Focusing on customer obsession over your bottom-line profits is an efficacious approach to growing your business much faster. Customers want a streamlined and customized experience when interacting with brands and companies in this modern era. Customer-centricity is no longer enough to stand out from the crowd and make your customer feel valued and satisfied.
Thanks to digitalization and technological advancements, your customers always move a step forward you. Brands and businesses are now implementing more advanced and customer-focused strategies to combat the customer experience challenge. Engagement is now everything for a successful business. Marketers say that only 20% of your existing customers can help you generate 80% of your future profit. It means that more power has shifted to your loyal customers.
You often observe that some businesses/brands are better at gaining a loyal customer following. The truth is they implement strategies to have a customer obsession focus. They have skilled teammates who understand the needs of their target audience and put them higher than the organization’s motivations.
This way, they develop a customer experience beyond buyers’ expectations. Having a customer obsession focus ensures that your loyal customers will come back to you or recommend your offerings to others. We have broken down all the necessary information below to help you better understand why your business needs a customer obsession focus.
What is Customer Obsession Focus-A Detailed Overview?
Customer obsession focuses on implementing strategies entirely focused on providing the possible values for potential customers. Companies having a customer obsession focus not only know who are their potential customers, what they expect from your brand, and why they are making a purchase. But they go beyond this information to give their customers a seamless experience. Customer obsession also describes seeking out new ways to meet the expectations of the ever-changing marketplace while ensuring consistency in your offerings. Customer obsession culture encourages businesses to make great efforts to understand their target audience, their day-to-day concerns, and what they expect from their products and services.
Customer obsession focus is not a new trend, as many businesses strive to achieve it. All companies tend to implement strategies to focus on customer obsession, but only a few get the desired results. Customer obsession means so much to the general public because it needs to be implemented in the right direction for better execution.
Customer obsession is critical for retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones simultaneously. Businesses need to understand the following characteristics of a customer obsession to make their strategies more impactful;
- Businesses and brands strive to improve their product and service offerings.
- Businesses leverage innovative ways to connect with customers and encourage them to come closer to their offerings.
- Businesses must have a passionate and consistent commitment from all the team members to get excellent results.
You can only get exclusive benefits from customer focus if it is well executed. This type of focus in your work ensures that every action your business offers value to your ideal customers. Customer focus can also create an environment where your team always strives hard to do more and better for your potential buyers. It guarantees that your business is always in a situation of improvement for the better.
You must consistently collect customer data and feedback. It will help you attract new potential buyers and strengthen your relationships with your existing customers. Statistics reveal that companies can increase their revenue by 4% to 8% by retaining their current customers. You can also invest in some automated tools or software to provide your customers a more consistent 24/7 customers support services, making the path easier to customer obsession.
Importance of Having a Customer Obsession Focus
Your business needs to evolve constantly to stay ahead of the trends. Staying ahead of the movements means prioritizing your customers’ needs and interests. The more you focus on improving users’ experience, the more chances you have to gain a loyal customer base.
When you provide your customers with a consistent and flawless online shopping experience, they intend to spend more money with your brand in the future, from improving conversion rates to retaining your existing customers. It’s no wonder that having a customer obsession focus can help you reach your business to a higher level.
The following benefits of customer obsession can help you understand why implementing this approach is critical for a successful business.
Mapping of Your Customers’ Journey
Most businesses fail to attract potential buyers because they don’t understand their customers’ prospects and interests. Determining the customers’ needs and prospects is crucial for any business or organization to focus on customer obsession.
A customer obsession focus enables organizations to remove funnel division and give customers a more holistic view from the start to the end of their journey. A precise mapping means your organization clearly and accurately understands the customers’ prospects. It is an excellent practice to give your customers a flawless site experience and increase buyer engagement with more confidence.
Better Understanding of your Ideal Buyers
Sales and marketing are two different departments having different prospects for customers’ journeys. For example, the sales team has more personal knowledge about potential buyers, while a marketer better understands a customer’s behavior. You must align these two departments to bring these two types of understanding together.
LinkedIn research shows that only 15% of businesses/brands with inefficient customer support can collaborate on customer personas. In contrast, 58% of companies implementing customer obsession focus work better on buyers’ personas. More than 70% of all purchasing decisions mainly depend on how the brands treat customers. Having a customer obsession focus helps you better understand your customers’ personas, resulting in higher engagement and improved conversions.
Customer Obsession: Higher Revenue
Customer obsession focus is the most outstanding practice to boost your sales, increase conversion rates and grow your business faster. It can provide businesses/brands with a clear roadmap to increase their ROI (Return on Investment) and revenue. Effective customer support services reduce the sales cycle, improve conversion rates, and increase ROI and revenue.
According to HubSpot, businesses with having customer obsession focus can gain 208% higher revenue, 27% faster profit growth, and close 38% more deals.
Improves Your Marketing Efforts
Having a customer obsession focus can also help organizations get more from their marketing efforts. This approach allows you better understand who your ideal customers are. It enables you to collect accurate insights about your target audience and approach them in the right way. When you target your customers’ pain points, offering them an ideal solution to make their life easier will significantly impact your marketing efforts.
Above all, having a customer obsession focus assists you in retaining your existing customers. Loyal customers can become unpaid advocates for your brands. They can help you gain more brand exposure through word-of-mouth marketing. Digital marketers say that 34% of customers appreciate word-of-mouth marketing compared to other types of marketing.
Customer Obsession: Bypass Competition
Having a customer obsession focus allows you to excel over competitors who only focus on their bottom-line profit. For instance, two companies are selling the same product, but the one that is offering a seamless customer experience would get more customers and sales. Customer obsession can help your organization effectively add more value to your customer experience and stay connected with them in the long run.
Retain Customers
Regardless of the nature of your business, acquiring new customers is about 5% to 20% more expensive than retaining the existing ones. Focusing heavily on improving your customer experience and delivering more value to them helps you gain more credibility for your products/services.
When customers build trust in your business and products, it becomes easier to retain existing customers. Lack of confidence in a company’s services or products is the most critical reason for customer churn. Marketers say that only a 5% increase in customer retention can dramatically impact your overall conversion rates and revenue.
Acquire New Customer
Marketing experts believe that social proofing plays a significant role in improving the conversion rates of businesses. Having many customers to improve your bottom-line profit is not always true. Sometimes, only a few loyal customers are enough to be profitable. When you focus on providing more value to your customers, acquiring new customers and encouraging consistent business growth becomes more accessible.
Priorities for Becoming a Customer-Obsessed Organization
Nowadays, every business and brand is talking about customer experience and how it can revolutionize this marketplace. Whether you own a software house, a small agency, or a chain of restaurants, you must care about building your brand trust and staying a step ahead of your competitors. Setting up a solid game to stand out from the crowd is always essential, helping customers become more discerning about their shopping experience.
Businesses or brands that are not customer-obsessed won’t be able to stay in the competitive marketplace for longer. Customer obsession is intense customer-centricity that revolves around making your customers feel encouraged, appreciated, and respected. The prime objective of customer obsession is to ensure that you prioritize your customers’ interests and strive to provide them with higher values.
It is critical to prioritize the following tactics to become a customer-obsessed organization;
Care About your Customers
A business needs to care about its buyers to make them feel appreciated and satisfied with their expectations. Identifying who your customers are and why they want to purchase your brand is essential. This approach will help you become responsive to any situation or concern your customers may have and strive for excellence in every interaction you make with your ideal customers.
Provide Value for Money
No one wants to waste their precious and hard-earned dollars on ineffective purchases. It means your products or services must provide instant value for money to become customer-obsessed. When customers see an immediate benefit from using your services or products, they become more intended to build long-term loyalty with your brand. You can also improve your customer obsession focus by providing your customers with special offers such as bonuses, promotions, and discounts.
Prioritize Customer Information
Prioritizing your customers’ information over promotions must be an organization’s top priority to become customer-obsessed. This practice can also help you spend less on ad campaigns and compete more effectively with your competitors. Advertising is expensive for small businesses, but if you know your audience better, you can get excellent results from your spending.
Be Engaging and Personal
Being friendly and engaging is the most distinctive approach to determining your customers’ interests and day-to-day concerns. Once you have understood the problems and needs of your target audience, you can present your products or services as the most effective solution to help your customers combat their concerns. You can invest in different analytics software or tools to collect detailed insights about the target audience. You can use the data obtained from the software to determine where you need to focus your resources and time.
Provide Above and Beyond Services
Customer obsession focus mainly revolves around the dedication and efforts a business puts into giving their customers a consistent and unforgettable purchasing experience. You must provide above-and-beyond services to satisfy your customers and make them feel valued after interacting with your brand or business. A study by Hiver highlights that 30% of customers will never give a second chance to a brand after having a bad customer service experience.
It shows customer focus is not only about focusing on the bare minimum but setting the bar high and exceeding your customers’ expectations in every possible way. This focus helps your business make its customers happy and build a solid and loyal relationship with your offerings. When your customers feel their interests are always appreciated and their needs are met, they are more likely to become your potential buyers and recommend your services to others.
Provide a Smooth Experience from Start to End
A customer-obsessed organization’s main characteristic is providing a fantastic experience to everyone interacting with your brand. You can leverage different communication channels, such as email or live chat, to build awareness about your products and services and keep your customer engaged and focused. Effective communication with your customers is also a great practice to develop a sense of loyalty and encourage them to return to your brand in the future.
Customer Focus Vs. Customer Obsession
Customer focus and customer obsession are broader terms, but businesses often confuse them. Customer obsession is an excellent practice that builds a reliable and robust connection with your ideal customers. This approach encourages companies to constantly evolve and make better adjustments tailored to their customer’s interests and needs. Customer focus also lies under the umbrella of customer obsession but focuses on listening to the customer’s concerns and understanding their needs.
Customer obsession is a bit more perplexing than customer focus, and that’s why most businesses fail to execute it effectively. A customer-obsessed organization always works for something bigger and surpasses customers’ expectations. You can convert your customer-focus strategies into customer obsession in the following ways;
- Outline strategies for setting up a customer obsession culture in your organization
- Discuss the importance of having a customer obsession focus in your workplace
- Explain why personalizing each interaction you make with your customers is essential to build a solid customer base.
Customer obsession focus is invaluable to organizations and businesses, but it requires much effort, time, and resources to show tailored results. This focus type can be the most powerful strategy for growing a business faster if implemented correctly.
Ideas for Customer Obsession
Customers always appreciate the discounts and promotions from their favorite brands. You can implement this strategy to make your customers obsessed with your offerings. For example, if you’re running an eCommerce store, you can offer free shipping or special discounts on all your orders on particular Holidays. It will enable customers to experience your products or services without fully paying. You can also adopt the ideas to show your customers that they are essential to you. For example, you can;
- Implement loyalty programs
- Leverage progressive discounts
- Respond immediately
- Offer special free shipping or special discounts
- Provide top-notch customer services
Tips to have a Customer Obsession Focus on your organization
Implementing customer obsession in your organization is a complicated task requiring special attention and passionate commitment from all the team members. It’s important to mention that being a customer-obsessed company doesn’t mean you will do everything for your customers. It only means you will adopt all the strategies to make your customers feel valued and satisfied in every possible way.
Like other business strategies, customer obsession also needs patience, hard work, and consistency to show you the maximum results. You can follow our proven tips to keep yourself up with the customer obsession trends and implement them in your organization more effectively;
- Collect enough data and deep insights about your ideal customers through surveys
- Use the data collected through surveys to identify your customers’ interests, such as day-to-day concerns, values, needs, and requirements of your customers.
- Design a comprehensive customer obsession model with customer personas
- Set realistic goals for your customer obsession strategies by analyzing the types of your customers and their requirements
- Develop a detailed plan that must include communication plans, sales, and marketing technology, customer experience marketing, content marketing, and branding strategies
- Ensure consistent communication with the customers to keep your team focused
- Test all the processes before implementing them and only implement the successful strategies
- Get regular feedback from your customers to make necessary adjustments in your customer obsession strategies
Starting slowly, getting customer feedback, and learning business key performance indicators (KPIs) is the key to making your customer obsession strategies more effective.
Proven Ways to Measure Customer Obsession
You must learn about different business key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success rate of your customer obsession. You can use the following KPIs to track the performance of your customer obsession strategies;
- Identify how many customers are making purchases repeatedly from your brand. You can use this information to create loyalty programs for your consistent buyers, offering them special discounts. It is the most basic KPI to determine if your customers’ obsession efforts are working as intended.
- Determine what kind of wording customers use when discussing your products or services on different social media platforms. If they’re constantly using the words like, Best, Amazing, or Great, it means they’re satisfied with your offerings. If your consumers are not using these words, it could indicate that your customer obsession culture needs some improvement in specific areas.
- Ask your customers to share their reviews on social media after using your products or services. If a large number of audiences review your products or services positively, it signifies that your consumers have built a high level of trust in your offerings. It also shows that the quality of work done and the essential steps taken by your team members set the bar high for your rivals.
The Bottom Line
Most businesses don’t understand the importance of effective customer experience until they have lost their brand values. Similarly, most companies can’t get the intended results even after implementing the customer obsession culture. They don’t bother to collect the necessary data about their ideal customers before targeting them. Customer obsessed culture can provide businesses with all the perks needed to attract more customers, increase conversion rates and grow faster if implemented correctly.
Businesses must understand what customer obsession culture is and why it matters. It is an excellent approach to making your customers feel valued, appreciated, and satisfied. Customer obsession mainly revolves around constantly striving to bring a fantastic purchasing experience for your customers. It helps
