Redefining “Customer-Centric” in 2013

When it comes to customer experience, 2012 was a banner year. In 2013, the customer will continue to rein king; only now, businesses will add a new component to the customer feedback loop – creating a new Age of the Internal Customer.

All over the world, consumers were pushed even further into the driver’s seat when it came to making purchasing decisions – empowered to connect with brands whenever, however, and wherever they wanted.  New social channels emerged (Google+, Instagram) enabling them to connect with peers and existing channels began offering new ways of interacting (Apple’s Siri). Brands responded to this increased influence by honing in on the channels where their brand ambassadors engaged – striving to gather quality feedback and actionable insights.

The Age of the Customer as a business strategy

In 2013, the customer will continue to rein king; only now, businesses will add a new component to the customer feedback loop – creating a new Age of the Internal Customer. Of course brands will continue to gather external customer feedback, but they must also now be mindful of the internal organization’s approach to being customer-centric. Whether it’s a shipping agent, a distribution partner or an HR recruiter, 2013 will be the year when the Holistic Customer-Centric Business Approach emerges.

In that vein, here are two of my predictions on how brands will adopt this new holistic approach and how technology will make it happen.

Prediction #1: Employee feedback as the business strategy linchpin

A critical focus for marketers will be to incorporate employee feedback into customer satisfaction creating a more customer-focused organization. By linking internal feedback to external customer information sources, organizations will have a clearer view of issues and will be better equipped to identify the root cause and resolve them more quickly.

How technology will move the needle: If everyone in the organization has customer sat as a KPI, then it will be important to share this metric with everyone. However, the customer sat report that someone on the front line receives, will relevant to how they influence this metric in their day to day activities. And thus will be very different from how Customer sat is reported at a board level. Therefore, tailored report dashboards will be increasingly important and the ability to create these quickly, efficiently and circulate within the business will be essential.

Prediction #2: Market research experiments with the “Siri-effect”

In an effort to capitalize on the ‘next big thing’ in mobility, marketers will seek to take feedback to the next level via voice-activated surveys. Using fresh techniques, “Siri” will help brands break down the barriers of survey fatigue and get in front of the notoriously tough-to-reach young male and business executive audience.

How technology will move the needle: Question design will continue to evolve to ensure that response rates are optimized and to deliver an exceptional brand experience, even whilst engaging in survey activities.  Recognizing this, there will be an evolution in question design that will harness the features found in mobile devices such as; touchscreens and voice answering capabilities. The effect on question design will be more mobile friendly surveys such as ‘slider scale’ responses, rather than traditional ‘tick box’ responses and the ability to utalize similar technologies to Apple’s Siri, answering questions via voice activation.

Positioning the customer at the centre of your business, in essence is about harnessing two things. Attracting them to you so that you gather those insights through engaging and intuitive feedback experiences and ensuring that these insights are dispersed throughout the organization in easy to digest reports so that everyone can make a positive impact on the results and become more customer centric in their activities. Those organizations that harness these methodologies will be the winners in the experience economy in 2013.