Your customer is not just a name on a receipt. Their opinions about your business can either make or break your brand image. Understanding their needs and gaining their loyalty is foundational if you are to build a customer-centric business.
Customer-centricity is a critical aspect that helps businesses build trust and retain customers. Building a customer-centric business will help you deliver a positive customer experience both before and after-sales. According to a new report, 84% of companies saw a direct correlation between their improved customer experience and increased revenue.
With the increase in competition, customers now expect more from their service providers. By adopting customer-centric strategies, field service organizations can optimize their field operations and meet—or even exceed—customer expectations. However, it is easier said than done. Adopting these strategies and getting your employees to follow them is a challenge regardless of your industry or the customers you serve.
In this article, we discuss some of the challenges in building a customer-centric service business and explore how to address them. Let’s get started!
Challenges of Building a Customer-Centric Service Business
The first step to building a customer-centric business is identifying your customers’ needs and aligning your service offerings to meet them. You also need to deliver a positive experience at every point in the customer journey.
On this journey, you will be confronted with numerous challenges ranging from unruly technicians to outdated processes. Here are a few of the challenges you may face when building a customer-centric business.
Broken business processes
Broken processes are more than just obstacles that hamper your day-to-day operations. Over time, these issues can weaken the core of your business and create unbridgeable gaps between departments, particularly in field service operations. This can lead to subpar customer service and leave customers dissatisfied.
A broken process will not only result in unhappy customers, but if the customer decides to complain online or within their community, then your business’ reputation could suffer. Siloed processes prevent you from responding to customer requests promptly, resulting in a long time to resolve service tickets and a delayed operational cycle.
Inefficient workflow
Inefficient workflows are one of the biggest threats that an organization faces. Having an inefficient workflow may not be your fault, but it certainly hinders productivity and agility. It’s also important to realize that an inefficient workflow can be one reason for dissatisfied customers.
Imagine having to carry out each task manually; they may not only be tedious for your employees but also waste time and money, which will eventually impact your customer and force them to switch to a cheaper alternative.
Outdated strategy
Technological advancements have altered the way in which today’s businesses operate by reshaping the environment, practices, and policies of various industries. The inability to capitalize on these opportunities can have a negative impact on an organization’s bottom line.
With new technologies introduced every day, customers will expect a hassle-free service experience, and you need to perform at a level that will satisfy the customer’s needs.
Businesses with outdated practices are constraining themselves unnecessarily rather than doing what’s best for the business. This failure to adapt is limiting the organization’s performance, resulting in an inefficient business that risks leaving its customers unhappy and dissatisfied.
Rigid rules and regulations
Rules and regulations play a vital role in holding an organization together—they help businesses keep their operation running smoothly. But organizations with rigid rules create an inflexible environment, restricting the ability to implement changes in the organization.
Rigidity creates an environment where employees do not feel valued or heard, both of which can stifle creativity and innovation.
Regulations play an integral role in shaping how customer strategies are adopted and implemented. Without the flexibility to experiment or innovate, your business can find itself stuck in a rut, creating the potential for stagnation.
Unhappy employees
According to Gallup, 85% of individuals worldwide are dissatisfied with their jobs. Unhappy workers are detrimental to your company since they often lack motivation and possess a negative attitude. These symptoms can spread across departments and affect the overall performance of your business.
Your employees are the driving factor for a positive customer experience. When your employees aren’t happy, their interaction with customers will also suffer. In businesses where employees directly interact with the customer, such as field service, this becomes even more critical. Unhappy employees lead to unhappy customers.
Competitive market
In every business, competition is inevitable. Competition can directly or indirectly influence your performance, even if you’re a pioneer who is first in your field, it’s only a matter of time before a competitor appears.
A competitive marketplace decreases individual businesses’ market share and limits the demand for services. In order to remain competitive, businesses may be forced to reduce their prices, consequently reducing their overall profit margins.
As profit margins reduce, businesses are compelled to reduce costs in order to keep operating. Cost reduction can result in a lower quality of service and increased downtime—causing dissatisfaction among your customers.
Failing to understand your customers
The inability to understand your customer can make it difficult to deliver what they need when they need it. Unfortunately, it is much easier to lose customers than it is to acquire new ones. Don’t let your hard work go to waste by shooting yourself in the foot.
Understanding your customer means having a clear understanding of their needs. Failing to understand your audience will lead to consistently falling short of customer expectations and an inability to make good on the opportunities you are presented with.
How to build a customer-centric services business
Building a customer-centric service business will help you enhance customer loyalty and grow your business. However, a customer-centric business requires more than offering good customer service.
Here are a few steps to take to build a customer-centric service business.
Fixing broken processes
The sustainability and profitability of a business are dependent on the efficiency of its processes. Most organizations are using outdated processes that aren’t nearly as effective or efficient as they could be.
To improve operational efficiency, the first step is identifying which processes are broken. Identifying broken processes is necessary if you are to fix the workflow. Once these are identified, you must set clear goals to begin fixing the broken processes.
Understanding your customer’s needs and expectations
Every business can thrive only as long as they keep their customers happy. You can only do that effectively if you are able to identify and understand your customer’s needs and consistently help them.
According to a study by Deloitte, customer-centric businesses are 60% more profitable than those not focused on their customer. The good news is that when your business is customer focused, you know what your customers want, and it enables you to tailor nearly every aspect of your business to cater to their needs.
Focus on your employees’ happiness
Employee happiness is the key to the success of every organization. Businesses with a happy workforce are in a position to improve their retention rates. Fostering positive working conditions helps organizations to build healthy relationships among employees and enhance overall employee efficiency.
According to a study by the University of Warwick, a happy workplace can increase employee productivity by 12%. Businesses with higher productivity tend to outperform their competitors and deliver exceptional customer service experiences, increasing the overall satisfaction of existing customers.
Find your niche
Focusing on finding the perfect niche for your business is critical, it can either make or break your business. Identifying the perfect niche helps you to target specific audiences, even in a saturated market. Discovering a profitable niche can be a pathway to success. Focusing your efforts on a specific niche helps to differentiate your business from your competitors and allows you to excel in your sector.
Identifying a specialty also allows you to focus on your customer’s needs and adapt your approach and offerings to suit them. Having a niche allows you to build a loyal customer base over time.
Create win-win policies
Customers are a crucial part of every business. It’s no secret that happy customers are the linchpin of every successful organization. They hold the power to the prosperity or failure of your business. As such, it is necessary to adopt strategies that will benefit both you and your customers.
A win-win service strategy ensures both parties benefit from a relationship. For your business to successfully adopt a win-win strategy, you need to provide your customers with superior quality of service, timely delivery of service, and after-sales support. Your employees need to receive fair compensation, appreciation, and challenging work.
After adopting these strategies, your business will be in a position to attract even greater success.
Conclusion
Being customer-centric entails having a customer-centric mindset, paying attention to your customers, listening to your customers, and building your company with them in mind. Building a customer-centric business involves certain challenges. Overcoming these challenges and adopting a customer-centric approach helps field service organizations stand apart from the crowd and effectively meet organizational benchmarks.
A field service management platform like Zuper helps you to focus more on your customer needs by streamlining the workflow and improving employee efficiency. Learn more about how Zuper can help you serve your customers better, and schedule a free demo today.
