The article emphasizes the importance of establishing a customer-centric culture in organizations as a necessity for meeting the growing demands and expectations of customers. It outlines four core dimensions—collective focus, external orientation, change & innovation, and shared beliefs—that are crucial for creating this culture, advocating for employee training and feedback as essential practices. The document stresses that a deep understanding of customer needs and behaviors is vital for driving profitable growth and successful customer-centric design.

1. 7/10/2021 How Do We Create a Customer-centric Culture? | by Mark Bridges | Jun, 2021 | Medium
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How Do We Create a Customer-centric Culture?
Mark Bridges Jun 23 · 6 min read
Note: This article originally published by my colleague David Tang.
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It’s the Age of the Customer. In this day and age, becoming a Customer-centric
Organization is no longer just a differentiator–it is a necessity.
Customers are now more demanding. Their expectations are higher. In fact, they expect
companies to anticipate their needs.
To truly become a Customer-centric Organization, we must adopt a Customer-centric
Culture. Research has shown that a Customer-centric Culture can drive superior
financial results.
So, what characterizes a Customer-centric Culture? Let’s begin by taking a look at the
Corporate Culture Framework.
We see this Culture framework defines 4 core indices and 4 differentiating indices:

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1. Collective Focus — emphasis on collaboration, teaming, and cooperation in
operations.
2. Risk & Governance — focus on compliance, quality, and structure in operations.
3. External Orientation — oriented towards customers and external environment.
4. Change & Innovation — open to ambiguity, change, and risk to drive expansion
and innovation.
5. Courage — employees exhibit courage and resilience when confronting adversity,
ethical dilemmas, failures, or opposition.
6. Commitments — employees feel a sense of pride and ownership in the
organization.
7. Inclusion — accepts and promotes diversity, uniqueness, and authenticity.
8. Shared beliefs — employees demonstrate commitment to organization-specific core
values/beliefs.
Core indices are foundational to Organizational Culture, whereas differentiating indices
drive differentiated performance. Developing a more Customer-centric Culture requires
full understanding and integration of core and differentiating indices. However, there is
an emphasis on just 4 of these dimensions:
1. Collective Focus
2. External Orientation
3. Change & Innovation
4. Shared Beliefs
Let’s dig a little deeper.
1. Collective Focus
Understandably, organizations that provide exceptional Customer Experience have
strong collective focus. Collective focus means everyone in the organization is united in
their understanding of their roles in delivering our Customer Value Proposition.

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Employees must internalize and appreciate this shared vision on what it means to
deliver a great Customer Service.
To achieve this, significant resources must be devoted to communicating the Customer
Value Proposition. Specifically, we must also conduct extensive employee training and
coaching to ensure that company’s vision and value proposition are systematically
represented in our service offerings and products.
Here are a several best practices related to enhancing our collective focus:
Provide customer feedback in real time to all employees.
Invest heavily in employee training and development to reinforce the company’s
vision for serving customers.
Listen to employee input to identify ways to improve the Customer Experience.
Link employee and customer feedback systems so that employees can add important
context.
2. External Orientation
Customer-centric companies that have strong external orientation are squarely focused
on customers, competitors, and results. Employees must take an outside-in perspective,
seeing themselves as customers see them.
3. Change and Innovation
Customer-centric companies place a premium on Change and Innovation.
By the way, we have Streams dedicated to each of these 2 areas:
Change Management Stream
Innovation Management Stream
We also have 2 Streams related to this central themes of this article:
Customer-centric Design (CCD) Stream
Organizational Culture (OC) Stream

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Streams represent our most comprehensive offerings. Each Stream represents a bundle
of best practice frameworks related to a specific management topic. We currently only
have 14 Streams available.
An organization with a Customer-centric Culture has corporate belief system in place
that values failing fast and learning quickly. The notion that mistakes are learning
opportunities is embedded in the organization.
Customer needs and expectations are changing rapidly. Thus, we must innovate
continuously to respond to these changes.
4. Shared Beliefs
In a Customer-centric Culture, employees find fulfillment in sharing the belief that
servicing customers well is the priority.
Processes are created to reinforce customer-centric values and make them relevant to
new employees.
Interested in gaining a better understanding of these cultural dimensions that drive
customer-centricity? Take a look at our framework on Customer-centric Culture.
Want to Achieve Excellence in Customer-centric Design (CCD)?
Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Customer-centric
Design (CCD). Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading
consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full
details.
In the modern Digital Age, advances in technology and communication, combined with
the explosive growth in data information, have given rise to a more empowered global
customer. Recent economic and political events highlight the need for organizations to
understand how consumers view the world and the most important attributes for their
purchasing decisions.
Thus, increasingly more organizations are seeking to invest and focus on Customer-
centric Design. A clear understanding of customer needs and behaviors across the
organization will help drive profitable growth strategies and provide the confidence to
invest in opportunities at a time when staying within budget can be extremely difficult.

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Learn about our Customer-centric Design (CCD) Best Practice Frameworks here.
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