Winning and retaining customers presents a significant challenge to business leaders and customer facing individuals. It involves the deployment of policies, measures and communication that are aimed at satisfying customers. Developing and cultivating positive relationships is essential when customer focus is part of the overall business strategy.

To improve Customer Focus, our assessment enables the senior management team to set aspirational goals and determine the current status of the process. The Customer Focus component contains 6 sub-components which, when examined in detail, reveal the current condition of the Customer Focus process and the benefits of achieving your aspirational goals. The Customer Focus component of the assessment helps you achieve performance through best practice. The result is a detailed action plan which will improve all aspects of Customer Focus in the business. Here are the 6 sub-components of Customer Focus:

Establishing the customers’ requirements and communicating them throughout the organisation will align internal performance standards with their needs. Standards are set and monitored to demonstrate how effectively each department is contributing to satisfying the customer. Customer requirements should be reviewed frequently to ensure ongoing alignment.

New products and services are developed to ensure that the needs of the customer, both short and long-term, are understood and satisfied by the business. Whether a collaborative development in supplying new products, substitutes for existing products or a competitive tender, this is a strategy for winning new and retaining existing customers.

Satisfying the customer and creating a positive perception of the company is paramount and has to be planned and monitored. To maintain and improve performance, a process for data capture, analysis and reporting is required. The overall performance is regularly reviewed by the business leaders and improvement actions identified and implemented.

Culture can be best understood as “the way we do things around here”. An organisation’s culture will influence human behaviour and performance at work. Creating a culture focused on delivering customer satisfaction as an aspiration of the business involves the values, behaviours and commitment of its leaders.

Customer complaints are an immediate source of customer dissatisfaction. This can be mitigated if the response achieves a return to a desired supply situation in a quick and professional manner. The best companies deal with the concern immediately and accurately, containing the issue internally, finding the root cause and implementing an improvement action whilst communicating with the customer to ensure confidence in the process and a satisfactory resolution.