By nickjohnson - August 14th, 2013
Over the last six months, we have collected feedback from several hundred marketing and communications executives from corporations. This information has informed the forthcoming Incite Summit and Incite Briefing.
One of our core questions for these executives was on their key priorities and opportunities for the next twelve months. We asked them to rank a series of priorities in order.
The initial priority list they chose from was established through a series of 40+ one-on-one conversations with executives in the two months before the survey was launched.
As one can see from this data, the three most important issues for our respondents, in order, are:
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Use the plethora of new and existing marketing channels to deliver a pervasive and effective outreach strategy
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Become closer aligned to the customer through listening and internal evolutions to deliver more relevant marketing - and products
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Evolve internal infrastructures, ensure marketing, communications and other departments collaborate better to operate efficiently within the boundaries of the new corporate-consumer relationship
Below, and in significantly more detail in the Incite Briefing, we'll look at these findings more closely.
Brands are becoming more customer-centric
What is customer centricity?
Broadly, customer centricity is the term used to describe corporate attempts to ascribe more importance to the customer, and less to pre-existing products, services and organisational models. Being ‘customer-centric’ necessitates a rethinking of market research, organisational models, product development, and much more.
It has a significant impact on the marketing and communications departments - both in terms of their own roles in the above issues, and also the manner and content of external messaging.
Booz Allen Hamilton defines customer-centric companies as:
“”re-orient[ing] their entire operating model around the customer, increasing customer-satisfaction and their own profitability in the process. They align their operating models behind a carefully defined and quantified customer segmentation strategy, and tailor business streams - product development, demand generation, production and scheduling, supply chain, customer care, etc - to delivering the greatest value to the best customers for the least cost.”
It’s a significant shift. Claire Burns, who has the remit to turn MetLife into a customer-centric business in her position as Chief Customer Officer, agrees on the scale of the task
“It’s a huge change remit...to be customer-centric requires a systematic retooling of almost everything that you do.”
Is Customer-Centricity important to large businesses?
Customer-centricity can be passed off as a fad. The term is formulated in such a way to appear as a buzzword, and is certainly treated as such by some of the more skeptical of executives.
More than this, many of the “forward looking management gurus” who, by their aggressive advocacy of the term, were responsible for skepticism in the first place are now proclaiming that the term is passe - that business has moved on, and that “customer-centricity” is dead.
However, when talking and working directly with marketing and communications executives, the picture is rather different.
For evidence, note the chart above, and the fact that Customer Centricity is seen as the second biggest priority for over 600 corporate respondents in 2013-14.
In discussion with senior executives, the picture was the same.
Marc Speichert, the Chief Marketing Officer at L’Oreal, said:
“being more consumer-centric is critical - so we understand who the consumers that are not currently being reached are, and how we should most effectively target and engage them in the future.”
Alan Wells, Senior Vice-President of External Communications at Wells Fargo, said:
“ Being customer-centric is absolutely key to the Wells Fargo business and communications models”
This view, that customer-centricity remained a critical issue for senior marketing and communications executives, was echoed throughout our discussions with senior executives in the space.
Importantly, the marketing and communications community do not feel that the journey is over. There is significantly more to do for a company to become truly customer-centric.
While a significant 76% of marketing and communications executives were confident enough to describe their company as ‘customer-centric’, an enormous 93% of them also agreed with the statement “My business needs to be more closely aligned to our customer in the coming year”:
The recognition by companies of the enduring importance of customer-centricity, their prioritization as one of their key issues for 2013, and their recognition that there is a long way on the journey to true customer-centricity, is not in doubt.
As Claire Burns said,
“The whole world is moving in this direction, recognizing we’re in the age of the consumer. Consumers are more powerful, have more access to information and technology, and there’s a whole lot more transparency. To be successful, we know we have to behave differently with consumers, and deliver solutions that address their problems and needs – rather than trying to push products that may or may not be relevant, as we have done in the past.”
That concludes this second extract from the forthcoming Incite Briefing. To sign up for an advance copy of the full document, head here.