How to become a customer company

We could write another blogpost on why you should become a customer centric company. The fact you clicked the link to his blogpost already confirmed you know why it’s important. Just like you know why you should stay healthy. From your early years your parents and teachers encouraged you to eat healthy, to stay fit and to live accordingly. Just like it seems so logical that a customer should always feel at the heart of each company.

The when is quite redundant, because yesterday is already too late. In the current age of the customer you can’t stay behind. Just do it! And do it now!

That’s why we already go on to the next question: how to become a customer centric company? Like for every other process you first have to walk before you can start running. At 4C our Health team definitely knew this. The first challenge they gave us was not to run to our offices every day or to climb the Mont Ventoux immediately. No, they started with one simple request: walk more every day.

By making our first steps as a customer company, we’re also doing a health check on our customer centricity.

Do I actually know my customers? This is really the first question you should ask yourself.

• Which customers do I really want to reach and attract?
• Which are the interactions I have with my customers? To be concrete: what is the customer journey of my customers?
• How can I listen to the voice of my customers and capture this information?

Based on your customer interactions you can design the processes that are needed to bring the customer experiences to life. Make a plan on what you want to reach and draw the process on how you want to get there. Just like in sports you might need a personal coach who shows you the right direction and tools.

Designing is not enough, you should now build the technological environment to support those processes. Start training to get in shape. For training you of course need a gym. That’s what the Salesforce platform can be: the best eco-system to let you become a customer company. Maybe you even would like a crowd of Salesforce consultants that are encouraging you to reach your goals?

Then it lurks from around the corner… Your first real challenge: a running competition against your competitors. Or even a trip to the Mont Ventoux, just like we at 4C plan to do in July. In this competition you might not end as the top customer company, but it gives you plenty of moves you can rethink to improve yourself.

That’s why getting insights in your data is the following logical step. How can I learn from the data I already captured thanks to the processes I established?

• Which data from my customers is incoming in my company and is this really what I want/need to know?
• What do I want to learn from my customer interactions?
• What do I want to predict?

Do you want to know where your company stands in this process? We are happy to help you with this question of maturity in customer centricity. You might also need a personal coach or a crowd of Salesforce consultants cheering you on, so get in touch!