Customer Centricity is Passe?

Posted on February 23, 2011
by Guest Blogger Yvonne Summers

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EVERYONE seems to be talking about its importance for 2011 (and beyond…)

Harry Kline expects that in 2011 the Age of the Customer will continue to gain momentum, whilst the financial impact of poor service is driving voice of the customer programs and better customer experience can be worth millions in annual revenue, according to Forrester. The ‘Business Impact of Customer experience, 2010’ report, published November 2010, shows that a better customer experience drives improvement for three types of customer loyalty: willingness to consider another purchase, likelihood to switch business to a competitor, and likelihood to recommend to a friend or colleague.

What role does trust play?

Customer centricity describes an organization orientating itself to focus on the needs and wants of the customer. Organizations try, but it’s difficult.

“In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise less than 10% of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down”.
Howard Schultz – Lies – Truth – Trust – Customers – Companies – Products – America

In today’s fast moving world of opt-in and opt-out, comparison web sites, instant, viral customer testimonial or bad publicity, companies can struggle to develop lifetime customer relationships – what role does trust play?

Don Peppers and Martha Rogers are recently quoted as saying “We believe customer trust is probably the ‘next big thing’ in business competition.”

What do you think?

We believe trust and marketing basics are vital to every marketing strategy whether traditionally focussed or cutting edge digital. As a way to encourage discussion and debate about trust in marketing, marketing theories and the business of marketing we’ve funded an independent initiative – ‘The Growing Trust Initiative’ – where interactions are led by marketing considerations not technological ones.

With digital channels commonplace, data streams growing rapidly and customer expectations of relevant and respectful interactions, technology is often the only way for a marketer to manage interactions, understand customers and execute campaigns. But sometimes the technology can overshadow the crux of marketing – the connection for a period of time between a buyer and a seller that involves an exchange of some kind.

Central to the Growing Trust Initiative is a series of Discussion Papers designed to initiate the dialogue. The first Discussion Paper, ‘In the Shade of the Trust Arbor: Nurturing Better Business’ is now published (link to hosting site) and freely available (quite timely really when in the UK two major banks have been fined over 4 million dollars for failing to deal properly with customer complaints and another focuses its marketing strategy on forging consumer trust).

We look forward to hearing your views.

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Tags: customer centricity, customer experience, customer loyalty