How To Place The Customer At The Heart Of Your Organisation | Blogs | IDM

How to place the customer at the heart of your organisation

'It's not the employer who pay the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.' Henry Ford

Being customer centric is the competitive advantage that all Businesses are fighting for.

The 'perfect storm' is here - where barriers to entry are at an all time low giving customers more choice; where the data on our customers is more accessible and essential for our survival and where smartphone penetration is at an all time high (our phones have more power individually than the entire computing that placed Neil Armstrong on the Moon) - ignore customer centricity at your peril.

Picture the scene - a Boardroom somewhere in the UK where the quarterly numbers aren't as good as predicted.

The CEO (feeling hot under the collar as to how she is going to deliver the results at the AGM) turns to the CMO and says:-
'so why is it that we aren't selling more of our products & services and gaining the share that we forecast?'

The CMO (looking flustered) responds immediately with:-
'but we have invested multi millions of pounds through-the-line and in social....we have done everything, it must be the Sales team. Did we do enough training?'

The Chief Commercial Officer (playing a straight bat) and says:-
'but what you have developed for my team isn't what we asked for or wanted and certainly isn't what our customers want and will buy. I fed this back time and again but no one listened. As a Board, we were too intent on hitting deadlines, making compromises and forgetting the customer in the process'.

The CEO turns to her Board and says
'We need to be more customer focussed....but how?'

Unfortunately, these types of conversations are happening up and down the country. One of the most commonly used phrases in strategy/ marketing/ commercial/ leadership journals around the world is 'customers at the heart of the Business'. Those businesses that do, have a competitive advantage by focussing the organisation on creating, developing and then retailing products & services that customers and prospects actually want! Corporate magic dust!!

Make sure you have your customer at the heart of your business. Learn the ways in which you can nurture and improve your customer loyalty and implement a successful customer retention strategy with the IDM's training course in Customer Retention.

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