A Key to Incredible Customer Experiences: Unique Strategies Adopted by Customer Obsessed Companies.

If the 1900s to 1960s was considered to be the age of manufacturing and 1990s to 2000s was called the age of information, we have seen the prime focus of the business being on manufacturing and information respectively in these eras. After that the power has shifted back to people and engagement with people or customers means everything. In the last few years we have witnessed many organizations putting the customer first in everything they do. The companies who are truly customer obsessed have realized the importance of customer obsession and are seeing positive results. According to Bain and Company, a five percent increase in customer retention can increase the profits by 25 percent to 95 percent. So what do the customer obsessed companies do differently than most of the other organizations are merely doing a lip service of being customer centric. Here are some of the differentiators.

Investing in Customer Experience

In the age of the customer, the customer obsessed companies focus their energy, their strategies, and their budget on processes that enhance knowledge of and engagement with customers.

Awareness of the Customer Journey

Customer obsessed companies recognize and acknowledge that the customer journey is almost never a straight-line journey. They invest in creating a 360 degree view of the customer that maps the customer journey and use the information for better customer insights.

Use of Customer Intelligence

Customer-obsessed companies don't just take the feedback for the sake of doing it, they act upon the suggestions given and the expectations shared with them to develop the products, services and brand their customers desire.

Alignment of Brand Strategy with Customer Experience

Creating consistent positive customer/ brand interactions requires the alignment of customer experience with the brand strategy. According to a poll of Forrester's Customer Experience Council, just 18 percent of companies actually align customer experience with their brand strategy. Customer-obsessed companies walk the walk on being focused on their customers.

Use of Multiple Sources of Customer Data

Customer obsessed companies use data obtained from multiple sources to get to know and show that they know each customer. Then they use this information to predict and suggest best next actions and purchases and thus create a relationship of trust.

Focus on Retention Over Acquisition

In 2013, Forrester conducted a survey of global CMOs and it was found that 63 percent mentioned that acquiring new customers was their top priority, and just 22 percent said retaining current customers was their top goal. Customer-obsessed companies know it very well that customer retention is much more beneficial for their profits hence they don't obsess over wanting more. They appreciate and take care of what they've got as they believe that the brand advocates will drive new customer acquisition for them.

Creating Post-sale Connection with the Customer

Customer obsessed companies focus on creating a customer engagement both short and long after the sale. They communicate proactively with the customers in an authentic way which gives them a feeling of a personal connection and care.

Investing in Content Creation

Rather than pushing promotional content and advertising, which usually irritates the customers and pushes them away, customer obsessed companies develop and deliver helpful and shareable content which not only helps them in making the right buying decision, but also enhances their customer experience.

Flexibility to Customers' Needs

Aligning the processes and empowering the staff to make sure that each customer interaction is personalized and satisfying is extremely important for companies. Customer Obsessed companies realize the importance of personalization and customization and are always flexible to customer needs.

Creating a Seamless Experience

Customer obsessed companies are aware of the various standard and emerging channels their customers are using every day and create seamless service experiences and customer experiences across these channels.

Developing a Customer Obsessed Culture

Customer obsession is all about putting the interests of customers first in order to build deep relationships with them. The challenge for the organizations is to identify the specific behaviors that will cultivate the culture of customer obsession. Developing a customer obsessed culture that enables employees to win customers and keep them by delivering superior customer value is not an easy task but can be achieved if the organization is truly committed to it.

Most of the organizations focus on their own needs, and somehow this translates into focusing on the needs of the top management or the business owners. For example, people expect the elected government to keep the promises made in their election campaign and to ensure the welfare of its citizens. But unfortunately after coming to power the entire machinery focuses upon making the party in power look good. Getting the government and its machinery to actually focus on the needs of the public by putting the public first is often extraordinarily difficult.

Developing customer obsession culture, customer obsession begins with humility. Humility requires constantly listening to the customers and observing their behavior. Organizations should make the decisions based on the evidence of customer behavior and not on the basis of their own opinion or ego biases. It also means that success should be measured on the basis of the customer's success, i.e. the customer should feel that he has got a successful solution to the problem by using the product or service. In a customer success culture, organization success is dependent on, and flows from, customer success.

Agility is the next important characteristic of customer obsessed organizations. It is very difficult to understand the customers by just looking inside the organization. Customer obsessed organizations anticipate the future needs of the customers so they need to know the exact requirements of their customers and to design the products which meet the customers' requirements, they must design with the customers. This requires agility and an open and receptive mind. The customers, their needs, their choices and preferences are changing very fast and most of the organizations find it difficult to keep up the pace. For example most of the organizations are very slow in updating their own website whereas, a customer obsessed company like Amazon, updates its website in every 12 seconds. It is pretty obvious that these updates keep the customers glued to the websites and the organization they see some frequent changes happening there.

Simplicity for the customer is another important characteristic of customer obsession. If you want to be obsessed with your customers, you need to be obsessed with saving their time. Many customers are comfortable with giving up their privacy to achieve more convenience. Many of the time saving innovations of organizations like automated phone systems and outsourcing of certain services help them in saving time and money for themselves. But actually it wastes a lot of the customers' time resulting in negative customer experience.

Another mistake some organizations are making is by being too obsessed with the competitors. Obsession with competitive advantage sometimes creates a kind of myopia which disables the organization to look beyond the competition. According to an article published in Destination CRM by Lior Arussy Founder and President, Strativity Group, organizations measure the customer expectations by the industry standards they are in and miss the whole perspective. If the standards of customer expectation are very poor, it will be foolish to accept them as a benchmark. The customer who is using an American Express Card is also flying Jet Airways, eating at McDonald's, using an Uber, watching movies on Netflix and shopping on Amazon. All these experiences shape his expectations and his definition of a great experience is influenced largely by the vendors that serve him.