What are the common barriers and challenges to creating a customer-centric culture?

At Unidas, creating a customer-centric culture is an ongoing process that requires corporate alignment and leadership commitment across all levels. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that this vision permeates throughout the company. Our executives actively participate in improvement committees and are directly responsible for satisfaction outcomes. Additionally, overcoming resistance to change and breaking down silos between departments are common barriers. It's crucial to foster collaboration between teams and adopt a holistic view of the customer journey. We believe that employee engagement, driven by a positive and motivating work environment, is essential to delivering quality service and strengthening this culture.

“Demonstrate the importance of customer centricity is vague” - I recommend being more specific - executive leadership must understand how a customer centric culture drives accelerated, sustainable revenue, while reducing operational costs, and enabling more strategic marketing strategies, as customers advertise for you.

Lack of Leadership Support 🚫👥 Establishing a customer-centric culture begins at the top. When leaders fail to prioritize and champion customer-centricity, it becomes challenging to foster a culture that consistently prioritizes customer needs. Lack of leadership support can result in a lack of direction, insufficient resource allocation, and a failure to embed customer-centric values across the organization. In overcoming this barrier, leaders must actively communicate the importance of customer-centricity, allocate resources accordingly, and lead by example, demonstrating a commitment to customer satisfaction that permeates all levels of the organization.

Creating a customer-centric culture often encounters significant challenges, with siloed departments, lack of customer insights, and resistance to change being among the top barriers. Fostering cross-departmental collaboration through regular inter-team meetings and shared KPIs is essential, aligning goals across functions. Additionally, inadequate understanding of customer needs and behaviours can hinder efforts; thus, investing in comprehensive customer research and feedback mechanisms, like NPS and customer surveys, is crucial. Resistance to change, often stemming from employees' fear of new processes or job security concerns, can be mitigated by cultivating a growth mindset through training and development programs.

Setting a customer-centric culture is always a top-down strategy. Here's how their support can make a significant difference: 1. Setting the Tone: Leaders must demonstrate a genuine commitment to customer satisfaction and create a company-wide culture prioritising customer needs. 2. Communicating the Vision: Clear communication of the company's customer-centric vision is essential to align all stakeholders towards the same goal. 3. Empowering Employees: Leaders should empower employees to make decisions and take actions that benefit customers, fostering a sense of ownership and accountability. 4. Recognizing and Rewarding: Recognizing & rewarding employees for exceptional customer service reinforces customer centricity.

One way to get started is to focus team and departments on the customer journey which cuts across the organization. Bring the customer into the room through insights, research, and videos to illustrate the break downs. The customer only sees the company and they don't care that a group is the problem -- it is the companies problem. This can be a rallying force for teams to help each other to win with your customers.

Siloed or Fragmented Organization 🧩🏢 Organizational silos hinder the seamless flow of information and collaboration necessary for a customer-centric culture. When different departments operate independently, communication gaps arise, preventing a holistic understanding of customer needs and desires. This lack of cohesion can lead to inconsistent customer experiences and a failure to address customer issues comprehensively. To address this challenge, organizations should implement strategies that encourage cross-departmental collaboration, break down silos, and establish shared goals centered around delivering superior customer value. Collaborative efforts ensure a more integrated and customer-focused approach.

Customers are by nature unique and totally integrated, whatever their ways to communicate with the company. A company that doesn't present itself as unique, because it isn't, won't be able to meet the customer's needs. Like its customer, it must be a single, integrated entity. Then it can recognize its customer in the same way, whatever the channel of communication or action, and begin a real dialogue with him.

Resistance to Change 🛑🔄 Resistance to change is a pervasive challenge when attempting to instill a customer-centric culture. Employees may resist adopting new processes, technologies, or mindsets, fearing disruption to established routines. This resistance can impede the implementation of customer-centric initiatives and hinder the organization's ability to adapt to evolving customer expectations. To overcome resistance, organizations should communicate the benefits of customer-centricity, provide comprehensive training, and involve employees in the change process. Creating a culture that values continuous improvement and innovation helps employees embrace change more positively.

I once worked in an organisation that tried to do everything possible to support employees through a change curve, but the most common reason for the resistance was "They've promised us lots of things in the past, we don't trust them". When trust is broken, it just makes it worse to introduce anything to your workforce. Here's a charge to business leaders to find ways to build bridges with their employees, it makes it easier for employees to believe in the vision, feel free to engage in change related discussions and adopt change. Lastly, you can leverage change champions within the workforce to support the change. This applies to customer-centricity and others.

Shifting towards a customer-centric culture faces a common foe: resistance to change. Whether from team members, managers, or stakeholders, the comfort of the familiar or fear of the unknown can slow progress. The solution? Inject a shared sense of urgency, actively involve everyone in the change, provide robust training and steadfast support, and celebrate every step forward. It's not just about adapting; it's steering together towards a culture that champions customer excellence.

The biggest hurdle to overcome in setting a customer-centric culture is the resistance to change from some of the company's old guard. 1. Communicate Clearly and Openly: Transparency and active listening are the keys to getting employees to accept the change. 2. Involve Employees in the Process 3. Address Concerns and Fears (overcommunicate) 4. Provide Adequate Training and Support(Walk the talk) 5. Celebrate Successes and reward employees for their efforts and achievements during the transition. 6. Lead by Example: As a leader, demonstrate your commitment to the change and model the desired behaviour. 7. Implement changes gradually to allow employees to adjust. Be patient but be persistent.

One of the most significant barriers is insufficient customer insight due to lack of observation or listening effectively. Understanding customer behaviour can unlock deeper insights and drive innovation. In the 2000s, Vim's market growth plateaued as small competitors emerged. To stand out, Unilever's team went beyond surveys and visited homes to observe how Vim bars were used. They noticed excessive soap loss due to improper storage. This led to the creation of the polycoat bar, a patented technology that coated five sides of the bar, addressing the problem of soggy bars and reducing wastage, directly solving a key consumer concern.

Journey to customer-centricity must begin with employee-centricity. An employee who feels fulfilled at work is more likely to stay committed to customer service than the one who feels not taken care of. Leadership must demonstrate their care for both - the customers and the employees - not just in words, but also in their action.

One thing that I have found helpful in building a customer centric approach is taking an 'outside-in' view. Rather than thinking about the internal organizations objectives, pivot to understand the business challenges & opportunities for the customer. With this view, one can work towards customizing solutions that will help customers overcome their challenges and unlock more opportunities.

Insufficient Customer Insight 🤔🔍 A lack of deep understanding about customer needs, preferences, and pain points is a significant barrier to cultivating a customer-centric culture. Without robust customer insight, organizations risk making decisions based on assumptions rather than data, leading to misguided strategies and a failure to deliver truly valuable solutions. To address this, organizations must invest in tools and methodologies for gathering and analyzing customer data. Regularly seeking feedback, conducting surveys, and leveraging analytics provide valuable insights that inform decision-making, ensuring initiatives align closely with customer expectations.

Low Employee Engagement 😕🤝 A disengaged workforce can undermine efforts to create a customer-centric culture. When employees are not fully engaged, they may lack the motivation to go above and beyond for customers, impacting the overall quality of service. Low employee morale can result in a disconnect between organizational goals and individual contributions. To boost employee engagement, organizations should prioritize a positive work environment, invest in employee development, and recognize and reward customer-centric behaviors. Aligning individual roles with the broader mission of customer satisfaction enhances engagement and fosters a culture centered on customer needs.

If you don't treat your employees right, how can you expect them to treat the customer right? Focus on employees and they will take care of customers!

Adotar uma estratégia ou cultura customer-centric é focar no longo prazo. A construção de um relacionamento forte entre empresa e consumidor requer investimento de tempo e dinheiro. E na maioria dos casos existe uma cobrança para resultados rápidos que acaba minando a estratégia customer-centric.

Inability to create master data where the customer is accurately visible over time. Lack of process sequence steps for analytical outcomes to portray customer value. Without entity resolution and customer experience tracking steps to make business cases around a customer centric culture fail to compete with other priorities.

In my experience, measuring the desired customer outcome can resolve many of the internal friction to achieve customer centricity. For example, switching from average call times to first call resolution in a call center focuses people towards resolving issues the first time no matter how long it takes. It can also eliminate handoffs or escalation to more and more technical experts eliminating friction for the customer and streamlining operations.

In my view, all the aspects mentioned earlier are important, but what about the core issue of developing a solution and then identifying the problem for it? Yes, I see many organizations not even able to clearly define the problem statement they are solving. Instead, they try to sell what they have built, even if people don't want it. If your company relies more on sales than on understanding market needs, this might be the issue.

One of the key barriers to building a customer-centric organization is the frequent underestimation of the need for thorough user research and testing. Too often, teams rely on assumptions or past successes, believing they 'already know' what the customer wants. This approach can lead to products that miss the mark by overlooking evolving customer expectations. In contrast, when organizations invest in regular, structured user testing, they uncover invaluable insights that are critical for refining features, ensuring relevance, and driving overall product success. By continually engaging with customers, we prevent blind spots and keep the customer’s voice at the center of our decisions.