding, and was deeply grateful for the exceptional service. What can we learn? This story is one of many that highlight Zappos’ commitment to going above and beyond for its customers. Empowering employees to make decisions that benefit the customer can create memorable and positive experiences, fostering customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

Sam’s PlayStation

Sam, an Amazon customer, ordered a PlayStation during the holiday season. Due to a delivery delay, the package didn’t arrive on time. Before Sam even contacted Amazon, he received an email apologising for the delay, offering a full refund, and informing them that the item would still be delivered. Sam ended up receiving the PlayStation for free and was highly impressed by Amazon’s proactive customer service. Anticipating customer issues and addressing them proactively can prevent dissatisfaction and turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Having a Customer Mindset

“Hello, I am your customer. Do you see the world like I do? It’s simple really. Start with me and everything else follows. Together we can do extraordinary things … “

Customers are now in control of our markets, demanding that we do business on their terms. Their expectations are high, and loyalty is rare. They are individual and emotional, well-informed and highly organized. They know what they want, and only accept the best.

In my book “Customer Genius” I explore a 10 step blueprint for building a customer-centric business; proving that the right customer strategies, based on deeper customer insight, driving more compelling propositions and distinctive experiences, can engage those ‘wonderful people’ we call customers.

Outside in. Power has shifted to customers, and business must learn to think and act from the outside in.

Bigger picture. Customers see their challenges and solutions more holistically, without sectors or categories.

Less is more. Better to attract and retain fewer, more profitable customers than to try to serve everyone.

Deep diving. Use more personal immersion to discover what factors really drive attitudes and behaviours.

Get personal. People are more irrational and emotional. Focus on the energisers, not just the essentials.

Pull don’t push. Don’t sell products, engage people on what matters to them – where, when and how they want.

Work together. Collaborative, help people to solve problems and achieve more with co-created solutions.

Intuition rules. Throw away the rule book, and enable customer service people to be human and responsive.

Word of mouth. Customers are more loyal to each other than any business, so harness the power of advocacy.

Future results. Customer metrics are lead indicators, whilst financials only tell you about the past.

There’s nothing new about customer-centricity. Call if customer-focus, customer-driven, customer-intimacy, or customer-obsession, companies have been seeking to install a customer mindset in their organisation’s culture for many decades. It’s obvious, but not easy. It’s easy to start from what you know, what your organisation does, what products you offer, and what you think. It’s much more difficult to start with the customer.

Amazon seeks to be the world’s most customer-centric business, and indeed customer obsession means that every decision – strategic or operational – starts with what’s right for the customer, and then finding a way to make it happen practically, and hopefully profitably too. Disney has long communicated a story of magic, and seeks to deliver magic moments in everything it does. Apple famously don’t research what customers say they want, but use their intuition to solve the right problem, thinking like a customer. It’s about being human, its about looking beyond the transaction, and its more fun and rewarding too.

So what’s a customer mindset?

Be me: put yourself in the mind of your customer, what’s going on in their world, what makes them tick; listen harder, what do they really want to achieve, use their language, make connections, meet their needs?
Be more: how can you enable your customer to achieve more, not just the product or service they’re buying, but how they will use it, what it helps them to do; save time, live better, care for the environment?
Be magic: what’s the special thing you can do for your customer; a small favour, something personal, a joke, a smile; how will you leave an impression, be a little different, and memorable?

And what does this take?

Customer Purpose: start with why your business exists, what’s your purpose, how do you make the world better in some way, and typically the lives of customers.
Customer First: make choices from the customer’s perspective first, meeting their need, solving their problem, and then find a way to achieve it practically and profitably.
Customer Insight: remember Maslow’s pyramid has functional things at the bottom (and that includes price!), and more emotional things at the top (everybody is emotional, you just have to find it).
Customer Problem: what’s the context, the job to be done, the bigger thing which your customer is trying to achieve; not just the product or service they say they need?
Customer Journey: consider the stepping stones in what they’re doing, and how you can be a better part of it, not just by addressing your specific items, but facilitating more of it too.
Customer Personalisation: how can you use AI, or data, or simple listening, to deliver a more personal solution for the customer, perhaps by anticipating what they need, or tweaking something to make it more relevant.
Customer Loyalty: this starts with trust, and ideally moves to return, and recommendation; but look beyond the cards and points schemes, to think what genuinely earns the customer gratitude and support over time.

Here are some of the world’s most customer-centric companies:

Walk into an IKEA, pull out your phone and use their AR app, and you’re transported to your future home …

Nike is not a sportswear company, it’s a sports company … obsessed with helping people do better sport

Virgin is all about being human, as captured in its cultural values …

Buc-ee’s is a Texan gas station, ranked as the world’s most customer-centric business …

Zappos is a story of happiness, how to do more for every customer … happiness delivered

Disney seeks to bring out the magic in every human being … delivering moments of magic

More from the blog