The way customers interact with the companies and brands they do business with is fast changing. The digital revolution is truly revolutionising the way companies interact with customers. In this new reality, where feedback is constant, old rules like ‘customer is king’ still apply and are maybe even more relevant than before. Brands can see their stock price decline significantly with a single tweet which is a complaint that goes viral and generates excitement. Let’s move back to the perspective of a business owner.

As a business owner, what is your favourite pastime? Apologies for asking this personal question, but at the same time, we know that it is to speculate what should be your dream-revenue. What about a revenue goal of owning a trillion-dollar business? Well, the goal here is not to make you all dreamy. It is to reveal the ‘obsession’ of a company that is a strong contender in the race of the yet to be grabbed dream-spot of becoming the first trillion-dollar venture ever! 

Here’s what Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon had to say when asked about his company’s success:“Obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective factor for a business’ vitality.”

The above line leaves no room for doubt and ignoring its wisdom can be the biggest blunder of a business. Moving forward  from Amazon’s cult of customer-centricity, we will portray how this virtue works in practice.In the evolving red-hot glare of the consumer, digital advances are crucial for reactive adaptation. Hence, the baseline is:

A business driven by customer-obsession is propelled best (today) by digital marketing that is ‘targeted, trackable, measurable & involved in a direct relationship with the customer.’

3 reasons why

Digital marketing has new ways for companies to engage consumers across industries in the ways listed below:

• Following the customer journey from pre-engagement to post-purchase, constant listening  through social listening, learning the way different customers interact with their brand.
  
  
• Engaging customers across multiple channels, generating deep insights, and seamlessly executing on them on those several platforms.
  
  
• Using data-mining and integrating multiple data and refining their segmentation approaches to recognise and thereby serve the correct customer segments.
  
  

Here’s the ultimate reason

It all comes together in an interplay of customer’s emotional connection, satisfaction and publicity.

3 ways how businesses achieve multiple objectives this way

1. Using customer data to understand buying behaviour, interests and engagement
2. Identifying opportunities to create products/services for your best customers
3. Using customer lifetime picture to segment customers based on top spending customers
   
   

Do you want to see the downside of ignoring this facet that is literally like wrecking havoc in your business?

Dangers of customer non-obsession

Customers always expect to have good service, and if they don’t have it? Well, it’s so easy now to complain about it in a very visual and vocal way on the social media. “Consumers are two times more likely to share their bad customer service experiences than they are to talk about positive experiences.” We can only imagine about the extent to which it can be amplified online. Rather than complaining about a bad customer service job to a friend or anyone in person, a customer can just tweet it out. That is bound to make brands very nervous.

Data to stir your mind 

There’s a lot of data that illustrates how customers behave.  And, that data points to the fact that customer-obsession matters:

• “A customer is 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service related vs. price or product related.” – Bain & Co.
• “70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated.” – McKinsey
• “98% of respondents said that customer experience was among the top 3 factors.” – Kissmetrics
  
  

So yes, it matters, but far more than you think.

Conclusion

Digital advances unlock ways for companies to interact with customers and capture valuable insights about their level of engagement and potential to a brand.

Are you ready to enhance your digital capabilities in order to cater to the customer-obsession?

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