What is customer-centric?

Slogans such as "customer-centered" and "customer is God" appear in business activities from time to time. It seems that no one is embarrassed to run enterprises and other related profit-making activities without mentioning these, but few companies really insist on doing so, which is ridiculous.

What is customer-centric?

Let's look at an example first, about the dialogue between the butcher and the pig.

Butcher: I accept your suggestion. Do you want to cook braised pork, cooked meat or steamed meat? Of course, other methods are also possible. I take you as the center.

Pig: I don't want to be killed.

Butcher: You are beside the point ...

Pig: …

In this example, is the butcher pig-centric? Certainly not, but this is a common situation in reality.

Teacher Liu Run also defined the customer as the center, mainly because of the different interests. Only when the interests of himself and his customers are inconsistent will he understand the definition of customer-centered and make a choice in practice.

What will you do if the quality of your products is not good and the customer's projects are very important, and the quality of your products can't be improved to the level required by customers for a while? In reality, many sales will fool customers and tell them that their products are omnipotent. They just want to take orders to make money and mislead customers to make decisions that are beneficial to them. In the end, they will not only lose their reputation because of poor product performance, but also make customers feel disgusted with your dishonesty. It is unlikely that they will cooperate again. This is not customer-centric. The correct way is to tell customers that the current products can not meet the requirements and need to continue to improve and work hard. And recommend other brands to customers, let them make the right choice, and declare that the products will meet the standards in the future, and then seek cooperation. This is customer-centered, temporarily putting one's own interests aside and putting the interests of customers first. This is the long-term solution of cooperation.

The author has had several similar experiences recently. Due to the shortage of chips, the delivery cycle of a product reaches about 4 months. The customer is the head enterprise of a smart car parts, and he trusts the author and the company's products. He talked about the time node of the project cycle and the importance of the project, hoping to cooperate and provide support. After internal communication, he found that he could not meet the delivery needs of customers. After comprehensive consideration, he finally told the customer that he really couldn't meet the requirements this time. We have coordinated the agent to prepare the goods, but the goods can't meet the requirements, so we can't cooperate this time. At the same time, we told our competitors the actual situation and let customers choose for themselves. When the follow-up goods are ready, we will look for opportunities to cooperate. This matter has also been approved by the company and has maintained a relatively trusting relationship with customers.

For customer-centered, although business is profit-seeking, it is still important to focus on the overall interests of customers, at least to pursue long-term win-win rather than short-term interests, and at least to adhere to the principle of "don't tell lies, tell the truth" in communication with customers. Only in this way can we be customer-centric.