Put the customer at the heart of your priorities with the customer-centric approach and our 5 practical tips

The value of a product is no longer enough. Even the most comprehensive, most powerful or most innovative product does not hold the attention of customers. Without a seamless experience, an appropriate response and follow-up, customer loyalty is eroded. This observation is prompting more and more companies to adopt a customer-centric approach. Let's take a look at this cultural change, which is overturning the reflexes inherited from the product-centric culture!

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What is customer centricity?

The customer centric approach is a corporate philosophy that overturns the reflexes inherited from the product centric culture. A customer-centric organisation does not wait for its customers to adapt to its processes. It reinvents its sales practices and communication so that every interaction meets the needs expressed.

💡 For example, if you're used to launching a new mobile application by presenting its advanced features and innovative interface, the customer centric approach leads you to do so by talking about the difficulties encountered by your users. Instead of highlighting the technology, you explain how this solution simplifies repetitive tasks and improves the buying experience.

This strategy puts the consumer at the centre of all decisions. Every function in the company (marketing, customer relations, development) directs its actions according to this logic. The idea is to establish a link that improves customer satisfaction.

Customer centricity is transforming the way employees work together. Customer data guides :

• investment choices
• commercial orientations
• the development of our offering.

This corporate culture based on active listening is redefining organisational DNA and revolutionising traditional management methods.

Why adopt a customer-centric approach?

Putting the customer at the heart of your business strategy is advantageous in many ways. Here are 4 benefits you can derive from this approach.

Increase profitability through better customer knowledge

According to WiseNotify, citing a Deloitte study, customer-centric businesses are 60% more profitable than non-customer-centric businesses. This figure reveals the direct impact of a customer-centric culture on economic performance.

Knowing your customers better enables you to target investments, adjust offers and prioritise high-value actions. This reduces acquisition costs, limits unnecessary campaigns and improves conversion rates.

By building customer loyalty, companies can streamline their sales processes and focus their efforts on high-potential segments.

Meeting expectations to guarantee customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction can be guaranteed through a clear customer journey, fluid service and useful interactions. A customer-centric company does not leave the customer experience to chance. It gathers feedback and adjusts its actions based on the friction points it detects.

The marketing department refines its messages, customer service reduces frustration and the product evolves with usage. This precision creates an immediate feeling of recognition, a powerful driver of customer satisfaction.

Creating a lasting relationship that builds loyalty

A customer-focused organisation develops an ongoing relationship with its customers. It does not address anonymous segments, but users whose buying behaviour it knows. This personalised relationship is based on specific data such as order history, frequency of contact and preferred channels.

Marketing actions become more relevant, because they respond to specific needs. Customer service uses feedback from previous customers to provide contextualised responses. This strengthened relationship logic increases the retention rate, reduces churn and turns satisfied customers into ambassadors for your brand.

Stand out in a saturated market

In a market where products look the same and prices converge, the customer experience makes all the difference. A company that prioritises customer relations will stand out by :

• the clarity of its interactions
• the relevance of its responses
• the responsiveness of its service.

It doesn't promise an experience, it proves it every day.

This customer-focused culture concerns all functions. In-store teams, online advisers and product managers all share the same concern: to meet customer expectations in a fluid, personalised way.

5 tips for becoming customer centric

Moving from a product-oriented organisation to a customer-centric culture requires much more than a change of rhetoric. You need to adjust your practices to achieve it. Here are five lines of action to make this transformation a success.

1- Redefine your business strategy

To adopt a customer-centric approach, your organisation needs to rethink its foundations. This transformation begins by redefining your vision and values , placing the customer experience at the centre of every decision. Every employee must understand how their actions influence customer satisfaction.

This customer-centric approach requires you to change your internal processes and working methods. The aim is to align all your departments (marketing, sales, development) around a common customer-focused culture.

💡 You may, for example, decide to question a strategy based on winning market share in favour of growth based on customer loyalty.

2- Understand your customers' needs

Accurately identifying your customers' expectations is the foundation of any customer-centric approach. This in-depth understanding involves setting up a Voice of Customer (VoC) programme that collects feedback and analyses your customers' buying behaviour.

Your company needs to invest in research to understand frustrations, preferences and emerging trends. To do this, it needs to carry out :

• satisfaction surveys ;

• individual interviews ;

• field observations ;

• behavioural analyses ;

• unsolicited feedback.

👉 This approach enables you to anticipate your customers' future needs and adapt your products accordingly.

3- Train your teams

Shifting your corporate culture towards a customer-centricity culture means making a real investment in training your teams. Every member of staff, whatever their department, needs to develop skills such as empathy, good communication skills, the ability to solve problems and a global vision of the customer journey.

This dynamic of continuous training fuels the teams' commitment to customer satisfaction. Regular sessions help to anchor the right reflexes in daily life. Little by little, your staff will become true ambassadors of this approach, capable of creating strong interactions and actively contributing to a truly differentiating customer experience.

4- Invest in your customer service

Your customer service is often the first point of direct contact with your customers. This investment takes the form of hiring qualified agents and implementing high-performance customer relationship management tools.

This customer-centric approach turns your support into a profit centre rather than a cost centre. An efficient customer service encourages spontaneous recommendations. It has to be contactable!

Omnichannel offers your customers the flexibility to choose their preferred means of communication, thereby boosting their overall satisfaction.

5- Involve your customers in development

By involving your customers from the earliest stages of development, you design products that meet precise expectations, based on real uses.

Companies like Decathlon and AirBnB have understood this. They regularly organise co-creation workshops with their user communities to gather ideas, frustrations and avenues for improvement.

Based on early user testing and qualitative surveys :

• your product and marketing teams focus on clear signals,
• shorten development cycles,
• avoid unnecessary launches,
• focus on developments that are genuinely expected.

Better still, this dynamic strengthens loyalty. Your customers feel listened to and valued. Their attachment to your brand becomes emotional, almost communal.

The tools you need to deploy your customer-centric approach

Companies that want to put the customer at the heart of their decisions first use quantitative and qualitative research to analyse buying behaviour. These initiatives reveal real needs without skewing the information by internal assumptions.

👉 By cross-referencing several sources, you can identify the expectations specific to each segment, the critical moments in the customer journey and the friction points that need to be eliminated. This data becomes the basis for a targeted and effective marketing strategy;

The customer journey mapping tools then enable you to tailor the customer experience across all channels, taking into account time, channel, content consulted and perception of the product & service. This approach transforms traditional segmentation into a dynamic customer journey, designed to facilitate decision-making at every stage;

👉 Whether on the website or at the point of sale, customer feedback provides concrete indicators for improving each interaction. Each piece of feedback feeds into a more human approach to customer management;

👉 Using CRM or relationship management software helps you to centralise this data, monitor retention rates and optimise campaigns on an ongoing basis. In the medium and long term, this customer-centric strategy produces visible effects for your brand.

How can you measure your customer-centric performance?

There are a number of KPIs that can be used to assess the impact of a customer centric strategy. We have selected the most relevant for you:

Attrition rate

This indicator calculates the proportion of customers who leave your company over a given period. A sudden rise indicates a misalignment between the experience offered and actual expectations.

To understand this figure, you need to combine it with qualitative signals such as negative feedback and unsubscribes. A low attrition rate reflects a relationship of trust, nurtured by a consistent sales strategy and targeted actions by focusing on key moments in the customer journey.

📊 Here's the formula for calculating it:

Attrition rate = ( Number of customers lost / Number of customers at start of period ) X 100

Customer lifetime value

CLV measures the revenue generated by a customer throughout their relationship with the brand. It is based on three variables:

• Frequency of purchase ;

• Average purchase amount

• Duration of loyalty.

This data helps to identify profitable segments and prioritise the most important actions to be taken. Based on this indicator, teams focus their resources where the impact is most sustainable, building a high value-added relationship.

📊 Here's the formula for calculating it:

CLV = Average basket X Purchase frequency X Customer lifetime

Net Promoter Score

The Net Promoter Score reveals your customer orientation. By measuring the propensity of your customers to recommend your company, the NPS helps you to assess your level of customer centricity.

The NPS question reveals your customers' actual experience. Responses are divided into three categories

• promoters (score of 9 or 10): your most loyal ambassadors ;

• Passive (7 or 8): satisfied, but not committed;

• detractors (0 to 6): dissatisfied, they can damage your reputation.

A good NPS score doesn't just happen. It comes from organisational alignment around the customer, where every department, every employee contributes to creating a seamless experience.

📊 Here's the formula for calculating it:

Net Promoter Score = % Promoters - % Detractors

Here is a small illustration to help you visualise the formula:

The CSAT

The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) measures customer satisfaction by asking a direct question after an interaction, such as "Are you satisfied with this experience? The response, expressed as a score or percentage, reflects the immediate impact. Tracked over time, this indicator can be used to :

• detect deterioration
• test adjustments,
• maintain a level of service in line with expectations.

Its simplicity makes it a key tool for day-to-day relationship marketing.

📊 Here's the formula for calculating it:

CSAT = ( Total number of satisfied customers / Total number of responses ) X 100

Summary of the KPIs you need to track to assess your customer-centric performance

Indicator	What it measures	Data collected	Target
Attrition rate	Loss of customers	Purchase frequency, number of unsubscribes, length of inactivity	Reduce attrition and improve customer loyalty
Customer Lifetime Value	The amount of money a customer will spend over the course of their relationship with your company	Purchase frequency, average basket per order, length of relationship	Invest in the most profitable customers
Net Promoter Score	The propensity of customers to recommend your company	Recommendation scores, open comments	Identify promoters and detractors
Customer Satisfaction Score	Customer satisfaction immediately after an interaction	Post-contact satisfaction scores	Improving the experience at every point of contact

Examples of successful customer centric companies

The most advanced companies in terms of customer centricity belong to the tech ecosystem. Their high level of digitalisation facilitates the collection of data, the continuous analysis of user behaviour and the personalisation of interactions on a large scale.

Thanks to an agile technical infrastructure, these companies can adapt their offerings, communications and customer service in real time to each profile, each usage and each moment in the customer journey.

👉 Music streaming platforms are a perfect illustration of this approach. Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer offer an intuitive user experience. Each person benefits from a musical experience shaped according to their tastes and habits. You can create personalised playlists and opt for premium versions with no advertising or interruptions. Spotify, for example, publishes a personalised summary every year, known as Wrapped. This summarises the most memorable listens of each of the Swedish platform's subscribers. It's a great incentive to share the experience on social networks!

👉 This customer-centric culture is gradually spreading to other sectors. In the hotel industry, establishments are using stated preferences to adapt the welcome, comfort and services on offer.

👉 Retail chains such as Décathlon are offering personalised loyalty programmes, targeted communications and smooth shopping paths.

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Adopting a customer-centric strategy: a winning choice for the future

The customer-centric approach overturns traditional models by placing the customer experience at the centre of decision-making. This cultural transformation generates benefits in terms of profitability and customer loyalty. It is also a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies are adopting it more and more to meet the expectations of an increasingly demanding public.

And you, when do you plan to take the step towards a truly customer-centric approach?