Customer Centricity! What customer centricity? According to research conducted by ICMI, only 33% of support centers they contacted, conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys. Yet when the CEOs of those companies were asked how they felt about customer satisfaction, they indicated it was of primary importance in winning and keeping customers. Do we have a disconnect? It appears so!
Customer centricity in a corporation is defined as organizing the company focused on understanding of the customer base. One of the primary steps is the creation of a customer service department. The customer service manager must lead the charge to understanding what customers like, dislike and want. It is however more than a responsibility. It is an opportunity!
By making the support center totally customer centric, i.e. to know everything there is to know about what customers want and don’t want, the customer service organization becomes a primary source of knowledge about the customer base and what new opportunities it may hold. It moves the support center from an order desk or after sales necessity to front and center of the company.
Conducting customer satisfaction research is one of the “best practice” standards that separate customer centric support centers from the rest.
In this time of economic stress, can any support center afford not to be absolutely necessary and a critical part of the business?