74% of companies consider focusing back onto their customer as their main current, strategic goal according to a poll performed by The Hackett Group in 2018!
Winning with your customer – true customer centricity – is key for any successful business. We all know that!
Though and quite surprisingly, we also seem to require relearning on how to build these winning customer relationships. Social media, new technologies and a new generation of consumers has changed the business landscape rapidly.
The good news is YOU are already a very good relationship builder! You have what it takes, I am totally convinced of that – believe it or not!
In about just any relationship that we maintain and foster in our lives, we deal with a customer in the end. A customer that wants to have their needs and expectations met. For example, the relationship that you have with your partner, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, your children all rely on a certain set of your behaviors and attributes to make it work. The process of achieving a win-win relationship in private is exactly the same as it in business, for your career, the organization you work for, and the end consumer of your products and services. You just need to apply them!
Any customer-centric business strategy relies on your ability to build win-win relationships. Apply what you do day-in-day-out. Here is a reminder what you have done just this morning when you left the house. A reminder of the behaviors and attributes that make the difference and truly build customer centricity:
“I CARE”, “I COMPETE”, “I RESPOND”, “I IMPROVE”, “I WIN”.
Yes, it is indeed only these five that actually matter in any successful relationship.
“I CARE”, “I COMPETE”, “I RESPOND”, “I IMPROVE”, cover all the actions that you need to undertake to meet all of your customer’s expectations. It does not matter if it is your CFO, CEO, CMO, manger, shareholder, your partner back home or end consumer, every one of your customers want you to care, to compete, to respond and to improve. What lies behind those statements might change depending on the situation but generally it is the following what forms these behaviours:
I CARE: It is tremendously important for you to fully understand your customer to be able to focus your efforts and energy accordingly. You need to care about their fears, desires, wishes, constraints, hopes, resources, habits, etc. You need to talk your customer’s language, be present, be visible and stay abreast with changes in their needs and requirements. Adapt, listen, feel, experience, sense, observe, question, challenge, relate and be empathetic to be able to fully understand what is important to them. This behaviour demands time and significant investment from your side. Emerge yourself into your customer’s way of thinking, their life situation and environment. Go out and spend time with you customer! Only if you genuinely care, you will be able to understand the actual needs and requirements that they are after.
I COMPETE: Every customer expects from you that you are eager to always perform at your best, that you are aware of your peers, and yourself. You should know your strengths and weakness and you are willing to be compared to others. Feedback is a gift! Assume it, learn from people, competitors and teams around you. Always thrive in whatever you intend to do for your customer. It is this mindset of
always trying, always competing, and always aspiring to get better that your customers expect and appreciate. Nobody likes complacency, so go out and compete!
I IMPROVE relays the mindset that the status quo is never acceptable. You always want to improve and refine the work you do to get even better. This is your promise to your customer. They want to be sure that you always try – not because they have requested it but because it is in your DNA. You want to avoid to be seen as routine because innovation, new ways of thinking and improvements is what your customer expects from you. Continuous learning and building of your skills is very important here. Think out of the box. What you have done today might not be good enough for tomorrow!
I RESPOND covers how you interact with your customer. Your customer’s timeline is your timeline, and it might not fall into a 9-5 framework. You are available when the customer requests it and do not confine yourself to office hours. You are quick, fast, pro-active and you communicate in the way your customer wants to be communicated with.
These are the four areas that you need to focus on. These areas form true customer centricity.
You want to win.
Now, the last element is equally important but addresses your needs and expectations. The needs and wants of you as an individual, function, department or company. Any relationship can only be complete if both sides win, if both sides are successful. The expectations of your customers need to be met, but so should be yours. You want to WIN and this marks the fifth attribute of a winning customer focused mindset.
I WIN stands for the goals that you have set for yourself. It is important that you are fully aware of what you actually want to achieve: What does success look like for me? What is my purpose? What does winning mean for me? What do I want to get out of this relationship? It forces you to articulate and hence to explain very explicitly and transparently to yourself and to the other party what your goals are. As an organization it forces you to articulate your strategic vision. And foremostly, it forces you to form a strategic vision in the first place! A healthy long lasting winning relationship requires both sides to achieve their goals.
In the above 4 steps you analysed your customer and you know what you should deliver. Now it is equally important for you to seek alignment with your customer if they can deliver in the relationship what you want. As a company, winning would mean growth in sales and market share for instance. The alignment process with the customer here is more abstract obviously. But think of your relationship with your manager. What do you want to achieve in your career? What do you expect to get in return for always caring, competing, improving and responding? Articulate it! Align it! Win!
The FIVIS mindset
These five behaviors and attributes form the complete customer centric mindset. We call it the FIVIS mindset: the FIVE statements that start with the “I”. It is a dynamic approach and requires you to continuously revise all five areas to make sure all parties involved remain winning in the relationship.
This framework is all it takes. It is simple and straightforward. It is of such importance when you draft your company strategy as a leadership team as it is of every single employee in your organization and even beyond in the interaction with your external business partners. Only if all live up to a customer centric approach and hence to the FIVIS mindset will you be able to truly win with your end customer.
Give it a try! Your first opportunity could be with your manager, team or employees when you come into the office this morning!
Winning can be so simple – winning is simply FIVIS.
Written by Jens Hentschel, Founder & CEO of THE FIVIS PARTNERSHIP. The Consultancy That Gets You Your Oomph Back. Find out more at www.fivis.io.
