Connecting CX and EX for true customer centricity
To succeed in a hyper-competitive digital landscape, companies need to connect CX and EX to provide a complete customer-focused experience.
In a world where marketing buzzwords quickly turn cold, “customer centricity” has gone from hot to hotter.
First coined in the 1960s, the concept is now viewed as critical for post-pandemic business success. In fact, a survey conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of KPMG found that 72% of the respondents said customer centricity had become a higher priority since COVID-19.
What’s driving this trend? It turns out the digital economy, which grew fast during the pandemic, added a new twist to an old adage.
Yes, customers are always right… and now they’re in complete control of their relationships with brands. This twist adds significant complexity for businesses looking to differentiate based on the experiences they offer.
Let’s look at the challenges surrounding customer centricity, how enterprises tried to achieve it in the past, and why technology like new customer data platforms (CDPs) are ideally suited to help accelerate this shift.
What is customer centricity?
Customer centricity is defined as the act of putting customers at the heart of everything an organization does. This requires a deep understanding of customer expectations and perceptions, as well as aligning across all facets of the business, including – but not limited to – operations, product, marketing, service, and sales in order to be truly customer-centric.
It’s easy to say an organization should make customers their north star. Yet the reality is many are still product and service-focused.
Customer centricity goes beyond simply recognizing customer needs; it’s about embedding their perspectives at the heart of a company’s purpose. This shift influences every step of the customer journey. Businesses must transition from a purely sales-driven mindset to building long-term, trust-based relationships that deliver understanding and value at each touchpoint. By prioritizing personalized experiences, companies can make a lasting impact.
Today’s customer-centric enterprises invest in deeply understanding what each customer values, how they behave, and what they expect. Leveraging data insights and feedback enables businesses to anticipate needs and personalize interactions, creating seamless experiences that inspire loyalty. To execute a truly customer-focused strategy, every department—from marketing and sales to customer service and product development—needs to work in unison, aligning efforts to ensure customers feel understood and valued at every stage.
An enterprise has a lot to consider if it wants to achieve this. There’s an explosion of data and touchpoints to manage. The consumer privacy landscape grows tougher by the day. And companies need a solution for surfacing accurate and trusted data in real time so they can move at the speed of their customers.
Dan Tranter, VP of North American sales for SAP Customer Data Solutions, summed up the challenge by asking: “As a business owner or executive, how can you understand what the customer is doing at any given point? And how can you understand what the next best action would be to drive a better relationship?”
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How customer centricity differs from traditional business models
The concept of customer centricity may not be new, but the digital age has transformed how businesses cultivate customer relationships. Traditionally, loyalty grew from positive, personal experiences within local communities or through word-of-mouth recommendations.
In today’s competitive landscape, however, brands vie for attention across multiple online platforms, making a proactive, strategic approach essential. To build loyalty, companies must navigate an array of channels and preferences to deliver personalized experiences that resonate with each customer.
This shift towards customer focus reflects a powerful reality: today’s consumers are more informed, connected, and discerning than ever. They demand tailored experiences and have little patience for subpar service.
Businesses that thrive in this environment recognize that customer centricity is no longer optional; it’s fundamental for sustainable growth and competitive edge.
In contrast to traditional, product-centric models, which prioritized product improvements and competitive pricing, today’s successful businesses focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences to foster lasting relationships.
This customer-first approach requires a deep understanding of what customers want and why they want it. Instead of prioritizing quick sales, customer-centric businesses look at the entire customer journey—from the first point of contact to post-purchase support.
By embedding customer needs into every stage of the journey, businesses can cultivate a loyal customer base that drives lifetime value, amplifies positive word-of-mouth, and strengthens brand reputation in the marketplace.
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Why customer centricity is essential for modern business success
Putting customers first is no longer a mere business slogan; it’s a strategic shift that companies need to embrace to stay relevant. Loyalty, growth, and resilience all come down to how well a business understands and responds to what customers really want. Companies that overlook this shift risk falling behind, as today’s customers have countless options at their fingertips.
With so much choice, people are naturally drawn to brands that genuinely “get” them, where they feel their needs are understood and valued. Focusing on customers at every step isn’t just a differentiator—it’s a foundation for stronger relationships and lasting success.
Enhancing customer loyalty through customer centric approaches
Customer loyalty is a critical asset for any organization, bringing repeat business, lowering acquisition costs, and driving positive brand advocacy. By embracing a customer-centric approach, companies can nurture loyalty that extends beyond transactions to create lasting emotional connections.
For instance, personalized recommendations, attentive customer support, and tailored loyalty programs each play a role in showing customers they are valued. These efforts create memorable experiences that encourage customers to return, even in a crowded market.
Metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) offer valuable insights into customer loyalty levels. A high NPS reflects customers’ readiness to recommend your brand, underscoring the positive impact of a customer-first strategy on brand perception.
The impact of customer centricity on business sustainability
Building a sustainable business requires a commitment beyond short-term profits. A focus on customer loyalty and retention serves as a cornerstone for long-term resilience and growth.
Customer-centric companies recognize that satisfied customers are likely to return, creating a steady revenue stream that reduces the reliance on constant customer acquisition. By valuing ongoing relationships over quick sales, these companies differentiate themselves and build a foundation for enduring success.
Delivering positive experiences at each stage of the customer journey helps improve long-term profitability, reduce churn, increase customer lifetime value, and generate word-of-mouth referrals. This robust approach not only fosters steady growth but also equips businesses to adapt more effectively to market changes.
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The pillars of a customer-centric business strategy
Building a business around customer needs requires more than just attention to satisfaction—it demands a deep transformation in mindset, values, and operations. Achieving true customer centricity means embedding customer-focused actions across every aspect of the business, ensuring a seamless and valuable experience at every interaction.
A key enabler of this transformation is technology. A comprehensive Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system work in tandem to unify and centralize customer insights, turning raw data into actionable intelligence. Unlike CRMs or traditional data solutions, which can take time and resources to make data actionable, CDPs provide real-time, omni-channel engagement by continuously updating comprehensive customer profiles that enable quick and responsive interactions. This centralized, data-driven approach empowers businesses to deliver hyper-personalized, consistent interactions that build lasting connections.
Building a culture of customer-centric thinking
Cultivating a customer-centric culture goes beyond the efforts of sales or support teams; it requires that every department—from product development to marketing—prioritize the customer. The foundation of this culture is a commitment from leadership that flows throughout the organization, empowering all employees to make customer satisfaction a shared goal.
A truly customer-focused culture encourages open communication and actively seeks customer feedback. It empowers employees to go beyond standard protocols to resolve issues, fostering an environment where every interaction is grounded in empathy and responsiveness. This cultural shift creates consistency and builds trust, showing customers they are genuinely valued.
Incorporating customer feedback into product development
Integrating customer feedback into product development is essential for aligning offerings with real customer needs and expectations. Many companies make the mistake of building products based on assumptions rather than insights, which can lead to misalignment with customer expectations. A truly customer-focused business actively seeks feedback at each stage, from initial concept to final launch.
In practice, this means involving customers early and often through surveys, polls, and interviews to gather quantitative and qualitative insights. Beta testing programs and social listening tools are also invaluable for spotting trends and emerging needs. This approach ensures that every product iteration reflects what customers really value, ultimately enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.
Leveraging technology to drive consistent, personalized experiences
Today’s customer service technologies provide unprecedented insights into customer behavior, enabling businesses to deliver more personalized and efficient experiences. CRMs and CDPs serve as foundational platforms, centralizing data to enable real-time, omni-channel engagement. Unlike traditional data solutions, these platforms integrate seamlessly across departments—sales, service, e-commerce, and more—delivering context-rich interactions across every touchpoint.
A CDP is particularly powerful in delivering the hyper-personalized, cohesive experiences that are hallmarks of customer centricity. By unifying structured and unstructured data, CDPs allow companies to create comprehensive profiles updated in real time, which feed into engagement systems across the enterprise. This means customers receive a consistent experience, whether interacting with a business on social media, in-store, or through customer support channels.
Moreover, advanced CDPs incorporate machine learning and data privacy governance, turning insights into actionable strategies. Through intelligent segmentation and real-time activation, CDPs ensure that customer interactions are not only relevant but respectful of privacy, meeting both engagement goals and compliance requirements.
A CDP is key to executing this strategy effectively.
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CDP: The path to customer centricity
Customer data challenges have existed for decades, and enterprises have used many solutions to try and address them.
CRM solutions were never designed to be the source of truth that ingests multiple data sources in real time, and then pushes that data out to engagement systems.
Data management platforms specifically address ad-tech use cases. Data warehouses and data lakes store massive amounts of customer data, but retrieving it and making it actionable can take a long time and require help from the IT department.
“None of these [solutions] meet the challenges,” said Ratul Shah, head of product marketing for SAP Customer Data Solutions. “If you’re a business, you don’t have months to understand who I am as a consumer and serve me. It just doesn’t work.”
A CDP is a prebuilt software system that resolves and centralizes customer data to build comprehensive profiles. These profiles enable an organization to uncover deep insights into audiences, segments, and intentions.
A CPD also enables real-time data activation to engagement systems across the enterprise. Following are four ways CDPs can help you fuel the hyper-personalized experiences that are the signature of customer centricity:
- Comprehensive understanding
CDPs can ingest and resolve all relevant customer data to create comprehensive profiles. The profiles are updated in real time. They make up a holistic view of first-party, second-party, third-party, offline, event, and activity data streams along with transactional, behavioral, and experience data. - Deep insights
With machine learning models and intelligent analytics, today’s CDPs can help marketers build dynamic segments and audiences. In addition, CDPs can establish connections to back-office systems such as master data management, ERP, and supply chain systems. This means the insights they provide can inform decisions beyond customer engagement. - Data privacy governance
With GDPR and several regional data protection regulations that have followed in its wake, respecting consumer privacy is more crucial than ever. CDPs can connect enterprise consent and preference management with other data purposes to create a strong data privacy and governance foundation. They can ensure that only data with the required consent and processing purpose gets merged into profiles, and enforce consent, preference, and purpose when it moves data to a target system. This helps address regulatory requirements and bolsters customer trust. - Customer data-driven engagements
Through a CDP, an enterprise can bring together structured and unstructured customer data in real time to define specific audiences. It can then activate relevant data to any engagement system: marketing, sales, service, in-store, or e-commerce. The result is a consistent omni-channel experience instead of a fragmented, irrelevant journey.
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Implementing customer centricity in your business operations
Transforming an organization to be truly customer-centric is a journey that requires time, dedication, and steady effort. It means placing the customer at the center of every business decision, from internal processes to external communications. Start by identifying key points where customers interact with your brand and mapping out the customer journey. This helps reveal potential pain points and opportunities for improvement, ultimately creating a foundation for expanding your customer base.
Maintain an open line of communication with customers. Regularly seek feedback at each touchpoint and demonstrate a genuine willingness to evolve based on their insights. This commitment to improvement helps build trust and strengthens the customer connection.
Strategies for shifting your organization’s mindset
Becoming customer-centric requires more than a vision; it calls for an actionable roadmap. Stating a desire to focus on customers isn’t enough—real, strategic actions must support this shift. Developing a well-defined business strategy that outlines the steps and goals of this transformation is critical.
Effective communication is also essential throughout this journey. Leaders should clearly articulate the vision for a customer-centric culture, explaining the benefits for both customers and employees. Consistent training helps all team members understand their roles in delivering outstanding customer experiences.
Recognizing and rewarding employees who exemplify customer-focused values reinforces the behaviors that contribute to this transformation. By celebrating successes and learning from challenges, companies can cultivate a workplace where customer centricity becomes second nature.
Embedding customer focus across every department
To achieve a true customer-centric culture, the focus on customers must extend beyond customer service to every department. For instance, the sales team should prioritize building long-term relationships over short-term wins, while product development can use direct customer feedback to create offerings that meet real needs.
Marketing teams can harness customer insights to craft messages that resonate deeply with the intended audience, creating campaigns that feel personalized and relevant. This collaborative, cross-functional approach breaks down silos and ensures customers enjoy a cohesive experience, reflecting the organization’s genuine commitment to their needs.
Measuring and refining your customer-centric initiatives
Assessing the effectiveness of customer-focused efforts is essential for continuous improvement. Tracking key metrics like customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and customer retention provides valuable insights into the success of your initiatives.
Consider conducting customer satisfaction surveys after significant interactions, such as purchases or support calls. Analyzing trends in these scores can highlight areas needing attention. Monitoring NPS, in particular, offers a window into customer loyalty and brand advocacy, revealing how willing customers are to recommend your brand.
By consistently gathering and analyzing data, companies can identify strengths and areas for improvement. This data-driven approach ensures that customer-centric strategies evolve in response to changing customer needs and market dynamics.
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Overcoming challenges on the path to customer centricity
Transitioning to a customer-centric organization presents its own set of challenges. Resistance to change, outdated processes, and conflicting departmental priorities can hinder progress. Addressing these obstacles requires strong leadership, clear communication, and adaptability.
Leaders play a crucial role in guiding the company through these changes. They must clearly communicate the goals, foster an open culture, and demonstrate flexibility as needed. By proactively addressing challenges and nurturing a culture of continuous improvement, businesses can navigate the path to becoming genuinely customer-centric.
Breaking down internal barriers to customer centricity
Internal resistance is often one of the first obstacles when shifting to a customer-centric approach. Employees accustomed to traditional methods or hesitant about new systems may need extra support. Effective change management can ease these concerns by emphasizing the benefits of a customer-first mindset.
A clear vision, comprehensive training, and ongoing support help employees embrace this shift. Recognizing early wins and celebrating employees who champion customer-focused values fosters the right behaviors and builds momentum. Addressing technological or structural challenges—like updating legacy systems, simplifying internal workflows, or empowering employees with decision-making authority—further enables a seamless transition.
Staying aligned with evolving customer expectations
Customer expectations are continually shifting, driven by new technologies, social trends, and evolving values. What delighted customers a few years ago might now be the baseline. For businesses aiming to stay customer-focused, agility is essential.
Regularly assessing customer expectations enables businesses to adapt quickly. This includes understanding new communication preferences, making interactions more personalized, and proactively gathering feedback to identify emerging needs. Cultivating a culture of innovation and improvement ensures that companies can respond to and exceed changing expectations, helping them maintain a strong position in a dynamic market.
Ensuring data privacy and security in customer interactions
As businesses leverage customer data to enhance personalization and customer service, data privacy and security become paramount. In an era of heightened awareness around data protection, customers expect companies to handle their information responsibly and transparently.
Implementing robust security measures, obtaining explicit consent for data collection, and clearly explaining how data is used are essential steps for maintaining customer trust. These efforts aren’t merely regulatory obligations—they are foundational to building and preserving strong, trust-based customer relationships.
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The future of the customer-centric enterprise
As technology evolves rapidly, so do customer expectations. For businesses to remain genuinely customer-centric, they must not only respond to current needs but also anticipate future demands. Today, rising customer acquisition costs highlight the urgency of strengthening customer retention and loyalty—a critical focus for the customer-centric enterprise of the future.
According to Sergey Krayniy, head of product for SAP Customer Data Solutions, retention requires a distinct set of customer experience (CX) metrics that recognize the value of each interaction, from pre-sale to post-sale.
“Every interaction becomes equally important, and real-time decision-making is crucial, as is the ability to prevent service escalations,” he notes.
This shift emphasizes the importance of tools like Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), which facilitate seamless, personalized experiences throughout the entire customer journey.
By providing a comprehensive view of each customer’s relationship with the brand, CDPs enable businesses to make timely, contextual decisions, offering personalized engagements across all touchpoints.
“The CDP offers an executive summary of your entire relationship with a customer,” Krayniy explains. “It lets you make a contextual decision and deliver personalization not just in one funnel but at any engagement.”
This technological advantage empowers enterprises to outpace agile digital disruptors, enhance revenue, and take significant steps toward being known as customer-centric leaders.
Predicting trends in customer behavior and preferences
Staying ahead in customer centricity means anticipating how customer expectations will evolve. Advanced data tools like predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning allow companies to look beyond past behavior to uncover patterns and emerging trends that inform future strategies. This proactive approach moves companies from simply reacting to customer needs to strategically shaping experiences based on predictive insights.
By applying these insights, businesses can craft marketing strategies tailored to upcoming customer preferences, design products that align with emerging needs, and even address potential customer service challenges before they arise. This data-driven foresight keeps businesses in sync with changing customer expectations, enhancing their ability to deliver relevant and effective experiences.
Adapting to technological advances to stay ahead
With technology progressing at an unprecedented pace, the opportunities—and challenges—for customer-centric businesses are equally vast. Leveraging advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning can significantly enhance the customer experience. AI-driven chatbots provide quick assistance and personalized recommendations, while machine learning processes vast data sets to reveal trends and predict customer behaviors, enabling more refined and tailored interactions.
Promoting a culture of innovation and investing in tools that support a seamless customer experience empowers businesses to differentiate themselves, build stronger customer relationships, and excel in a competitive landscape. By continually adapting to new technological capabilities, companies can maintain their customer focus and position themselves as leaders in a future where customer centricity remains the key to sustained success.