Why Customer-Oriented Culture?

Customer experience is critical to repeat purchases and loyalty, so everything a company does should be focused on customer satisfaction. It is an internal culture that adds value to the company, shapes internal and external relationships and motivates both employees and customers alike.

Customer satisfaction is a strategic goal, to the implementation of which culture is also connected. What does this really mean? First of all, the highest priority is given to customer satisfaction and all activities of the company are focused on this goal. However, building a customer-oriented culture does not need to be understood very narrowly. It is important not only to maintain the quality of goods or services and excellent service; focusing on customer satisfaction includes both problem solving and loyalty programs, warm contacts and personalized offers and more.

Customer Satisfaction Priority

Classical economic theory states that 80 percent of a company’s revenue is generated by loyal customers. And dissatisfied customers never become loyal! Thus, only happy and satisfied customers become a source of growth and stability for the company. This creates a competitive advantage and optimizes all the company’s performance.

And yet customers are not the only ones who benefit when a company focuses on customer satisfaction. Such culture provides a clear direction for employees in the company, making it easier for them to make the right decisions. What’s more, customer focus is a strategy for success and a way to create a sustainable culture both inside and outside the company.

CRM System to Ensure Customer Satisfaction

Many world-renowned brands see customer focus as a cornerstone of their business. But the bigger the company, the more customers, so the harder it is to ensure their satisfaction. CRM systems are lending them a hand, and their role in the process of customer satisfaction is constantly growing. Even the largest companies use automated processes and are doing great.

Process automation with CRM systems is applied in a variety of ways and some processes are actually very complex. However, you can also find simple solutions that are very effective, especially when we are talking about serving hundreds of thousands of customers. For example, the function of sending automatic reminders, creating invoices, controlling contract expiration dates – just think how many employees it would take to keep track of such information in a hundred thousand customer database without a CRM system!

CRM systems also play a crucial role in connecting a customer with an employee in the company. With a large number of customers, it is possible to standardize some problems and provide answers automatically, and when customers contact the company directly, assign them to responsible employees, distributing the workload evenly.

Customer data stored in CRM systems helps to develop personalized offers that better meet customer needs and increase customer satisfaction. Not only does it help that data is being collected – a CRM system allows you to process large amounts of data quickly and easily, so you can find repetitive customer properties. What does this mean? A personalized offer is not personalized for a specific customer (although it looks like it is), it is personalized for a specific group of customers. When an offer is applied to a larger number of customers, the cost of submitting it is lower. Basically, this is the process of standardization throughout the company, which creates preconditions to optimize operations.

Customer Satisfaction Without a CRM System – (Im)Possible

It cannot be unambiguously stated that a CRM system is necessary to ensure customer satisfaction. A farmer who sells his goods at a market, a self-employed tailor, a manicurist – all these specialists are able to take care of their customers’ satisfaction themselves, but even they would save time by using a CRM system, which they could use to earn more.

However, the situation is changing as scale grows: a large company needs not only a lot of time to take care of its customers, but also large manpower resources. This is not impossible, but price becomes a key issue. A CRM system can automate and perform many processes at minimal cost, whereas increasing the number of employees results in high costs (payroll, setting workplace, administration, etc.). This example is a great illustration of how customer satisfaction can be achieved without a CRM system, but it helps to significantly reduce operating costs while maintaining focus on customer needs.