Every manager, entrepreneur, and business owner wants the customer experience to be a priority of their employees and the service they provide consumers.
However, this is more of an expectation than an actual belief system due to many businesses’ lacking company culture. Company culture is what defines the environment in which employees work.
It provides employees information about their company’s mission, value, ethics, expectations, and goals. Giving them a better sense of the company they work for, as well as, a clear understanding on how to properly do their jobs.
The more employees know about job expectations and performance, the better they are at conducting business and connecting with customers.
“If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.”
— Howard Schultz —
Thus, not having a company culture negatively impacts the employee and customer morale, as well as, affect the company’s retention rate. It also causes many marketing efforts to become ineffective and ultimately hurting the CLV or Customer Lifetime Value.
The CLV is a forecast of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer. Simply put, the shorter a customer relationship is with the company; the more impact it will have on decreasing its profits, which is what all businesses try to avoid.
It costs 7x more to obtain a new customer than to keep an existing one.
(Source: Invespcro)
Each company must create a working environment that encourages employees to build trust and loyalty with each customer, which is what a customer-centric company culture does.
A Customer-Centric Company Culture
A customer-centric company makes every part of their business revolve around their customers, creating a culture that puts the customer first. From their marketing strategies, designs, to the company’s vision and overall mission, consumers are at the forefront.
Their focus is to provide positive customer experiences before, during, and after the sale. It is more than a company that simply offers “good service”. The goals of implementing this type of culture includes, creating repeat business, customer loyalty, and increased profits.
Personal Branding Supports A Customer-Centric Company Culture
Personal branding provides employees the opportunity to market themselves and to properly connect with targeted audiences. It also permits employees to provide relevant, engaging content and to fulfill the customer need of having a more one-on-one experience while shopping.
Today’s customers, have the ability to research about potential salespeople to gain a better understanding of the person with whom they choose to buy from, and those with a personal brand, have a competitive advantage. Employees with a personal brand create meaningful customer relationships. They are able to connect with consumers on a human-to-human level, which builds trust and loyalty.
Customer-centric company culture and personal branding go hand-in-hand. Look at it this way, a customer-centric company culture thinks of their customer base as their greatest long-term investment. Employee personal branding is the method used to gain and retain significant customer relationships.
“Revolve your world around the customer and more customers will revolve around you.”
— Heather Williams —
Personal branding supports a customer-centric company culture, and both need to be properly developed, embraced, and delivered throughout the company. A company whose culture is customer centric and encourages personal branding, empowers employees to target the right customer with the right message, at the right time.
Making employees engaged with the company they work for and the customers they serve. It cannot be said enough, happy employees make happy customers.
Creating an environment that encourages employees to be customer experience advocates is what ignites the passion and drive to provide every customer with a positive and highly memorable buying experience. Personal branding mixed with a customer-centric company culture is a winning combination.
Each supports the other and equips employees with the know-how to produce quality service to the businesses’ most important people, the customers.