As we wrap up our discussion about what customer centricity is, I
just want to offer a few more
reflections or questions, associated with customer centricity.
For instance, a really big one is, who is the customer?
Again, is it the end consumer, who's buying and using the product?
If you think about many situations, it's not so clear.
I work with a lot of pharmaceutical firms, when I ask people at those firms,
who is the customer, I'll often get four different answers.
Is it the patient?
Is it the physician?
Is it the hospital or the medical practice?
Is it the insurance company?
You can make an argument, that each one of them is the customer and depending on who
you talk to, at the pharmaceutical firm, you'll
get a very strong argument, one way or another.
So one of the important steps on the road to customer centricity,
is getting some agreement on that question.
Agreeing, that one of these entities is the customer, we care a lot about
the others, we need to keep them in mind, as we go through our planning practices.
But, but, one kind of customer matters more than others.
Going back to the Proctor and Gamble example that I
mentioned before, there there's a tremendous amount of clarity on it.
Proctor and Gamble knows,
that today, their customer is the retailer.
I wouldn't be surprised, if 20 years from now, Proctor and Gamble
said, the customer is the consumer, but they're moving in an orderly way.
So it's important to first sit down and
figure out, who the, the customer could be.
Who are all the different constituents, who could qualify as being the customer?
And then having a healthy discussion, to try to come up with the consensus about,
which one we're going to focus on, and which
other ones, might still be on our horizon.
We also want to think about, what
are the barriers associated with customer centricity.
A few of them, I've mentioned already, it might be the data.
Perhaps we can't get the data, if you'll be able to
individual customer doing things, over time, there might be regulatory issues.
There might be reasons why, we can't treat customers differently,
for instance in the pharmaceutical space.
There might be cultural reasons, it's just impossible for this company,
to move from a product centric, to a customer centric view.
If the company's been focused on,
developing and distributing block busters for all
of its existence, it's hard all of a sudden, to pivot around the customers.
So there's a number of barriers that, that can be in place.
The ones that I just mentioned are fairly general, they're fairly broad,
but every company is going to have its own challenges.
And before saying, we're going to become customer centric, it's very
important to come up with that list, and think real carefully about,
existing barriers and new ones, that can be arising, to, to
do a real careful inventory, of, of, of barriers towards customer centricity.
And of course at the same time, you want to
think about the resources that you could bring in,
to address or maybe preempt, some of those barriers.
Very often, the resources are going to be financial.
You're going to have to invest money, to build the information technology
systems and to hire employees, and to start developing a data infrastructure.
Sometimes, they're going to be cultural, we're going to
have to hire the right kind of people,
who can think around, conversion thinking around the
customer, instead of diversion thinking around the product.
So, there's a, a number of, of, of different ways that we can start thinking
in advance, about overcoming the barriers, before
the, the barriers actually start impeding our progress.
Another important consideration is, competition.
It's interesting, that in some cases, seeing your competitors taking moves
toward customer centricity,is a very strong incentive for you to do so.
So, for instance, we see a number
of industries where customer centricity has really made
great strides, such as, financial services, such
as, hotels and hospitality, where's it's competitive pressures.
Hey, they're moving towards customer centricity, we should be doing it, too.
But in many cases, the best motivations to move towards customer
centricity, it's the entire opposite of that, hey no one's doing it,
let's be the first.
That would be the example of Hammers and Tesco.
Sometimes, being the only one doing the customer centric
thing, is the way to make it most successful.
So again, you want to think about the ecosystem
for your industry, and is it better for everybody
to be customer-centric, is it better for it to
be only you, and that might drive your decision.
In the end, the big question is, do you want to be customer centric or not?
Does it make sense for your company?
And if not now, when should you be customer centric?
And think about, again, a company like Proctor and Gamble, Walmart and so on.
Making plans now, for changes that they can make in a few years.
And as you decide, whether to be customer centric, the timing about it,
you want to start laying some of the, the baby steps towards it.
So, it might be developing
technology initiatives like, the Scan and Go Program, that I mentioned for Walmart.
It might be an organizational initiative like,
My Black Is Beautiful for Proctor and Gamble.
It might be other kinds of experiments that, that a company is going to run.
Let's just set aside, a part of the organization or group of customers.
Let's treat them differently and see if we can.
And see if it's more profitable than, than,
than handling them, in the usual product centric manner.
Those are the kinds of decisions,
I want to see companies making.
And I think, its very important for all companies, to at least be thinking about
it, so they can make an informed decision,
about what customer centricity might mean for them.
[MUSIC]
Barbara E. KahnProfessor of Marketing and Director, Jay H. Baker Retailing Center
Peter FaderProfessor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative
David BellXinmei Zhang and Yongge Dai Professor, Professor of Marketing
