In our previous blog on agility we promised to delve deeper into the four critical mindsets you need to be truly agile. Here we take a look at Customer Centricity.
What does Customer Centricity mean?
This is the mindset that the customer is at the core of every decision your company makes. It’s about having a continuous obsession with customer needs and priorities, which underpin everything from your front line to your boardroom.
How do we do it?
Agile companies believe the customer knows best, and are in continual dialogue and co-creation with them in a non-linear, iterative way. They can quickly pivot and adapt to customer needs. In practice, this means banishing the belief that you need to have all the answers, not creating strategies in isolation from your customers, and letting go of the ‘we know everything’ mindset. It also requires moving beyond legacy ‘waterfall’ styles of management, and having ongoing engagement with customers as partners, rather than as consumers.
What business benefits does this have?
By bringing this mindset you better understand customers, challenge assumptions, define problems, and create solutions. Through this ongoing process of listening to customers, incorporating their feedback, and co-creating with them, you build a constant feedback loop of ideating, testing, and learning that endlessly refines and improves your products and services.
You also open yourself up to new ways of thinking, which can lead to more rapid innovation, faster product and solution launches, and increased market relevance. And when you are ‘always on’ to listening to customers you get immediate insights on what they need, and when their needs change, so you can be both responsive and proactive, enabling you to anticipate the market and get ahead of the competition.
For insights on culture view our selection of case studies, ebooks, reports and white papers or contact us to learn how we can transform your culture.