5STEPS GUIDE TO BUILDING a
customer-centric company

WHAT DOES customer-centric mean? according
to the business dictionnary «Creating a positive customer experience at the point of sale and post sale. A customer centric approach can add value to a company by enabling it to differentiate itself from competitors who do not offer the same experience»

IN PRACTICE it looks a
bit like that customer service YOUR CUSTOMERS product development marketing corporate culture sales

BASICALLY, everything your company does
is done with your customers’ best interests in mind Click here to read our full definition of customer centricity!

ARE YOU READY to become
wonderfully customer-centric? HECK YES! Click here to get a surprise (if you don’t like surprises, just go on to the next slide)

1DEFINE A COMPANY CULTURE that
customers will love

FIND VALUES customers can identify
with Airbnb recently fully rethought their identity and marketing strategy. While doing that they looked at how people where using their service. It wasn’t just about cheap accomodation. It was about living like a local for few days and eventually feeling like home. Hence their «Belong anywhere» sloggan.

TELL your personal story Ben
& Jerry are really attached to their brand’s history. They created it from scratch, starting with a 5 cents course on ice-cream making and a renovated gas station. Today, they continue to observe traditions born at the beginning like the Free Cone Day born 1 year after the opening of their first store as a celebration

HAVE some fun Think Geek
employees are all emerged in the geek culture they sell. They have toys produced by the company around the office, they often dress up as their favorite characters. To make sure everyone fits in the company even lets customers ask interview questions to future employees like «Who’s your favorite Ninja Turtle?»

Your company culture checklist 1.
Find values customers will love Have a brainstorming session with employees Ask customers why they chose your company, what makes you different Mix employees and customers’ values together Hang your values on the wall, communicate them to every new employee 2. Tell your personal story Write down the story of how and why your company was founded Communicate this story on your website and social media Make sure your employees know this story

3. Have some fun Have
some office and out of office fun with employees Post behind the scene photos on social media (Facebook’s great for that) Add a dose of fun in your copy-writing, marketing, design Define your brand’s voice and train employees to use it (Define standard fun greetings, set up the tone you want to use in all communications) DOWNLOAD THIS CHECKLIST

2EMPOWER
EMPLOYEES
to help
customers

DON ’T use scripts A
truly amazing chat transcript from Netflix generated quite a lot of buzz in the customer service community. The rep introduced himself as Captain Mike of the Good Ship Netflix, leading the way for one of the funniest customer service conversation I’ve ever read. And yes, you got it, this could never happen with scripts!

TRAIN EMPLOYEES to get creative
Whole Foods relies on excellent customer service and employees have to come up with creative ideas to delight customers. For example, a customer was once looking for whipped cream and couldn’t find it. They were simply out of the product. But instead of just apologizing, a clerk decided to make homemade whipped cream for the customer.

MESURE what matters to customers
Instead of tracking average handling time or upselling rates Zappos evaluate their customer service employees on their ability to make a Personal Emotional Connection. They are encouraged to ask about a dog if they hear one barking on the background or talk about holiday plans and so on...

Your employee empowerment checklist 1.
Don’t use scripts Define guidelines that allow employees to talk naturally Ask employees how they think they could get better at helping customers Assign a senior / mentor employee to all newcomers Run short regular training sessions partly created by employees 2. Train employees to get creative Publicly acknowledge good ideas and initiatives Set clear rules for what employees can and can’t do

Run regular customer service brainstorming
sessions with both customer service employees and people from other departments 3. Mesure what matters to customers Try new ways to ask customers for feedback (email, phone call, on website) Don’t limit feedback to a 1 to 5 rating system Try defining 1 new evaluation metric that really affects customer satisfaction Monitor average handling time but don’t judge employees on it DOWNLOAD THIS CHECKLIST

3DESIGN YOUR PRODUCT for and
with customers

GATHER product ideas from customers
The ecommerce software brand created a Reddit like forum to gather customers ideas and suggestions and let them vote on the best ones. Winning suggestions are then quickly implemented as new features that customers already love!

INVEST IN a good user
experience Twosocks.com has done an awesome job on their website’s design and UX. Customers can for example click a «PLAY» button to randomly display 3 items like you’d have on a cash machine. Or they can search items by personality (including geek, megalo maniac, indecisive...)

DESIGN for emotions Mailchimp, not
only provides a super easy to use emailing tool, but also engages its users in a very original and fun way. You get a highfive after sending a campaign or have to push a red button to validate the sending. You can also make your own little paper Freddie (their mascott) .

Your product design checklist 1.
Gather product ideas from customers Don’t simply ask for feedback, ask for what would make your product better Create a community where customers can share ideas Monitor what users are saying about you and your competitors Get customer insights from your sales and customer service teams 2. Invest in a good user experience Make your website as simple to browse as possible Use heatmaps to see where your visitors are clicking

Make it easy for customers
to share your products with friends Build a 3 steps check out process (items, client infos, payment) 3. Design for emotions Write down funny call to actions Create a sense of emergency (only 1 left in stock, order now to get 20% off) Use a person or mascott to represent your brand Insert rewards after customers accomplished an action (points, highfive...) DOWNLOAD THIS CHECKLIST

4CREATE CONTENT that’s useful to
your customers

PUBLISH useful case studies The
Inbound Marketing Software regularly publishes case studies of how their customers use Hubspot. What they do really well is that they allow you to browse case studies by size of the company or industry. It makes it easier to find people you can relate to

INVITE guest bloggers to post
Buffer always had an amazing blog with highly data oriented content. They opened it to guest posting recently and it’s been an even greater pleasure to read it. They managed to get guest posts that comply with their overall content strategy and perfectly match their own content.

MAKE IT visual and easy
to process Kissmetrics based a large part of their content marketing strategy on creating high quality infographics. They make it easy for their professional clients to quickly browse data and share it with their team and contacts.

Your content creation checklist 1.
Publish useful case studies Let customers know you are publishing case studies on your blog Make it easy for them to get involved (create a survey, call them...) Advertise case studies in guest posts for other blogs / websites 2. Invite guest bloggers to post Monitor other blogs in your industry to see who’s guest posting there Personally contact potential guests with an idea of article Advertise guest blogging opportunities on your blog and social media

3. Make it visual and
easy to process Publish infographics and recycle them as Slides, Pinterest boards... Insert visual data inside your articles to make them easy to scan Add pictures to your tweets and Facebook posts DOWNLOAD THIS CHECKLIST

5ENCOURAGE
DIALOGUE
with your
customers

INVITE THEM TO reply to
your automated emails Unbounce sends pretty amazing emails to their clients. What’s amazing about them is that they don’t come from a no-follow address. On the contrary, they invite users to answer, ask questions, talk about their own issues. An excellent way to gather feedback and show customers you care.

BE SOCIAL on social media
I remember tweeting about a presentation from Zendesk on Slideshare. The slides were great but what really got me is that they replied to my tweet the next day with a question about the presentation. Way better than a simple thank you, they actually pushed me to interact with them.

BE EA SY to reach
with live chat As a live chat provider, we’ve been using live chat on our website since the beginning and it’s been an interesting ride. It’s a great way to get to talk to people who are just browsing and want a little more information quickly before they make their decision.

Your customer dialogue checklist 1.
Invite them to reply to your automated emails Use a do-follow email address Ask a question at the end of your newsletter or automated emails Sign emails with your real name and direct email address 2. Be social on social media Thank people who share your content Ask them about their thoughts and opinion on the content they shared Share content from your customers

3. Be easy to reach
with live chat Answer all the questions you get (even if they are not related to you) Use proactive invite to show customers you’re there Follow-up after chat conversations DOWNLOAD THIS CHECKLIST

ABOUT CUSTOMERICARE a simple live
video chat plugin to show customers you care FIND OUT MORE x

THANK YOU! connect with us
on social media and at http://customericare.com