Creating a customer-focused culture — no, really!

What is a customer-focused culture?

When companies choose to switch to a customer-focused culture, they have a culture dedicated to meeting their customers’ needs. In all facets of their business, they prioritize making customer satisfaction as the primary concern. They do this by focusing on developing a close relationship with their customers. They put customer success over sales and products.

When the customer-focused culture strategy is used correctly, your business will differentiate themselves from the competition and grow sustainably.

Simply put, your company’s success relies on your customers. Without them, your company wouldn’t have the sales, revenue, or relevancy without. They deserve to be a priority.

When looking to improve on excellent customer satisfaction, a customer-focused culture must be developed. By no means is this easy, but it’s obtainable.

An excellent way to start on the path of developing a customer-focused culture is by looking at some of the companies in your industry. Nothing is new under the sun, you don’t have to take every piece of your competition’s strategy, but you can mix styles to get the right recipe.

Take a look at this list of companies in different industries leading in customer experience and satisfaction.

Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe’s is one of the most well-known grocery retail stores. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, they have the second-highest score due to their quick response times, a willingness from their employees to help their customers like opening up products to give customers samples, their goal is to make their customers happy.

Amazon

Amazon is an e-commerce giant because they are always focused on innovation and improving the customer experience. They have come up with numerous customer solutions like one-day shipping, easy returns, and Amazon Lockers. Amazon continues to keep the customer in mind.

Chase

Chase was one of the first banks to provide their customers with a mobile app. Since then, Chase has created an intuitive user experience that provides customers with everything they need on the mobile app—saving them time from running to the bank for any type of transaction.

Lyft

The ride-sharing company, one of Uber’s biggest competitors, thinks about its customers by continually revamping quicker and safer routes and remembering customer preferences for a more comfortable and quicker experience. They stay on top of data to improve the customer experience.

Netflix

Netflix has been successful at keeping up with current trends. They listen to their customers and pay attention to what trend will stick. They are using content marketing and blazing a trail in the video streaming industry. They listen to their customers and respond accordingly which allows greater consumer engagement and customization of their offerings.

One thing these five companies have in common is making customers feel like a priority. Putting your customers first will help you understand your customer’s needs and expectations. Understanding this will keep you ahead of the competition and customer experience. More importantly, companies with a customer-first approach will be the winners in the long term.

The Importance of Culture

Before creating a customer-focused culture, you have to create an excellent internal culture first. Culture can often be the main hindrance in providing excellent customer service. Your organizational culture impacts everything, from performance, employee happiness, and customer satisfaction, to name a few.

The way you conduct business, manage workflows, interact as a team, and treat your customers should reflect your company’s core values. But if your culture doesn’t match your core values, they could just be a meaningless list of words.

When the company’s culture is aligned, and your employees have bought in, you can trust that you can develop the right customer-focused culture.

Creating a dream team

A strong culture helps you keep the best talent. Employees want to feel like they are apart of a community rather than a cog in a wheel. When culture makes an employee feel this way, they will be more likely to stay.

A dream team will be built when the culture and company focus on people more so than numbers. Just as you focus on making your customers a priority, your employees should be a priority as well. Deliver a unique employee experience, and you will make people feel more connected as a team.

The culture at your company will essentially act as a guide to applicants, the onboarding process should be contagious, making new employees and applicants dream of wanting to be a part of the culture your company has built.

The better your employees are, the better your customers will feel. If you want a customer-focused culture, the organizational culture must be set in stone before providing the value your customers desire.

Long-term results of a customer-focused culture



Though the journey will be difficult and a significant adjustment for some companies to take on this mentality, this style of business wins in the long run.

Companies can learn from the examples of the best customer-focused cultures in the world. The five companies listed above and many more have paved the way and have given the blueprint on creating this type of culture.

The best companies encourage employees to buy into their culture, find creative solutions and put themselves in the shoes of their customers.

This culture style isn’t something that can be built overnight. Still, with consistent effort and dedication, organizations can learn to put customers first in everything they do, and reap the long term results of building a customer-focused culture.