Customer-Centricity: What Exactly Is It?

Customer-centricity flows through the veins of the organization and into everything every employee does

Published: Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - 12:02

The terms “customer-centric” and “customer-centricity” get thrown around a lot; oftentimes, it’s quite clear that they’re being used out of turn. I believe “customer-centric” is often confused with “customer focus,” but the two are very different.

Let’s look at some definitions.

Customer focus means that a brand focuses on the customer. All brands will say they focus on the customer. They listen to the customer (surveys, surveys, surveys), but they don’t really take the time to understand their customers. There’s no real differentiation of who customers are. Everyone is treated equally: as a customer. These brands approach customers tactically and reactively. It’s short-term and transactional: What does she want? How can we be nice to her? What can we do to get her to buy from us or to come back again? Customer focus happens at the front line, person to person, face to face. Customer focus is self-serving in that it is used to achieve business goals, not customer goals.

Customer-centric is much deeper than that. In its most basic sense, it means to put the customer at the center of all the business does. (It does not mean that you will always say yes to everything the customer asks for, neither does it mean that the customer is always right.) But that really means that you take the time to understand your customers (customer understanding is the cornerstone of customer-centricity) and then don’t make any decisions without thinking of the customer and the impact that those decisions have on her.

To define a customer-centric organization, I like to say: No discussions, no decisions, no designs without bringing in the customer and her voice (that’s the understanding piece), without asking how it will impact the customer, how it will make her feel, what problems it will help her to solve, what value it will create and deliver for her. It’s strategic. It’s proactive. It’s co-creation. It’s long-term. It’s relationships. It’s omnichannel. It’s enterprisewide. And it’s a culture that is deliberately designed to be this way. Customer-centricity flows through the veins of the organization and into everything every employee does—not just if or when a customer is in front of an employee.

Here’s where the confusion arises. I have read a lot of articles that refer to a company’s customer-centric behavior, customer-centric marketing, and customer-centric processes. In the words of Inigo Montoya, I do not think this means what you think it means. As the articles carry on, it becomes especially clear that the term that should be used is customer-focused behavior. Customer-centric behavior is ingrained in the culture; customer-focused behavior is only for some people (e.g., sales, service, customer-facing employees) in the organization.

“Customer-centricity should be about delivering value for customers that will eventually create value for the company.”
—Bob Thompson

That’s how I view it. They are not two sides of the same coin. And that’s what these articles are referring to: tactical things that are being done in that moment to ensure that the customer stays, buys, or returns.

To be customer-centric requires four inputs: leadership, core values, employees, and customers. More specifically, the eight principles of customer-centricity include:
• Culture as the foundation
• Employee experience/employees more first
• People before products
• People before profits
• People before metrics
• Customer understanding as the cornerstone
• Outside-in vs. inside-out thinking and doing
• The Platinum Rule

It might at first seem nit-picking to compare and contrast these two, but I think it’s an important distinction that has to be made. Don’t just be customer-focused. Be customer-centric. Customer-centric organizations are winning organizations.

First published Feb 24, 2021, on the CX Journey blog.

About The Author

Annette Franz

Annette Franz, CCXP is founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. She’s got 25 years of experience in both helping companies understand their employees and customers and identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience – so that, together, we can design a better experience for all constituents. She's an author (she wrote the book on customer understanding!), a speaker, and a customer experience thought leader and influencer. She serves as Vice Chairwoman on the Board of Directors of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), is an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council, and is an Advisory Board member for CX@Rutgers.