11 things you can do to be more customer centric

It’s not uncommon to see brands claiming to be customer centric, but what does that really mean? Sure, it sounds and looks nice on paper, but most of the time it’s just something organizations say without investing time to consider the customer all the time, not just when it’s convenient.

Because what many brands forget is that customer centricity doesn’t end at your insights or marketing department — it should also be ingrained across your whole company in your metrics, culture, and more.

Lauren Stafford Webb, CMO, and Jean-Michel Hoffman, Sr. Director of Brand Marketing, at SoFi recently spoke at this year’s Virtual Insight Summit about the power a brand who places their customer at the forefront can hold and what it actually looks like.

If you’re serious about creating a customer centric environment within your organization, read on to learn 11 things you should consider doing that will put your customers first (and also set you up for success).

That’s right, everything. To truly be customer centric and have a full understanding of their needs, wants, desires and pain points, you have to make sure you keep their perspective at the core of your decisions.

This means when you’re thinking up new innovations, advertisements, community events and more, they have to come first. After all, what you’re creating should ultimately be for them.

Expanding on the first tip, you also need to align your metrics to better understand your consumer.

There’s so many metrics and measurements for success you could look at, but the ones you really need to pay attention to are the ones that let you know what consumers really think of you.

This can be through net promoter survey (NPS) scores that give you an indication of whether they’d recommend your brand to a friend or colleague, or even CEO emails to obtain direct feedback.

Another tip to make sure your messaging is reaching your consumer the way you intend is to pay attention to unaided awareness. This metric tells you if your brand is a consumer’s top choice versus a brand they slightly recognize. (And it’s one of Lauren’s go-to metrics for understanding the impact of her marketing team!)

When Lauren said there’s nothing like “building a unique brand that opens minds and melts hearts — a brand that people can truly love,” we couldn’t have agreed more.

There’s something to say about those brands that make you feel something. As a consumer, it makes us believe we are seen and understood, which isn’t always easy to do.So get to the heart of what resonates with them. Take the time to not only understand the wants and needs of your audience, but also what their personalities and feelings may be.

If you achieve that, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an indispensable brand.

Be consistent in showing up where your audience is. Can you think of a better way to show your consumer you understand them than by being present in the most relevant areas of their lives?

- Lauren Stafford-Webb

No matter what ☝️

Let your consumer know that you understand them by being present in pertinent places in their lives. This means shadowing their journey with your portfolio and covering their needs (and the job they need to get done).

Get comfortable with experimentation! You don’t only have to start projects you think are a guaranteed success.

There’s a great deal of value in learning, iterating, and innovating. Sure, experimentation could end in failure, but what really matters is whether you’ve done the work to learn the truth from the data and are using these learnings to continue to get better.

There’s power in taking a position of ownership over your brand and what it stands for.

That’s why it’s so important to be intentional about every decision as you build your brand (or undergo a rebrand). Look at it as both an asset and a reputation you’re growing over time.

You should also be accountable for the actions taken by your brand creatively — never do anything ‘creative’ simply for creativity’s sake. Always remember to bring it back to the brand values you’re creating and make sure they’re aligned.

If you stay true to what the brand stands for, your audience will certainly take notice and fuel their connection to you.

Another standout takeaway from Lauren was when she discussed how the brand work should always halo the product work, and the product work should halo the brand. It would serve you well to ensure they are always aligned to solidify your brand as one that people know, love and trust.

If the brand messaging doesn’t fit into what the product or service is meant to deliver, or vice versa, you’ll have a major disconnect on your hands. To build a trustworthy brand that speaks to your consumer, the two have to go hand in hand.

Ultimately as a brand, you should make sure you know what you want to say and who you want to say it to (and then be relentlessly focused on saying just that).

Think of it as a promise you’re making to the consumer. The messaging that makes up your brand promise needs to be one that you can be true to and deliver upon — it should never be a hollow statement. If you aren’t clear or honest about who you are as a company, how could your audience possibly connect with you?

Share the love! Empower everyone in the company to be responsible for insights and conduct research on their own.

Everyone can offer up unique perspectives, or perhaps even see something in the data you may have missed. You could even consider building playbooks for different functions within the organization to make this process easier and help them run research that’s meaningful for their functions.

In the end, it all goes back to the process of learning, iterating and innovating. So ask other team members to look at the performance of a recent project and see what they get from the results.

Chances are, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you hear.

Democratize insights so anyone can be empowered to do research.

- Jean-Michel Hoffman

Have you invested time to create a community for your customers? (Hopefully, the answer is ‘yes, of course!’)

Having a space that provides a community exclusive to them will allow you to scale relationships and give them room to talk about the key topics they find relevant. If you do it right, it also allows them to feel as though they are part of something bigger by choosing your brand.

Right now, a lot of that may still be in a virtual setting, but you can still moderate, observe and prompt questions in the community space to drive conversations and connections (while also looking for betas, ambassadors and advisors).

And hopefully, we’ll all get to a place where setting up dinners and events to connect in person can resume.

Finally, look at how you connect internally. Does your company culture mirror what you preach?

Take the time to evaluate and build a culture that is recognizable to anyone inside and outside the company. This means eating, breathing, and living your values — so make sure they’re true to who you are as an organization.

And if you don’t have a solid culture in place, create one!

These are just a handful of suggestions to consider to create a more customer centric culture within your organization. If you liked what Lauren and Jean-Michel had to say about what this could look like, when kicking off your own discussions, remember:

• Brand can hold a lot of power

• Being customer centric is a huge strength

• Just one perspective can make a difference

• Community matters inside and outside the organization

• You have to be true to the values you land on

If you missed Lauren and Jean-Michel’s session at this year’s Virtual Insight Summit, and want to hear more, check out the recording below!