“Customer centricity” has become one of the most familiar expressions in business. Almost every organisation claims that the customer is at the centre of what it does. Yet many businesses continue to be organised around products, processes, targets and internal convenience. This raises a more fundamental question: What does it really mean to design a business around the customer?

A product-centric organisation starts with what it has. A customer-centric organisation starts with what the customer is trying to solve. This distinction moves the business from product to problem, transaction to relationship, mass offering to personalisation, sales targets to customer lifetime value, and internal convenience to customer convenience.

Companies can become highly efficient at selling products without necessarily becoming better at creating customer value. A transaction may be completed successfully, while the customer still experiences unnecessary effort, uncertainty or friction. The more important question is therefore not simply, “Did we complete the transaction?” but “Did we solve something that mattered to the customer?”

From Functional Silos to Customer Journeys:  Customers do not experience an organisation in the way the organisation experiences itself. Most organisations are structured vertically. Marketing owns one part of the process, sales another, while operations, technology and customer service manage other parts.The customer, however, experiences none of these organisational boundaries. The customer experiences a journey—from awareness and consideration to purchase, onboarding, usage, support, renewal, loyalty and advocacy. Every stage is an opportunity either to create value or to create friction.

Customer centricity........

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