The key to putting customers at the center of your business

There is an old adage in business that “the customer is king”. Why, then, do so many companies fail to put customers at the center of their business strategies? Even companies that do manage to crack the code and use a customer-centric strategy often fail to maintain it, often with disastrous results. Take the example of Tesco, which you can read about here.

Customer-led strategies are proven to foster innovation, but how do you initiate and sustain such a strategy? The first step is to understand there are two different belief systems within companies, either outside-in, or the opposite, inside-out. For your company to be customer-centric, you need to eliminate inside-out thinking at every level. You can read the details on how to do this here.

Not every leader is clear about what their employees actually believe about their workplace culture. So before you move forward with strategies aimed at a customer-centric business model, first understand your starting place. You can read here the questions to ask to get an honest picture of your corporate culture.

Once you have put in strategies to maintain an outside-in mindset throughout your company, it is critical that your employees are motivated. One of the ways to do this is to make sure they have a feeling referred to as “burningness”. This is when you feel something so strongly it is almost like you are on fire, and it is a necessary force that compels companies to change. You can read how to create or sustain it here.

Customer-centric businesses have distinct advantages over their competition, but once you manage to achieve customer-centricity, you must remember how easy it is for that culture to disappear, meaning you must stay vigilant in maintaining an outside-in belief system.