29: Customer-centricity series - Are you deeply curious enough to know their world?
Nov 18, 2019
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Explore the essence of customer-centricity, deep curiosity about clients' lives, immersive experiences in understanding diverse industries, CEO's hands-on engagement with customers, embracing customer perspective through deep curiosity
Being truly customer-centric requires deep curiosity about customers' lives beyond surface knowledge.
Embracing critics and engaging with dissenting voices can provide valuable insights for anticipating industry challenges.
Deep dives
Key Point 1: Understanding the Customer
To be truly customer-centric, it is essential to have a deep and genuine curiosity about the life of the customer. This curiosity extends to understanding their business, people, and challenges. The podcast emphasizes the importance of personally connecting with customers beyond reading market research reports. Real-life examples, like the CEO of a supermarket chain interacting with customers in-store, highlight the significance of engaging directly with customers to gain insights that inform decision-making.
Key Point 2: Embracing Criticism for Industry Insights
Embracing critics within your sector or industry is highlighted as a valuable source of information for understanding public opinion trends. Being open to feedback and engaging with those critical of your profession can provide valuable insights into where the industry is heading. The podcast suggests that industries that listen carefully to critical voices may have been able to foresee reputational challenges in advance, emphasizing the importance of learning from dissenting perspectives.
Key Point 3: Cultivating Curiosity and Humility
Developing deep curiosity and humility towards understanding how customers perceive products and services is foundational for customer-centricity. The podcast encourages individuals to take time to interact with real people, including critics, to gain diverse perspectives. Reading extensively, engaging with different viewpoints, and seeking to understand the truth from the customer's standpoint are crucial steps in fostering a customer-centric approach. Humility in acknowledging that customers' views may differ significantly from internal perspectives is seen as the initial step towards aligning products and services with customer needs.
'Know your customer’ is often too superficial an expression to describe the deep curiosity about a customer’s life that differentiates the truly customer centric individual. In this first episode in a series on customer-centricity covers what it takes to understand your customer well enough that is changes what you do and how you think.