The best way to build a customer-centric culture

At Expr3ss! we consider our customers to be our most valuable business asset.  Do you?  If so, what are you doing to nurture your customer assets?  Provide a superior experience for your customers and they will make you their “go to” solution.  They will also become your advocate and a de facto member of your marketing team, likely to refer more customers to you.

If you haven’t been focusing on your customers, it’s time to change your point of view— and maybe your employees.

Forbes Secrets for Becoming Customer-Centric

If you take the time to build a customer-centric culture in your organisation, the benefits you reap will deliver a sensational return on your investment of time and money.  Not too long ago, Forbes Magazine explored strategies to make companies more customer-centric. Among their recommendations:

• Creating a central philosophy – The Mayo Clinic’s slogan “The needs of the patient come first” is a wonderful example.

• Establish core values – Create a list of points that detail how customers, employees, and vendors should be taught.

• Restate commitment continuously – Use staff meetings and other regularly scheduled gatherings to reinforce your dedication to your customers.

• Create visual reminders – Zappos prints a core value on every package it ships.

• Get and support the right people – After you’ve hired customer-centric employees, give them energetic support so they can continue to do the best job possible.

Once corporate culture is established, maintaining it is the next step.

‘‘Maintaining a culture is like raising a teenager.  You’re constantly checking in.  What are you doing?  Where are you going?  Who are you hanging out with?’  And, sometimes, you have to use some tough love when that teenager is acting up in ways that don’t support the culture you’re working to build.”

Ray Davis, President/CEO Umpqua Bank (consistently top-rated for its high service)

7 Traits of Customer-Centric Employees

You cannot truly be a customer-centric organisation without customer-centric employees.  How do you identify individuals with the customer-first mindset you need?  What skills are you looking for?  And most importantly, how do you evaluate those attributes?

At Expr3ss!, our predictive hiring technology makes it possible to evaluate a candidate’s hard and soft skills as they apply to being customer-centric.  Key among the skills we can look at are:

1. A willingness to take responsibility

2. The ability to listen and communicate clearly

3. Empathy

4. An even temperament and the ability to practice self-control

5. A positive attitude

6. An assertive but fair nature

7. An aptitude for conflict resolution

Would you like to improve your recruitment processes and find the star employees that will help build your customer-centric organisation? If so, contact Expr3ss! for innovative, practical ideas that you can put to work fast.