On a learning journey

Frankly’s State of Customer Centricity study indicated that 94% of Finnish organizations have chosen customer centricity as the key development priority. Isn’t that just great? Surprising, though, is the fact that only 34% of the organizations claim that customer centricity is among their significant investments.

Does it sound surprising or, on the contrary, familiar to you?

While customer centricity can often be found in the organization’s strategy, still many change projects related to customer centricity fail. Like Mika Hyötyläinen mentions in the frankly said podcast, customer centricity is easy on paper but extremely difficult in practice. Otherwise, we would only have excellent services and products on the market designed to cater customers’ needs and exceed their expectations.

Let’s focus on the reasons why this is not the case:

·      Only certain teams or departments work with customer centricity and experience. Customer centricity is not lead holistically throughout the organization.

·      CX metrics are not the “one metric fits all” type of thing. While NPS is without doubt the most popular metric to be used, the key is finding the metrics that go hand in hand with the organization’s business goals. How can customer centricity’s positive impact on the revenue be shown?

·      The project itself proceeds slowly and without visible results. Clear short-term and long-terms action plans are missing or are not designed for the organization in question and its customers. The momentum is lost because the changes are not visible in everyday work.

Are these reasons familiar to you, too? Sounds to me like you have learnt some very essential lessons! It is important to remember that a customer centricity journey takes several years, especially in a large international organization. During this journey many of us forget to look back and celebrate gained experience and achievements, however small or large.

So, looking back at 2021, what are your key takeaways when it comes to customer centricity?