Have you ever wondered why some businesses are simply better at establishing a devoted customer base? The truth is that they have a customer obsession focus, which means that they are highly proficient at putting the demands of their target audience and buyer personas ahead of the company’s motives. As a result, the customer experience far exceeds most buyer expectations, increasing the likelihood that they will purchase anything or return in the future. Companys like Amazon and Disney are examples of businesses that focus on customer obsession. Our article has broken it down to offer you crucial insights on why this quality is so important and how your business can do the same.
Here’s what you should know.
What is Customer Obsession?
Customer obsession is the intense focus on improving the customer experience from the customer’s point of view. Customer obsession refers to a dedication to putting the customer first.
That is to say:
- Everything you do revolves around the needs of your customers.
- Everything about the customer experience, from sales to marketing to support, revolves around these requirements.
Customer Obsession Characteristics
#1. Empathy
Understand your customers and try to see things through their eyes.
#2. Respect
According to our CX Trends research, nice support reps and speedy service are the top factors to customer happiness. Both are strong indicators that a corporation values its customers.
#3. Simplicity
Put in the effort to create seamless experiences.
#4. Communication
Open and honest communication can go a long way toward influencing a customer’s view of how a particular conversation went. If two customers are forced to wait, but only one receives regular updates, you can probably guess who will return.
#5. Customer-focus
True customer obsession extends beyond the customer service department. All departments must increase their customer attention by realizing that they are all part of the process of creating a positive customer experience. Take, for example, customer-centric marketing.
What Effect Does Customer Obsession Have on Your Business?
A customer obsession can help your firm in a variety of ways.
First and foremost, this type of focus is visible in every action your company performs.
Every step, from how to manage customer complaints to the minor touches that create joy, must be centred on how your buyer will perceive it.
Second, it can foster an environment in which your staff is continually pushing to do more and better for your clients.
This is critical since it implies you’ll always be on the path to betterment.
Finally, a customer obsession focus frequently results in a higher volume of recurring consumers.
A consumer is significantly more likely to return for a second, third, or even hundredth time if they know they will receive a high-quality product and excellent customer service.
Examples of Businesses Focused on Customer Obsession
While the examples above undoubtedly portray a picture of customer obsession, replicating them on a constant basis would be challenging for any firm of any size. However, any company, regardless of size, location, or industry, can be customer-oriented.
#1. Disney actually walks the walk.
Many examples exist of Disney going above and beyond to provide world-class customer experiences. It’s evident in everything they do, from treating all visitors to their parks as VIPs (Very Individual Persons) to masterfully educating their employees.
But, before any of that could happen, Disney’s leadership had to make the critical decision (though they probably didn’t say it that way) to become a customer-obsessed organization.
The decision was made directly by Walt Disney himself. One anecdote, as told in our audio episode How Disney Reimagined the Cruise Experience:
“Another interesting element is that he (Walt Disney) wanted to maintain his park clean. So he recruited someone to stand there and count the number of steps a person would take before tossing their trash on the ground and not getting to a trash can, to put it mildly. The answer was 30 feet. So, at any Disney park, there’s a garbage can every 30 feet.”
Arnold Tijerina, marketing consultant and alumnus of the Disney Institute
Lesson: Put yourself in your consumers’ shoes for a mile (or at least 30 feet) to figure out what has to be addressed.
#2. Franklin Synergy Bank treats its customers as if they are trusted partners.
Nate Brown, the cofounder of CX Accelerator and owner of the well-named Twitter handle @customerfirst, informed us about a fantastic encounter he had with a financial institution: Franklin Synergy Bank is yet another fantastic example of customer experience innovation in an industry that sorely needs it.
” My sister and my friend Becky had both had bad experiences obtaining finance, so we were both really anxious. Since the beginning, the Franklin team has been outstanding. They were extremely patient and trustworthy with us as we worked through the initial steps. They’ve connected with us via informative videos, courtesy calls, and an online portal as we’ve progressed through the process. We never wondered where we were in the process or if this life-changing transaction was in excellent hands. “Talk about establishing trust and producing brand ambassadors!”
Nate Brown, the cofounder of CX Accelerator
Lesson: Respect, regular contact, and using the tools at your disposal to help educate your clients (videos, support calls, portals) can go a long way.
3. Birchbox delves deeply into customer data
Birchbox is a subscription business that provides cosmetics samples and other beauty products to its clients, both men, and women. Leanna and her team accomplish this by focusing on customer experience KPIs. They keep track of both the customer experience and the performance of the agents:
- Is the volume of support requests increasing, resulting in a backlog of tickets?
- Are individual agents getting better over time?
- Are customers satisfied with the things they receive?
There is no way to answer these questions without access to data, and Birchbox is able to collect, analyze, and act on that data with the correct tools.
Customer obsession necessitates a data obsession. You’ve undoubtedly heard it a million times before, but it bears repeating: you can’t improve unless you measure.
#4. Amazon demonstrates that customer obsession begins at the top.
Jeff Bezos attributes much of Amazon’s success to the company’s four core ideals. The first ideal of Amazon is customer obsession.
Customer obsession isn’t something that customer service or any single team must gain on behalf of the entire firm. Every department must be customer-focused. And the ripple effect begins at the top and works its way down.
Lesson: To create a customer-obsessed culture, leadership must prioritize the needs and expectations of customers throughout the organization.
How to Implement Customer Obsession in Your Business
It is simple to incorporate a customer obsession into your organization, but it does require a strong approach.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
#1. Ensure that your team understands the significance of customer focus.
When it comes to providing a great customer experience, one poor apple may sour the entire batch.
It is critical to emphasize that your company is customer-focused from the first day a new employee is hired.
Reiterate the company’s messaging and work to keep your entire staff aligned with your organizational focus.
#2. When developing campaigns and policies, keep the customer in mind.
If the goal is to gratify the customer, it is critical to consider their needs when developing marketing campaigns and operational regulations.
Finally, the entire vision of your brand should be getting to a point where your ideal consumer can have that good experience — not how much sales or growth you’ll see.
#3. Look for ways to anticipate needs.
In many circumstances, your clients won’t be able to tell you right away what they need to see in order to consider a business experience positive.
However, if you can automatically anticipate their demands before they recognize what they are, you will automatically provide them with the service they require.
Checklist for Ecommerce Customer Obsession
Use this checklist to guarantee that your eCommerce company obsesses about its clients in all the correct ways.
#1. Analyze Customer Data
Because they have quick access to the data of every single customer and transaction, eCommerce businesses have a huge edge in understanding their customers. Before devoting time and effort to developing a comprehensive customer feedback loop, examine the customer data you already have. Then. discover who is purchasing what and why. AI firms, such as our partners Dynamic Yield, can help you take your data analytics to the next level. Dynamic Yield was able to raise click-through rate (CTR) by 300 percent at Linio, the largest eCommerce platform in Latin America, by finding the best customer segments to target based on their size and purchasing power and then designing tailored homepages.
#2. Protect your customers’ data as though it were your own.
According to a recent study on privacy and personalization, 86% of respondents were concerned about the privacy of their data. According to the Baymard Institute’s 2017 Checkout Optimization Research Report, roughly one in every five shoppers abandons at least one checkout experience per quarter due to concerns that the site will not protect their payment information. Ascertain that your payment system is secure and fraud-free. Also, to increase customer trust, show well-known security brands such as Norton on your site and provide explanations next to each entry field in the checkout process for why you’re seeking personal information.
#3. Allow for User-Generated Content
According to BrightLocal’s 2018 Local Consumer Survey, 85 percent of customers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. Reviews help customers develop trust and provide essential information that they may use to make the best purchasing decisions. Even unfavorable evaluations can assist customers to trust that the reviews are genuine. They often only deter 40% of clients from doing business with a company. Aside from reviews, eCommerce sites might benefit from other self-service options such as community forums and knowledge bases.
#4. Personalize the Customer Experience
Only 72 percent of people stated they would respond to tailored marketing messages. In this day and age, eCommerce businesses have a plethora of personalization tools at their disposal, and one of the most difficult issues is deciding which ones to utilize. We advocate focusing on one important personalization aspect at a time in a recent Guidance article on personalization to test its usefulness with the greatest accuracy. City Chic, a Nosto and Guidance client, successfully developed a personalization platform that learns each user’s preferences through clicks and time spent on each product and then presents them as the user navigates the site. Customers have expressed their delight at being presented with products that are a good fit for their size and fashion sense.
#5. Create a site for a kindergartener.
Maintain as much simplicity as feasible. According to Forrester’s 2018 Retail Best Practices: Mobile and Web, 73 percent of buyers leave a badly designed mobile site in favor of a higher-quality mobile site that makes purchasing easier. According to the Baymard Institute, a lengthy checkout process accounted for 28% of online cart abandonment. Guidance was able to simplify the Hearst brands by uniting them in a single platform with unified account management and single sign-on (SSO) on the Magento 2.3 Commerce Cloud as a Magento website development partner. The new Hearst platform features worldwide navigation as well as a universal cart and checkout solution capable of upselling and cross-selling for higher AOV (AOV).
#6. Be Open and Honest with Your Customers
Treat your consumers as if they were trusted friends. Do not conceal additional fees, and only publish content that is accurate and truthful. According to the Label Institute’s 2018 Transparency Study, 73 percent of customers rated transparency as more important than price. According to the Baymard Institute, roughly one-fourth of buyers abandon carts when they are unable to view or compute the complete cost upfront.
#7. Provide Outstanding Customer Service
Invest in customer service: it will be worthwhile. Customer retention can be five to twenty-five times less expensive than acquiring a new one. On a typical day, Zappos responded to calls in 25 seconds, chats in 31 seconds, and emails in 4 hours and 15 minutes. Calls accounted for more than 70% of all customer interactions. The telephone, according to founder Tony Hsieh, is the differentiator of Zappos’ customer experience. More impressive than any of these numbers is Zappos’ customer service culture: they gather this data every day in their “Daily Breakdown Report,” prioritize the quality of customer interactions over the cost and utilize these measures to track their overall success.
#8. Request Customer Feedback
Close the customer feedback loop by surveying customers after they purchase a product or service from your eCommerce store. At Allianz, the customer is automatically issued a brief survey following each transaction, and the survey findings are promptly sent to the person who facilitated the transaction and placed on local intranet dashboards for everyone to examine. Following that, frontline personnel phone a random sample of survey respondents to listen to their concerns and either correct or escalate them. Allianz saw a double-digit improvement in its Net Promoter Score (NPS) and policy renewal rates soon after deploying this customer feedback system.
#9. Get Ready for New Customer Technologies
Keep up to date on how technology and customer behaviour are evolving. Local searches lead 50 percent of mobile users to visit establishments within one day, according to the 2018 Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics. Voice search, which has the potential to revolutionize e-commerce, is more likely to be regional. According to Code Computer Love, 7% of touchless interface users have used them to make an online purchase, and that figure is projected to rise as technology advances. Optimize your SEO for local search, and keep up with voice and other new technologies.
Conclusion
When it comes to serving the demands of their customers, businesses today face more competition than ever before.
A customer obsession focus, on the other hand, is a certain approach to establish brand loyalty and encourage buyers to return again and again.
You should be able to build a similar posture for your organization by following the ideas described in this article.
Best of all, this type of emphasis is an excellent approach to boost your brand’s general reputation and establish yourself as a trusted expert in your sector.
And what’s not to love about any of that for a business?
Customer Obsession FAQs
What is being customer obsessed?
Customer-obsessed organizations are those that are obsessed with creating value to the customer experience. These companies solicit input on a regular basis and prioritize client needs in all business objectives. They are more concerned with keeping and pleasing current consumers than with acquiring new ones.
Why is customer obsession important?
A customer obsession focus frequently results in a higher volume of recurring consumers. When a customer knows they will receive a high-quality product and excellent customer service, they are considerably more inclined to return for a second, third, or even hundredth time.
How do you show customer obsession?
The following are ways you can show customer obsession:
- Providing assistance to the customer when necessary.
- Attempt to comprehend the customer.
- Consider the future and go above and beyond the expectations of your customers.
- Put yourself in the shoes of the customer.
- Look for flaws in your goods.
- Look for statistics to better understand consumer happiness and loyalty.
