A customer first strategy is not hard. Just think customer first in everything you do. So how come most businesses get it spectacularly wrong? I think the reason is because they don't see the immediate return.

Reasons for having a customer-first strategy

There has been enough research done to prove that the return on a customer first strategy is significant:

• 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience. But only 1% feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations.

• 89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service.

• By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.

• 10% increase in customer retention levels result in a 30% increase in value of a company.

Those are numbers that would make any CEO sit up and take notice! But will it make them act?

Marketing are too busy building brands

With so much information available today, marketing is being challenged to demonstrate its ROI. This might explain why they are still putting their efforts into brand building, sometimes to the detriment of their customers, consumers and clients.

An analysis by IBM on UK research by Callcredit Information Group gives a different reason. They found that the majority of marketers is feeling overwhelmed by all this data. Their explanation for this is that "only 29% of marketers believe they have the necessary skills to analyse data, with 44% planning on investing in further training over the next two years to boost confidence within their organisations around the handling of information."

Big data has actually done customer understanding a disfavour. Organisations are hardly increasing their spend on market research. The industry grew 2.2% compared to over 4% for ad spend.

Market research is seen as a cost, not an investment

Companies still need market research to understand their customers. That's why market research needs to provide more "why" answers and not just the mere statistics.

I believe that (a large?) part of the issue is also the researchers themselves. They're not sociable, speak a language others don't understand and seem afraid to voice their own opinion let alone make recommendations.

Customer services are seen as complaint handlers

The customer care centre is often seen as mere complaint handlers. Their image is of a group of women who spend their days on the phone talking to other women!

You only have to take a look at companies which excel at customer care to realise the business benefits of putting the customer first.

Forrester report’s key findings from the 2016 report:

• In all five sectors covered, companies with higher customer experience (CX) scores outperformed rivals in revenue growth

• CX leaders’ annual growth rate is 17% compared to just 3% for others.

• Cable and retail industries beat the field in CX by 24% and 26%, which is a huge boost to the bottom line.

• Even in the sector with the smallest range (airlines), there was a 5% difference between companies.

• This also translated into subscriber growth – in the cable industry leaders grew internet subscribers by 23.9% more than others and video subscribers by 13.9%

Along with the previously mentioned statistics, I can see no reason for a company not to invest in a customer-first strategy.

A customer first strategy needs an organisation to recenter itself behind this company-wide objective. It can make a real difference in terms of both sales & profits to those who follow this direction. But it is essential to have executive support and true commitment from every employee to think customer first.

It will take skill upgrades for both marketing & market research departments to translate the data & information gathered into actionable insights.

And it will mean every employee having the chance to get close up and personal with customers. This is the only way for them to understand the role they play in satisfying and delighting them.