Why Customer Obsession Is Important

Customer obsession requires shifting mindsets, pivoting work tasks, recalibrating performance, and finding funding — all of which can be challenging and costly. But the price you pay when you are not customer-led, insights-driven, fast, and connected could be far greater. When you choose to stand still, you:

• Lose customer goodwill. This is easy to see in something like the high volumes of marketing emails that people get daily. Customers expect personal, intimate communication, yet marketers blast out multiple emails a day without any sensitivity to who the recipient is or how or why they got on the receiving end of the outreach. When disconnects like this happen, customers lose trust in the brand. Lost trust is hard to restore and leads to declining retention, increased acquisition costs, limited upsell potential, and loss of brand equity.
• Face regulatory fines. There are real financial penalties associated with handling customer data poorly and targeting individuals based on sensitive social, demographic, or economic indicators.
• Suffer waste. The COVID-19 years showed that companies with sluggish processes that don’t have a dynamic pulse on customer information can’t flex to changing market conditions. This costs budget and time. Norwegian Cruise Line, for example, almost went bankrupt due to the challenges of the pandemic.

Companies who understand why customer obsession is important realize a whole-scale shift in their strategy and operations. True customer obsession should:

• Guide business strategy. A customer obsession roadmap should include a vision, diligence around how day-to-day work changes, employee training, and investment in culture. It will require a deep dive into your company’s processes, culture, people, metrics, structure, and technology strategy.
• Perpetuate a way of working. Those that ask, “How long does it take to become customer obsessed?” don’t understand that customer obsession is not an assignment to tackle and then cross off. Rather, it institutes a mindset and way of working that uses customer consideration to improve product, brand, and process.
• Transform leadership, strategy, and operations. Critical changes to a firm’s work tasks won’t stick without good leaders who motivate their teams toward clear, customer-centric visions.

• Amplify business performance. Customer obsession doesn’t replace sound business fundamentals like functional products, accessible channels, or a way to make money. Nor is it a singular growth driver. Of course, product innovation, brand heft, sales incentives, and a global pandemic can also impact business success. Customer obsession augments any growth model by maximizing its relevance to what customers value.