Businesses benefit from putting customers first
April 28, 2020
Enterprise office solutions provider, Y Soft explains why business’ customers should lie at the heart of everything a business does, from its culture to its innovations.
‘The customer is always right’ has long been a mantra for any business with a customer facing role, but in today’s hyper competitive landscape, it’s no longer good enough to have this mantra as part of your ethos – it is something that has to be at the very core of everything you do. This is according to Y Soft Corporation, an enterprise office solutions provider, which believes that a customer first approach is the ultimate key to business success.
“As an organisation, Y Soft originated from the desire to meet customer needs and to help businesses run smarter, so a customer first approach is something that we’ve lived and breathed from day one,” says Ross Penman, Head of Global Delivery Management at Y Soft, who outlines the following key elements for implementing a customer first approach:
Personalise your approach
It’s no secret that a ‘one size fits all’ rarely works but this should apply from the point of concept, all the way through to delivery to the customer. Ensure that you design your products with the customer in mind – when innovating, make sure you’ve gathered feedback from your current customers in order to only build products or services that fulfil a need, and make this flexible so that each customer can have a personalised product. Similarly, not taking a rigid approach to the selling process and enabling customers to only pay for what they need ensures a customer first approach. This guarantees that both budget and requirement expectations are achieved.
Implement a customer culture
Putting the customer first should be built into every element of your processes so that it moves beyond your strategy and becomes your culture. Strive to identify what your customers want and do all that you can to fulfil these needs, and wants and to address their pain points. You should also have an open dialogue with your customers and create an environment in which they can openly feedback. To do this you need to adopt the same language as your customers. It’s imperative to recognise that some customers have differing terminology to roles, processes, teams and functions, that’s why it’s important to support, adapt and educate them so not to confuse them. Improvements can always be made and it’s key to not only have good relationships but also to remain in touch with what customers need as this will undoubtedly adapt over time.
Offer free trials
While offering free trials won’t be possible for every organisation, it’s something that can be incredibly important for both parties. Not only should the customer have an opportunity to try before they buy, but executing a free trial enables you to understand where you can make adjudgments to the product to better suit the customer.
Align your SLAs and support with the customer needs
Design your service level agreements (SLAs) in line with customer budget and requirements, and continuously monitor this. These should be frequently revisited and reviewed to ensure customer needs are being met and this also protects the customer’s investment.
Ross concludes: “When taking a customer first approach, every aspect of your processes and solutions should be centred around this philosophy. Every element of what you do; from the very first meeting, to no-obligation trials, flexible and transparent contracts, deployment strategy and customer focused SLA offerings, should balance the needs, wants and concerns of your customers. Taking this approach provides a competitive advantage and ensures your customers stay loyal for years to come.”
Categories : World Focus
Tags : Business Customers First Y Soft
