…is meaningless. Similarly, a vision, a mission and core values ​​are often meaningless for employees. They don’t have a story of their own. There are few companies where a mission is experienced by employees as something that gives them safety and courage. A SAFE & BRAVE SPACE to make the decision, in the moment, to do for a customer, what feels relevant to that customer in that moment (and therefore ends up feeling personal and unique to the customer).

And that is exactly where you make the difference, where you create (employee and) customer loyalty and customer ambassadorship.

Customer centricity requires a strong, internalized sense of purpose, a dream shared by everyone. An ambition that goes beyond words. Mission, vision and values ​​made tangible and translated into a shared dream, and a shared language.

A strong, shared sense of purpose isn’t a catchy one-liner. It lies in an internalized ‘why are we here’. A WHY that offers your people the safety and space to take responsibility, and show ownership. Therein lies the essence. Of being able – willing – daring – to co-create in a playful way in the process, in a dialogue, in co-creation with each other, and with customers. This breeds involvement, ownership, responsibility and connection. It increases the execution and realization power of your organization.

Contagious enthusiasm develops. People develop behaviour that fits the shared goal. Flow arises. It introduces openness and honesty, a sense of meaning and autonomy, assertiveness and self-direction, vulnerability, freedom to be (as a human being, not ‘dehumanized robots’), room for play, and commitment.

Do the people in your organization have a shared dream?

…produce or services you offer? Could there lie a reason? Perhaps decades ago, but nowadays, where globalized, hyper-competitive markets are awash with interchangeable products and services, the answer is no.

Care is the key word for customer centricity. Care in the sense of a sincere form of genuine involvement with, and commitment to the world in general and people in particular (the three P’s, People, Planet, Profit). With all stakeholders of your organization.

The source of care is authenticity of both the giver and the receiver. You can’t enforce it. Care ensures that (employees and) customers feel heard, recognized, respected and valued as human beings. As a customer once put it: “If only people, well, would just listen to me.”

Care creates an emotional bond that is unique and cannot be copied. That is why it is so valuable (multiple value creation) for all involved, and so hard to copy, which makes it sustainable as a competitive advantage.

Care is all about assessing to what extent the soil, the culture of your organization is fertile for customer centricity, and gives you a feeling how big the challenge is to transform your organization and activate customer centricity as a sustainable competitive advantage.

An ‘organization’ is incapable of creating meaning. Culture is not something you can implement. That’s why you cannot ‘implement’ customer centricity. It’s a co-creation between the people in an organization. And it’s heavily impacted by the example the leaders of an organization set.

Humans are Meaning Makers. Is your organization an environment that allows for sense making and sense giving, where people can create and experience meaning?

When you CARE, people notice.

…capable of adding value at an emotional level. Their performance can be measured in quantity (output) and quality (impact). The two must be balanced, by not directing people at task level, but at the balance between output and impact. Not only doing things right, but also doing the right things in the perception of people (customers, but the same goes for employees). From shareholder to multiple value creation, stakeholder and people-driven, increasing value for all involved.

What gets measured gets done! Constantly measuring, managing people in old ways (the ‘industrial paradigm’), keeping your eyes on the quantitative KPIs, results in efficiency without a soul, and an organization at risk of being outpaced by competitors who successfully add soul (meaning). If you desire to be customer centric, you have to keep your eyes on the horizon (why, ‘dream’, soul, strong, shared sense of purpose), and at the same time the bottom-line. The ‘trick’ is to combine the two.

With a customer centricity governance framework comes visibility, and accountability, which is why it’s often one of the hardest nuts to crack. It also comes with excellent business analyses capabilities, and, obviously, dependable data sources and a good data warehouse. But you will need it, and once it starts to work, you will see the enthusiasm growing, and become more and more contagious.

People working in operations must be able to see the bigger picture. They must be empowered to connect what they do on a daily basis with the results of the company. Awareness of their (value) contribution to and role in the bigger picture affects people their ability to not only do things right, but also the right things (value in the customer’s perception). People need to learn and grow to do what’s right for the business ánd the customers they serve.

A customer centricity governance framework is a challenging project, and process that will take time to build, and to learn to work with. But it’s the piece of the puzzle where everything comes together, so it’s worth all the effort you undoubtedly will have to put in.

In the end, Customer centricity can only be successful when it’s adopted by each and every department, discipline, and person in your organization.