How To Become a More Customer Centric B2B Organization

In a dream world, you would retain every customer that interacts with your business. But that’s not always the case; a typical American company will lose 15 percent of its customers each year.

If clients’ first experience of your agency is chaotic and unorganized, they are far less likely to trust you further downstream. Make sure your organization has an excellent onboarding strategy implemented. For smaller agencies, it’s not uncommon to burn through an entire client list in one year.

Many agencies recognize the importance of focusing on the customer’s experience. To drive results and growth for their clients, being customer-centric is good for business. Unfortunately, most companies do not apply that same focus to their own acquisition strategy. According to Forrester, only 23 percent of B2B companies have embraced a customer-centric approach to their organizational structures. When striving to become a more customer-centric company, consider the following strategies to ensure success.

Define The Purpose

Building a customer-centricity culture requires a clear vision and set of values to create a shared foundation. Employees need to understand their role in this initiative. The message should be distributed clearly and consistently.

Throughout the transformation, reiterate the vision in multiple ways and make it part of the company’s DNA. Every person must know their role in the vision to understand how it can be achieved.

Invest In Your Employees

Most agencies, especially ones in performance advertising, focus on a KPI or promised outcome. This may be a dramatic shift for your organization, and training may be needed to ensure the initiative’s success. Skills that support customer centricity include teamwork and collaboration, process improvement, innovation, proactivity, creativity, and communication. Each employee will represent the company and must understand how vital their role is to the overall goal. This change in mindset and behavior will require new skills. Implement tools to make sure individuals have the resources needed to influence a positive customer experience.

Communicate Clearly and Often

Any new initiative in an organization requires clear and frequent communication for it to take hold and for new habits to form. The employees who have direct contact with the clients will understand what they are looking for and their current pain points. The information that these employees receive is very valuable to being customer-centric, and the management staff needs to remember that. Set up easily accessible mechanisms, such as monthly surveys and space for sharing customer stories, for employees to provide feedback and contribute ideas. This will also help empower them to continue contributing in a way that supports a customer-centric culture.

Track and Report Progress

The client wants to know that their marketing is paying off and working. You may provide this information to them in weekly or monthly reports. During a culture shift, it’s essential to track their initiative’s progress. This might include fewer product returns, more referrals, a higher Net Promoter Score, fewer complaints, less churn, more renewals, or other metrics. Celebrate successes to motivate employees to continue the activities and behaviors that support customer-centricity.

Conclusion

In a highly competitive industry, it’s essential to give your organization a competitive edge. Clients will remember the positive experience they had with your agency, which will help retain current customers and establish credibility in the industry. By setting a clear vision, providing training, and tracking the goal’s success, it is possible for your business to become customer-centric.

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