Imitate and innovate: How manufacturers can become customer-centric

Lines have blurred completely in the digital era. Where there were once separate industries with distinct best practices, there are now hybrid businesses with intelligent processes borrowed straight from other industries. Look no further than customer centric manufacturing.

Startups straddle the line between manufacturer and fulfiller. Even long-standing manufacturing leaders have found success embracing as-a-service models and unprecedented levels of personalization.

Amid this industry disruption, one thing remains clear: customers want to be the center of your business. To put them there, manufacturers are changing the way they work and adopting new strategies and technologies from other industries.

Here’s what they’re doing:

1. Putting a B2C touch on e-commerce
2. Providing personalized customer experiences
3. Using data insights for better CX

The customer experience in manufacturing: Taking cues from utilities

Manufacturers can improve CX taking lessons from utility companies, which have leveraged innovative technologies to meet customer needs.

Customer-centric manufacturing: Meet customers where they are

Innovative retail businesses have long excelled at providing stellar customer experiences, and many reinvented themselves to meet the quickly changing needs of customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Practically overnight, customers demanded immediate online access to a store’s products, convenient new shipping and pickup options, and around-the-clock customer service support. The businesses that delivered during this time lived to tell the tale, and smart manufacturers are taking notice.

You can borrow customer-centric processes without simply copying them. Begin by thinking about why your customers come to you, what they want, and how you can support them.

For many manufacturers, e-commerce is the most sensible next step along the journey to customer centricity. They’re launching or enhancing their business-to-consumer-like e-commerce sites to meet the expectations of customers who’ve grown used to ordering from the convenient, easy-to-navigate, and personalized e-commerce sites they enjoy in their everyday lives.

The e-commerce imperative is just as important for customer-centric manufacturing, whether working with dealers, procurement managers, or business-to-business users.

Manufacturers and customer-centric design: Taking a page from retail

For many shoppers, the weekly grocery shopping trip was completely revolutionized in 2020. Forward-thinking grocers responded to overnight shifts in shoppers’ demands and helped their customers form new habits with e-commerce. These habits are completely dependent on grocers’ new e-commerce options, such as mobile apps that offer at-home delivery and in-store pickup.

Grocers used the disruption of the past year as a springboard for innovation, providing new channels for shopping – and new avenues for revenue.

Today, when customers come to you, they bring their expectations and experiences from retail and other industries that have reinvented themselves to meet their customers’ needs.

Think of it this way: You want your groceries delivered to your home, but your preferred grocer doesn’t offer e-commerce. Are you going to head to the store? Or are you going to find a different grocer with online shopping options? Your customers are asking themselves similar questions about your business and going elsewhere when you can’t meet their needs.

Consumer behavior is changing drastically: See the e-commerce data

COVID-19 e-commerce data shows that one thing about the future is certain: online buying is here to stay. Read the results of our e-commerce study for 2020.

Data fuels customer-centric manufacturing

When you open the door to customer-centric design, you gain the ability to revolutionize how you interact with your customers – not just how you sell to them.

For many retail customers, customer service is inextricable from e-commerce. That’s because help is often so easily accessed right on the retailer’s website. Retailers have learned that great experiences save customers time and businesses money.

Customer data management strategy: 7 keys to growth, CX, loyalty

Brands need to adopt these 7 key principles around customer data management to help define their overall data strategy and goals.

When a retailer recognizes its customers – either when they walk into a store or enter the website – those customers don’t have to waste time providing details on their recent order. Instead, they can jump right into the problem, because customer service representatives already have immediate access to their customer profiles.

With quick insight into customers’ purchase histories and past service tickets, your reps can find resolutions faster and serve even more customers. And they should have this insight whether your customer buys products directly from you or from a dealer.

Customers value the personal touch  

Are you treating everyone subscribed to your mailing list as though they’re potential first-time customers? When you bombard longtime customers with products and offerings that they can’t use, they’ll eventually stop paying attention to the e-mails you send and ads you buy.

If you can’t take the time to remember who your customers are, they won’t take the time to engage with you.

Chances are you already know what your customers have bought, including when and where they bought it. You just need to make that data readily available to the right internal stakeholders so you can begin building upon your existing relationships with customers rather than treating every interaction as if it’s your first.

Manufacturers that leverage technology to make the most of their data and business processes provide the relevant, engaging customer experiences that drive long-term growth.