customer centricity case study

Case study: Building a customer-centric B2B organization

Customer experience (CX) is an increasingly important strategic topic in the boardrooms of B2B companies in China and throughout the world. Despite the rapid development of the previous decades, the “growth first” principle of Chinese enterprises sometimes implies customer experience can be sacrificed. But CX leaders, globally and within China, drive higher growth, lower cost, and superior customer satisfaction. In times of crisis, they achieve three-times-higher shareholder returns 1 Total return to shareholders tracked for publicly traded companies in the top 10 or bottom 10 of Forrester’s Customer Experience Performance Index in 2007–09. than laggards.

Start with a vision

A successful transformation starts from the top. Cases within and outside China confirm that the CEO must be in charge to continuously push and unify the organization.

The Chinese steel industry has taken an upturn amid the country’s overcapacity-reduction program, and companies have been enjoying robust price and volume increases. In this article, we consider one Chinese steel manufacturer whose CEO set a clear vision to build a customer-centric organization in order to gain a competitive edge and to keep the organization healthy through future downturns. The company took a series of steps to systematically and holistically shift the entire organization toward customer-centricity.

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Identify the challenges.

Comprehensive diagnostics revealed that the company faced a series of challenges. In fact, interviews with some customers were alarming: the customer voice, though central to the CEO’s vision, had no conduit within the organization and was never heard by decision makers. One key account was lost well before corporate management heard its complaints. Analysis of the research revealed several serious shortfalls in customer-centricity:

Limited understanding of customers.

The company had not systemically mapped the diverse stakeholders behind each customer, relying instead in most cases on buy-side procurement managers and their associates as the only source of customer feedback. Company representatives rarely knew or approached other customer-decision influencers or the users behind procurement, thereby losing many potential customer insights. The company also lacked access to end customers further down the value chain.

Few channels for customer feedback.

As is true at many B2B organizations, sales was the major channel through which the company gathered customer feedback. But manual relays of messages could take a long time to reach managers, assuming they were not forgotten along the way. To make matters worse, sales representatives sometimes neglected to report feedback, fearing they would be punished if headquarters learned that their customers were unhappy.

Limited analysis of feedback for insights.

What customer feedback and CX data existed within the organization was not centrally managed and synthesized into easy-to-access reports to give top management the full picture. Other stakeholders also found it challenging to access the aggregated customer feedback related to their own roles.

Customer problems not addressed.

Many customers complained that issues they had reported many times had not been dealt with, and the same problems continued to persist.

Transform to a CX-centric organization through a holistic ‘diagnose, design, deliver’ process

A holistic transformation was crafted to move the company toward the CEO’s vision, knowing that no single silver bullet could address all challenges at the same time. The transformation plan consisted of multiple modules based on a “diagnose, design, deliver” process, which takes two to three years to implement fully (Exhibit 1).

The company proceeded through the process in three phases:

Phase 1: Diagnose

The first step was to map the customers and identify stakeholders beyond buy-side procurement. To achieve this, customers were divided into segments based on similar stakeholder dynamics and customer journeys. Then the segments were prioritized based on their value and strategic importance.

Phase 2: Design

After the journey diagnostics, the company built a structured “question library” based on the journey breakdown, with customized questionnaires and feedback forms for different stakeholders. This enabled the company to collect feedback and experience data, and perform a consistent longitudinal analysis across feedback channels. Using these designs, the company was able to systematically analyze experience data, dig into root causes, and identify improvement areas.

Phase 3: Deliver

An IT backbone had to be built to implement all the designs discussed in the previous paragraphs. To achieve this, the company broke down the system design into several modules and assessed how each one should be tackled. Among the three possible development options, “customized third-party solution, locally deployed” was chosen as the best option based on five evaluation criteria: feasibility, customization, data security, timeline, and price.

Survey: Chinese B2B decision maker response to COVID-19 crisis

Key learnings: prioritize segments, and collect feedback on multiple channels.

The company eventually prioritized three segments: (1) section-steel and steel-sheet-piling dealers, (2) section-steel manufacturers, and (3) steel-sheet-piling leasing companies, with the biggest customer in each category selected for deeper analysis. In analyzing the different customers, the company discovered a pattern: three journeys—scheduling inquiry, transport and delivery, and quality discrepancy—were deemed crucial by all customers.

A new, multichannel system was designed to address the company’s various challenges in collecting customer feedback. While customers can still share feedback directly with sales reps, the system incorporates new channels, including periodic on-site interviews and feedback sessions conducted by marketing personnel or the CX team, surveys on mobile devices, and a WeChat portal where customers can submit feedback whenever they want.

This system also allows the company to reach out to previously inaccessible or remote customers, who can simply scan product QR codes to submit feedback on features and quality, or even solicit technical support. A dashboard was designed to create CX transparency across the organization, allowing different stakeholders to analyze the data and generate insights. The multichannel-backed (PC and mobile) dashboard can make customer feedback and experience data visible for stakeholders from different divisions, so they can easily analyze data and generate insights.

Manage the change to maintain success

McKinsey research indicates that 70 percent of change programs fail, mostly because of human factors. Design-phase initiatives don’t stick without procedures for proper change management. McKinsey has a useful framework for change management (Exhibit 2), from which the steel manufacturer adopted key elements.

Real impact to the bottom line

To date, the company has already generated an estimated 4 percent increase in gross profit, or an 8 percent increase in pre-interest and pretax profit—a number matching the CEO’s initial expectations of the project. Moreover, the company believes that its transformation will have a lasting impact, producing better products, more satisfied and loyal customers, and a healthier, more efficient organization overall.

All in all, customer experience is an effective tool that Chinese B2B players can utilize to create long-term competitive advantages. A company should first define its priorities, lay out an implementation path based on its current reality, and use it to work toward a superior customer experience and, ultimately, excellence.

Hai Ye and Will Enger are partners in McKinsey’s Hong Kong office.

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A Blueprint for Becoming a Customer-Centered Company

Sponsor content from Salesforce.

By Brian Solis

Customers adapt to disruption faster than most organizations.

It’s one of the many lessons we’ve learned since the start of the pandemic. The foundation for the next generation of business rests on enhancing an organization’s internal operations to quickly deliver value-added customer experiences (CX) at scale.

In a recent research report by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services , 88% of survey respondents say it is very important to have a complete and consistent view of their customers across their sales, service, and support channels and platforms. Yet only 31% say they have such a unified view.

Customer centricity represents the future of business model innovation, but organizations need a blueprint to integrate CX insights with a unified engagement model.

Five Steps for Customer Centricity

If you picture a customer-centered company, you might visualize a hub-and-spoke model with customers and everything we know about them at the center, surrounded by supporting business functions.

Organizations can make five changes to better position customers at the center of their operations and innovation cycle:

• What separates today’s experiences from tomorrow’s improvements starts with assessing current state customer experiences and how they’re supported across your business. A current state assessment is a critical enabler of transformation that tells you where you are so you can chart a course of action. Rob Birse, head of global B2B ecommerce at Kellogg’s, admits everything changed after sitting down with retail customers in the field to learn their pain points. “It totally changed my perspective on how to justify a program. We evolved from focusing on the business case dollars and cents to instead focusing on pain points. Now, we’re looking for pain points all the time and asking the question, ‘Well, what happens if we resolve that?’ When you can resolve pain points at scale, it will unlock revenue streams and make it easier for internal stakeholders to understand the size of the prize.”
• With a current-state assessment complete, define and articulate what a vision for best-in-class CX should look and feel like . This vision becomes your motivator for a future state: the sheet music for all the cross-functional teams, technology, processes, and policies in your customer-centered symphony.
• Identify the touchpoints, processes, training, and systems gaps your organization needs to create or improve to deliver the upgraded CX vision. Think of this as an aspirational customer journey map. It’s not about mapping touchpoints and pathways, however; it’s a blueprint for the future, incorporating all the customer-centered enhancements that will deliver the desired experience.
• Connect and align sources to produce a single view of the customer. To keep up with customers and to deliver a personalized, connected, and evergreen customer experience, connect customer data and engagement records to key touchpoints and transactions that define their experience with your organization.
• Define, prioritize, and align the resources, tools, roadmaps, timelines, and metrics to begin transforming into a customer-centered company. By creating a cross-functional team that reports directly to senior leadership, you’re committing to this customer-centered vision—putting your transformation plan into action so you can clearly hear the voice of your customer.

A Unified Approach to Customer Centricity Delivers a Unified Customer Experience

Unified CX must drive deep into your organization. Improving CX involves all the back-office functions, systems, and processes that support the front office, including information technology (IT), operations, product development, finance, and human resources.

Traditional models keep these functional leaders disconnected from customers, but they are the gatekeepers to the processes and systems that facilitate customer engagement: finance can partner with line-of-business leaders to champion investments, define key metrics, and set targets for returns.

Customer-centered businesses use technology that enhances internal collaboration around the customer : unifying customer-facing touchpoints, data, and analytics to empower every team with the insights and tools to contribute to excellent customer experiences. Timely shared insights can also lead to improvements in products and services and to operational processes that help your organization continually meet customer expectations.

All these elements working in harmony add up to a human-centered culture, focused on optimizing customer centricity with speed and agility.

Your customer-centered blueprint is based on aligning your company around a single shared view of your customers, and the insights that lead to delivering to them the experiences they value.

Read The Transformation Playbook to learn how to change company mindsets, connect silos, and center on your customer.

Brian Solis is Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce. He’s also a world-renowned digital anthropologist, keynote speaker, and eight-time best-selling author.

Read More from Salesforce:

• Why Going Digital Isn’t Enough to Meet the New Customer Experience (CX) Imperative
• 8 Steps for Building a Culture of Data-Driven Empathy
• Here’s What Happens When You Focus on Employees to Better Serve Your Customers
• A 5-Step Roadmap for Becoming a More Customer-Centric Company

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California Management Review

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CMR INSIGHTS

What is customer-centricity, and why does it matter.

by Jonathan Hughes, David Chapnick, Isaac Block, and Saptak Ray

Image Credit | UX Indonesia

Customer-centricity has become a hot topic, and our recent survey of 250 individuals at 180 B2B companies demonstrates why. Over the past five years, companies reporting a “very mature” level of customer-centricity experienced 2.5X revenue growth compared with those reporting their company was “very immature.” Previous research from Forrester similarly showed that market leaders in customer experience enjoyed ~450% greater CAGR, compared to market laggards, during the period of 2010-2015. 

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“Customer-Centric Leadership: How to Manage Strategic Customers as Assets in B2B Markets” by Christoph Senn, Axel Thoma, & George S. Yip

“Blurring the Lines between Physical and Digital Spaces: Business Model Innovation in Retailing” by Milan Jocevski

Despite the buzz, there is a great deal of confusion about what customer-centricity is and how to put its principles into practice. At too many companies it is mostly hype — a rebranding of traditional marketing, sales, and customer service that involves no fundamental change and delivers little benefit. Genuine customer-centricity requires transforming all enterprise functions that affect customers, breaking down the silos between those functions, and building a culture that rewards behaviors aligned with customer success.

To help companies assess their efforts and guide their investment and transformation, we have developed a model (Figure 1 below) that defines four distinct levels of customer-centricity. Based on our research and extensive work with clients on customer-centricity initiatives, a majority of companies function at levels two or three. Only about 9% of companies operate in a truly customer-centric manner, with manufacturers (5%) at the low end and high-tech companies (19%) at the high end, on average. These numbers indicate an attractive opportunity for companies to differentiate themselves by enhancing the way they engage with and deliver value to their customers.

Here is what market leaders do to put the customer at the center of their business.

1. Embed customer-centric thinking and practices in company DNA — across all functions

R&D organizations are staffed by bright, innovative people, but they are usually far removed from customers, and often more energized by new technology and solving technical problems than meeting customer needs.

Product management teams are closer to customers than R&D, but their view of customers is aggregated by market segment, not individualized. They are measured and rewarded based on the sales and profitability of their products – and thus see customers primarily through the lens of those products. That’s not necessarily inconsistent with a focus on customer value, but it is certainly not the same thing. As customer needs evolve and change, the incentives of the product management function often create inertia that impedes innovation and responsiveness to customers

Marketing and sales teams use voice-of-customer surveys and interviews, customer focus groups, customer journey analysis, and various market research techniques to seek out information about what customers want. At the same time, incentives based on sales growth and account profitability often compromise a truly customer-centric focus, when they are not balanced by a deep commitment to delivering value to customers and enabling their success.

Wholesale change in how these functions operate is neither realistic nor necessary, nor even desirable. Completely replacing sales quotas with incentives based solely on customer satisfaction or success is, in most cases, a good way to drive your company out of business. Attempting to turn researchers, developers, designers, and engineers into salespeople or customer service professionals would be likewise misguided.

Nonetheless, the silos that exist in most companies between functions need to be breached. Functions from R&D, to Product Management, to Marketing, to Sales, need to expand their traditional priorities and measures of success with unifying metrics focused on customer value and success.

Too often, noncustomer-facing personnel feel disconnected from, and unaccountable for, customer outcomes. This leads to decisions and priority-setting focused on the needs of suppliers, not customers. Companies should implement policies that help employees (including those who do not touch the customer directly) understand how their work contributes not only to the delivery of specific products and solutions but to the customer’s overall business strategy.

Product designers and managers should regularly join account teams in customer meetings. Sales leaders and managers should be actively involved in the earliest stages of R&D and new product development. In practice, this often leads to a significant amount of debate and argument. R&D teams often dismiss salespeople as technically ignorant; sales teams view R&D as overly theoretical and detached from marketplace realities. But customer-centric leadership can ensure that such clashes do not lead to dysfunctional conflict, but rather serve as a source of creative abrasion that drives practical innovation.

2. Seek competitive differentiation through every aspect of the customer journey and experience

By now, most companies have embraced the practice of mapping customer journeys. According to Salesforce, 56% of companies with 2,500+ employees have adopted a “customer journey strategy” — but just 29% rate their strategies as “very effective” or “effective.”

Market leaders distinguish themselves in two ways. First, unlike many companies that manage solution implementation, service delivery, and customer service as cost centers, leaders treat them as value drivers. Rather than focus primarily on the internal efficiency of these functions, they relentlessly search for ways to improve the customer experience across every touch point.  They are willing to add internal costs when doing so will reduce complexity for customers, accelerate time to revenue, and increase customer retention and cross-selling opportunities. Customer service and support teams at customer-centric companies probe for opportunities to deliver unexpected value — versus simply solving the immediate problem. (Note that this is quite different from the common, and often counter-productive, practice of mandating that customer-service reps engage in direct cross-selling or upselling.) Such an approach requires close partnership between Sales leaders, and leaders in Operations who are responsible for many of the systems and resources that shape a customer’s experience.

Second, market leaders also balance investment in automation with continued focus on human interactions with customers. While customer journeys are becoming more automated, 75% of global consumers still want to interact with human counterparts. Why? Even as customers appreciate the ability to quickly select from a catalogue of online offerings, or self-configure a solution, when they have complex or unique needs, customers prefer to deal with a knowledgeable, consultative sales team. Self-service tools are spreading as they become more powerful, but human judgment, ingenuity, and — when things go wrong, empathy — cannot be replaced. Best-in-class companies understand the interdependence between systems and people, and optimize the customer experience by making complementary improvements to both, and by ensuring their seamless integration.

3. Externalize innovation

Research and development at most companies are inwardly focused, but market leaders realize that successful innovation requires deep customer empathy. Consider GE Healthcare IT, which made a point of visiting hospitals to understand how they (and their patients) experienced GE equipment. After noticing that children would often cry when they saw MRI machines, GE reps decided to visualize the rooms as children would, even kneeling to be at a child’s height. They ended up helping hospitals transform MRI rooms into adventure experiences, such as a pirate ship — and patient satisfaction scores increased by 90 percent.

Joint innovation centers, where technical staff from a company collaborate closely with technical staff from top customers or suppliers, are also a powerful practice. Innovation labs, embraced by companies across industries (e.g., Amazon, Huawei, FICO), give customers the opportunity to work closely with dedicated cross-functional teams of technology and solution development experts.

Even if, as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously remarked, customers themselves do not yet realize they have a need, R&D teams should be trained in customer-centric thinking — they should embrace collaboration and co-innovation with customers and partners as a key component of solution development and demonstrate how new products and features will meet real and pressing customer needs.

4. Reorient sales – from selling to customers to selling for customers

Traditional sales approaches focus on educating customers about the features and benefits of a company’s products, and then explaining why they are superior to competing offerings. Consultative selling, and a focus on becoming a trusted advisor to customers, represent attempts to go beyond a transactional “push” model of selling to something that is more collaborative, and that ideally leads to better outcomes for both customers and suppliers.

But a truly customer-centric approach to selling requires something more radical. The goal of customer-centric selling is not to close a sale. It is to help the customer make the best decision – for them . This does not mean salespeople should not educate customers on their company’s solutions and the value they can add to their customers – that is the essential role salespeople play in helping customers make informed decisions. But customer-centric selling does entail a paradigm shift, one that calls for new ways of talking about, and measuring, success and failure. 

Customer-centric sales organizations do not focus primarily on sales “wins” or “losses.” Closing the sale of a product or solution that is not the ideal fit for customer’s needs is a Pyrrhic victory that comes at the expense of trust and future sales opportunities. Conversely, working with a customer all the way to the point of disengagement without a sale, and perhaps even advising that customer that your solution does not appear to be the best fit for them, is no loss. It is an investment in a relationship that maximizes opportunities for future sales.

For an extreme case of what happens when sales practices and incentives become untethered from a focus on what is best for the customer, consider Wells Fargo. Between 2002 and 2016, a hyper-aggressive pursuit of sales devolved into outright fraud, resulting in $3B in fines, the resignation and lifetime ban from banking of the CEO John Stumpf, and sanctions by the Federal Reserve. Contrast that with Zappos, where if a customer calls for a product and Zappos does not have the product in stock, staff recommend a competitor who has it.

  5. Marry customer-centricity with employee engagement

As with many business disciplines, customer-centricity is about more than systems and tools. At root, it is about cultural transformation, and successful execution ultimately depends on people. The simple truth is that you cannot expect employees to treat customers better than they themselves are treated.

Market leaders in customer-centricity ensure the entire company keeps customers and their needs at the forefront of planning, decision making, and day-to-day execution. (Figure 2 shows how this differs from traditional practices.) Three key practices enable them to do so.

• Inspire and engage employees. Improving employee engagement creates a virtuous cycle: Top talent seeks to work for companies that delight customers, and attracting and retaining the best talent leads to better customer outcomes. That is why companies with best-in-class customer experience have 60% more employees that are highly engaged. One way to engage employees, and help embed customer-centric thinking and practices throughout an organization, is to invest in customer-focused training and development. Bank of America and Carilion Clinic, for example, have expanded training curriculums that were traditionally focused on technical skills to include customer empathy and engaging in difficult conversations with customers.
• Empower employees with customer insights. Arm all employees with relevant and actionable data about customers. Ensure information is shared freely across functions, not just within the Marketing and Sales organizations. Encourage employees across functions to use such insights to identify and act on opportunities to deliver more value to customers — and then reward them for doing so.
• Start with leadership. Active, C-level sponsorship and support is essential to customer- centricity. A genuine commitment to serving customers will always exist in some tension with a company’s obligations to shareholders and the self-interest of its employees, so enterprise-level leaders must provide the guidance for how to productively manage this tension.

Figure 2: Transforming a company’s value chain for customer-centricity

Years ago, David Packard of Hewlett-Packard observed that “marketing is too important to be left to the marketing people.” In today’s hyper-competitive economy, customer relationships are too important to be left to sales teams and customer-service organizations. 

Building a customer-centric enterprise requires a commitment to delighting customers that cuts across functions and departments. Intuit launched its Design for Delight initiative in 2014 by encouraging its employees to “fall in love with” its customers’ problems. Since launching this program, based on deep customer empathy and rapid innovation with customers, Intuit’s stock price has risen more than 450 percent.

How many of your company’s customers work with you primarily because they lack a better current alternative — because they feel like they have to, not because they want to? The answer to that question is likely to determine your company’s future.

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Allianz Customer Centricity: Is Simplicity the Way Forward?

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Eva Ascarza

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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

How Starbucks Came a Long Way on Customer Centricity

July 27, 2020 • 5 min read.

In an excerpt from the new edition of his book 'Customer Centricity,' Wharton’s Peter Fader describes how Starbucks has pivoted in recent years to capture more information about its customers – especially lovers of pumpkin spice lattes.

In this excerpt, adapted from the new edition’s preface, Fader describes how Starbucks has pivoted to become a more customer-centric company in the eight years since the book was first published.  

When Customer Centricity was first published in 2011, I made a big statement about some of the biggest names in retail. I was particularly hard on Starbucks, which, I wrote, was a classic example of a “customer-friendly operation that falls short of customer centricity.”

Starbucks, I wrote, “makes almost no effort to learn anything about its customers.” I pilloried the company for gathering virtually no data about its customers. I said it was “leaving huge amounts of money on the table by failing to take advantage of the deeply ingrained buying habits that many of its customers have established over the years.”

Not long after these words were first published, I got a phone call from Aimee Johnson, who at the time oversaw the loyalty program at Starbucks.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Aimee was not calling to praise my work. Instead, she was on a mission (assigned by a senior executive) to “educate” this renegade Wharton professor to stop being so critical of the company. I couldn’t tell this from the initial call (Aimee didn’t explicitly tell me about this assignment until years later), but she asked a lot of interesting questions about my radical ideas, which upended some fundamental beliefs about customer service, customer relationship management, and customer lifetime value. She asked how they may (or may not) apply to Starbucks. After several follow-up calls, she realized that my ideas were, in fact, nicely aligned with the bold transformation that Starbucks had started to undergo. But some of the ideas, language, and analytical tools I referred to in the book were very new (and, in some ways, seemingly threatening) to the company.

Long story short: Aimee became a fan of the work and, in turn, became one of the “Heroes of Customer Centricity” whom I have praised in countless executive education sessions and keynote talks. Likewise, Starbucks as a whole made major changes to better understand its customers at a granular level and to leverage these insights in a truly customer-centric manner.

Taking Advantage of the Pumpkin-spice Frenzy

Take, for instance, the clever idea that is the Leaf Raker’s Society. If you haven’t heard of this particular corner of the internet, well, that’s no mistake. The Leaf Raker’s Society is supposed to be a “secret” Facebook group. Most specifically, it’s a secret Facebook group for people who are passionate about — you guessed it — raking leaves (among other autumn activities).

Launched by an internal Starbucks marketing team in the summer of 2018, the group is, in truth, little more than a brilliantly disguised, ongoing, permanent advertisement for the ever-popular pumpkin spice latte, which reappears on the Starbucks menu each fall. Described as a site for people who are “year-round scarf-wearers” with a goal of helping “autumn arrive earlier in the calendar year,” the Leaf Raker’s Society has evolved into a truly organic online community; as of this writing, the group had more than 37,000 members and had sparked millions of conversations since its launch that go well beyond Starbucks products. That’s customer centricity in action.

“The group is … a brilliantly disguised, ongoing, permanent advertisement for the ever-popular pumpkin spice latte, which reappears on the Starbucks menu each fall.”

For the members, it’s simply a site to celebrate fall, sweaters, pumpkins, and, of course, pumpkin spice lattes. But for Starbucks, it’s so much more. It’s a window into its customers’ hearts and minds; it offers not just usable data about those customers — Facebook, as we know for better and worse, is a treasure trove of personal data — but also, and perhaps more importantly, some perspective about how and why a group of people who are passionate about, of all things, a season are also passionate about pumpkin spice lattes. From a marketing perspective, it’s a masterstroke, and as somebody who came down somewhat hard on Starbucks in the initial publication of this work, I have to tip my cap here and say: Well done, Starbucks. Well done. You’ve come a long way.

And what about Aimee Johnson? Well, after doing great things to help Starbucks navigate the customer-centric waters, she recently decided it was time to take on a new challenge — to take her expertise to a very different company in another sector that is in desperate need of some customer-centric transformation. Today, Aimee is the CMO of Zillow, helping this digitally native real-estate giant broaden its strategy to extend well beyond its initial scope of home listings, including buying and selling homes, providing financing to homebuyers, and a range of other services that will help create lasting relationships with high-value customers. It’s bold and risky, but it’s a great example of how customer-centric thinking can cross traditional industry lines with a visionary leader like Aimee Johnson to make it happen.

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How Customer-Centricity Drives a Reimagined Multichannel Shopping Experience

New experience results in a 98 percent increase in mobile orders.

In a growing, yet underdeveloped ecommerce landscape, Walmart Canada is leading a retail transformation. A transformation that is truly customer-first in its approach to all things digital. With great pride, we partnered with Walmart to develop the experience across all touchpoints, including a recently launched mobile app that is available on both iOS and Android.

The Imperative for Change

We took the philosophy that customers want to browse and shop anywhere, anytime to heart. So we created a responsive site that fluidly adapts to any device. The new walmart.ca incorporated best of breed technologies, modular architecture and consumer-driven insights that resulted in a seamless, consistent experience from desktop, tablet or mobile device.

The Transformative Solution 

Staying true to Walmart’s brand promise of helping customers live better lives while saving time and money, a new grocery service was integrated into an existing responsive experience. Designs that were developed and tested with buyers resulted in a customer-centric experience that includes features such as:

• A real-time slot booking engine for grocery pickup
• A fixed grocery-list style shopping cart
• The ability to save customers' carts across devices and channels

Let’s face it, some customers are in a rush and don’t have time to wander aisles. We branded innovative Grab & Go lockers that are located in select Walmart stores, 7-Eleven locations and Canada Post retail outlets. After customers place their order online, a Walmart Associate fills the order and places it in a locker. Once filled, the customer is sent a 6-digit code to access their locker.

The Business Impact

We’re #1. Walmart.ca is Canada’s first responsively designed ecommerce site for a big box retailer. In 2016, we saw incredible year-over-year growth. The numbers speak for themselves.  

“Canadians count on Walmart to save them money, both in stores and online. We’re delivering on that promise, allowing them to shop anytime, anywhere with Walmart.ca and the Walmart Canada Online Shopping app.”

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A Customer-centric Supply Chain

How a digitally enabled supply chain can shift from cost center to brand differentiator.

Updated: The Most Recent Digital Life Index

Ongoing research featuring people-first, data-led insights in work & education, transportation and energy industries.

Carrefour Launches E-commerce in 6 Months

How a digital-first approach has brought speed and scale to this legacy brand.

Shopper-First Retailing

An examination into what is the experience today’s customers demand.

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC GUIDE

Why go customer-centric, case studies.

Putting customers at the center produces loyal, active customers and moves your organization toward long-term competitive advantage.

Customer Centricity

Customer-focused competitive edge

Business Challenges

Solve acquisition, retention + expansion

Advice from executives

Learn from others

AMK’s Journey

What can be learned from the experience of AMK, a Cambodian microfinance organization that’s been customer-centric since its inception? AMK leadership plays a crucial role in shaping culture and ensuring that core values are part of its DNA.  Over the past 14 years, leadership has  equipped  front line agents and staff with the tools they need to reflect the organization's customer-centric values, and has recently  taken steps to move a new agent business vertical toward customer centricity.

Key Resources

Leadership and organizational culture in customer centricity: the journey of amk cambodia  -  (pdf, 36 pages).

Customer-centric leadership and organizational culture at AMK Cambodia.

Treating Agents as Customers at AMK, A Cambodian Microfinance Institution  -  (PDF, 34 Pages)

When AMK learned to view agents as a "customer segment," it created business value for agents and the organization.

CARD Pioneer Microinsurance’s Journey

CARD  Pioneer Microinsurance sees the value in delivering positive customer experience by having the right processes in place, hiring the right people, getting feedback from customers, and retooling based on insights and metrics. Over the past two years Pioneer Microinsurance saw an expansion of its portfolio with CARD customers from 600,000 to 1.6 million enrollments, and renewal rates doubled.

Pioneer Microinsurance: Building a Business around Positive Customer Experience Pays Off  -  (PDF, 36 Pages)

Philippines microinsurance provider PMI leverages customer data and insights to establish its customer-centric culture.

CARD Pioneer's Journey to Customer Centricity | CGAP

CARD Pioneer's Journey to Customer Centricity | CGAP  -  (Video, 19:39)

Follow CARD Pioneer's two-year journey with CGAP to better understand the needs and dreams of low-income customers in the Philippines.

Digicel’s Journey

An encouraging change in mobile money uptake and activity experienced by a mobile money service provider is evident in Haiti after lackluster results between 2010 and 2015. Mobile money services were initially set in motion to facilitate distribution of grant payments to victims of the 2010 earthquake. What drove the recent surge in uptake and activity for Digicel? This case study shows that a focus on customer needs, and empowering customers, brings results. It also demonstrates how a pull strategy, rather than a push strategy, is the best way to drive uptake and use.

Digicel Mobile Money (MonCash), Haiti  -  (PDF, 18 Pages)

A new focus on customer needs – and empowering customers – drives strong uptake and use.

Janalakshmi’s Journey

Literally translated as “people’s wealth,” India’s Janalakshmi began as a microfinance enterprise and is now a small finance bank that caters to low-income people and businesses that do not have access to mainstream financial institutions. This case study reveals how, with the assistance of CGAP, the group used customer-centric methods to learn about the aspirations and financial lives of its customers to develop products that meet their needs. It also describes the formal change management process and structural transformations that put customers at the heart of Janalakshmi’s operations.  

At the Heart of All That We Do: Janalakshmi’s Journey to a Customer-Centric Bank in India  -  (PDF, 40 Pages)

How the Indian financial institution (now a small bank) worked with CGAP to put customers at the center of its operations.

Janalakshmi: How can we improve the customer experience at branches serving the poor? | India

Janalakshmi: How can we improve the customer experience at branches serving the poor? | India  -  (Video, 5:57)

The urban microfinance organization aims to embed customer-centric processes into their company DNA.

Zoona’s Journey

Beginning in the spring of 2017, Zoona CEO Mike Quinn embarked on an intensive journey around Africa to talk with customers and agents, gather insights, and truly understand the people the money transfer company serves in villages, cities, and rural areas. Over the past three years, Zoona has strengthened its commitment to customer centricity, knowing that delivering the best customer experience becomes more intuitive when leadership is listening.

Zoona’s Journey to Customer Centricity in Africa  -  (PDF, 24 Pages)

Learn how business challenges catalyzed a shift toward customer centricity – which in turn generates value for the African fintech company.

Zoona’s Journey | Mike Quinn, Zoona

Zoona’s Journey | Mike Quinn, Zoona  -  (Video, 5:00)

The CEO of Zoona walks a mile in customers’ shoes.

Orange Madagascar’s Journey

Orange Madagascar, a subsidiary of the French telecommunications operator Orange S.A., works to give practical expression to the Group’s global vision to promote customer centricity in its operations. Improving customer experience is key in Orange Madagascar’s efforts to strengthen uptake and use of its Orange Money mobile money account. This case study shows how Orange Money Madagascar translates the global vision into local practice by generating and analyzing customer insights, improving interactions with customers, and developing solutions suited to the needs of customers and Orange agents.

Orange Money Madagascar: Applying an International Group’s Customer-Centric Strategy at the Local Level  -  (PDF, 24 Pages)

Learn how the mobile money service addressed limited uptake by increasing its customer focus.

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Allianz Customer Centricity: Is Simplicity the Way Forward?

By: Eva Ascarza, Emilie Billaud

This case explores the tradeoffs between product personalization and simplicity as companies grow. The case presents an opportunity to understand whether and how each of these approaches enables…

• Length: 20 page(s)
• Publication Date: Jul 2, 2021
• Discipline: Marketing
• Product #: 522008-PDF-ENG

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This case explores the tradeoffs between product personalization and simplicity as companies grow. The case presents an opportunity to understand whether and how each of these approaches enables and/or limits companies' abilities to provide customer satisfaction while being efficient in their operations. In October 2018, Allianz was one of the world's leading insurers and asset managers with 103 million retail and corporate customers in 70 countries. It was one of only two insurers to rank amongst the world's 50 strongest brands in 2017, a sign that the company's customer-centricity approach drove value and resonated with clients. Allianz's ambition was to reach the top 25 brands in Interbrand's ranking by 2025. For the insurer, the key to success was to focus on simplicity-reducing the complexity of products and processes in order to create a more unified customer experience. However, such a move did not align with current trends in insurance markets, where Allianz's main competitors had opted for hyper-personalization. Furthermore, a strategy focused on simplicity implied a radical move in certain key markets where Allianz had traditionally offered a large diversity of products. Was simplicity the right strategy? Would Allianz be able to embrace customer needs successfully within and across markets while simultaneously growing its business?

Learning Objectives

To explore how companies align products and services with the needs of their customers in order to drive repeat business, increase loyalty, and maximize profits. To better understand metrics such as NPS, churn rate, customer acquisition costs, and other techniques for measuring the value of a customer. To discuss the value of personalization in products and services to increase customer satisfaction and value. To discuss the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation in a multinational entity

Jul 2, 2021 (Revised: Oct 28, 2021)

Discipline:

Geographies:

Europe, Germany

Industries:

Insurance industry

Harvard Business School

522008-PDF-ENG

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• Customer Engagement
• Customer Journeys
• Customer Relationship Management
• Employee Experience
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• Social Media

The Customer-Centric Compass

CSM Magazine

JANUARY 30, 2024

Spotting Customer - Centric Companies I. In today’s fast-paced marketplace, this vision is a reality for some, and it all centers around the compass of customer service. These principles are followed by the League of Slots , where customer satisfaction reigns supreme.

Improving Customer Access to Tech Support: A Case Study

APRIL 11, 2017

Their business model was founded on the cell phone industry equivalent of a unicorn: a customer - centric offering that puts affordability and flexibility at the forefront. Ready to take your customer service to the next level? The post Improving Customer Access to Tech Support: A Case Study appeared first on.

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• How Retailers Are Transforming Customer Experiences with Data & AI

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How NOT to survive in a disrupted world – the case study of UK retailer, FatFace

AUGUST 3, 2018

Sticking with the retail industry, it gives me no pleasure to bring this to life with a case study – an example of exactly why organisations are failing to transform and ultimately survive in an increasingly disrupted world.

Biteable’s Evolution to a Customer-Centric Product Roadmap

JULY 17, 2018

Biteable , using AskNicely to track customer sentiment and inject feedback right into their product plans, shares their story to illustrate just how important feedback is in fashioning a customer - centric roadmap. The Business of Helping Customers Tell Stories. GET THE FULL BITEABLE STORY.

Top Priorities in Customer-Centric Contact Centers

Speaker: Tony Medrano, CEO of RapportBoost.ai

Leading contact center and technology experts will discuss trends in phone, chat, email, SMS and self-serve options in order to help our audience better connect with, retain and acquire customers . By the end of this webinar, you will know: Which channels of communication customers prefer, and why.

The Case Study Is Dead. Long Live the Customer Story

OCTOBER 18, 2022

Of course, I won’t know if you answer it, but I’ll trust you and ask the question anyway: When you write case studies , why do you include customer quotes? The post The Case Study Is Dead. Long Live the Customer Story appeared first on Influitive. Let me start with a question.

Better Experience = Better Business | a Case Study: Vacasa

Storyminers

APRIL 24, 2018

Customer Experience Strategy Helps you make the transition from process- and business- centric to customer - centric thinking. The post Better Experience = Better Business | a Case Study : Vacasa appeared first on StoryMiners. Don’t worry, you can still keep a focus on profitability and growth.).

Customer satisfaction score 101: Building a customer-centric culture 

AUGUST 3, 2023

6 Customer satisfaction metrics to start measuring 5 Best practices for customer satisfaction 2 CSAT alternatives: CES & NPS How to use CSAT as your differentiator? Put the customer first, and everything else will fall into place. Open-ended responses may only be useful in deeper customer feedback analysis.

Successfully introducing Customer Experience Functions in large businesses. A Case study by Ruth Crowley

JANUARY 20, 2021

This case study is an extract from The Customer Experience Playbook by Jonathan Daniels. Ruth was tasked to lead a Customer - Centric transformation, which would stick, and would open up more revenue for the business. The 5th stage involves the establishing of customer - centric KPIs and Metrics.

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook

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In today’s crowded marketplace, it’s no longer good enough to just be customer - centric . In order to win the market, organizations need to leverage their customers not only to inform their business strategy, but also to fuel it. 9 inspiring case studies that demonstrate the power of the CPE.

Report: Creating and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture

Experience Matters

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

We just published a Temkin Group report, Creating and Sustaining a Customer - Centric Culture. Here’s the executive summary: Temkin Group defines culture as how employees think, believe, and act, and if an organization wants to differentiate its customer experience, it must address each one of these areas.

How to Gain Leadership Buy-In for Customer Experience: A Guide for CX Change Agents

Experience Investigators by 360Connext

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Customer experience (CX) has become a critical factor in the success of businesses worldwide. Organizations are realizing that a customer - centric culture is key to driving growth and profitability. Many leaders claim being customer - centric is a priority. There’s some common agreement now in the world of business.

Third-Party Retail Case Study: Paint Products

Second to None

JULY 3, 2018

Find a mystery shopping vendor that is able to design and implement a custom program based on your brand’s unique parameters to ensure that your organization has all the necessary information to excel within a third-party retail store. The post Third-Party Retail Case Study : Paint Products appeared first on Second To None.

Invaluable Customer-Centricity Lessons From Tesco

DECEMBER 10, 2014

In the early 2000s Tesco was much lauded my many: the customer - centricity gurus, the 1:1 marketing gurus, the data mining and predictive analytics players, and customer loyalty program vendors. ” What Can We Learn About The Challenge Of Building A Customer - Centric Organisation? Why does this matter?

Ramping-up Your Digital CX Strategy: Adaptation of Omni Channel and Conversational Support

Speaker: Michael McMillan - Customer Experience Expert, TEDx Speaker, and Author

Learning objectives: Review and pinpoint challenges in your CX strategy Learn how SaaS products are changing CX and UX Recognize and personalize your customers ' needs and preferences Setting your DCX goals Best practices for implementing a customer - centric digital strategy and ensuring seamless interactions across channels The role of conversational (..)

The Art of Selling CX

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Drawing parallels with the timeless narrative of “Death of a Salesman,” we uncover the dynamics of selling not just a product but a mindset, while also examining the emotional mindset of leaders who often prioritize revenues and profits over customer - centric approaches.

Creating Award Winning Employee Engagement: A Case Study

Beyond Philosophy

DECEMBER 8, 2014

Didn’t Believe Amazon Was Customer Centric Before? Why Most Customer Experience Programs Fail. Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy , one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. You Will Now.

UJET Wag! Customer Experience Case Study

MARCH 26, 2020

An intuitive, customer - centric experience was necessary because all of Wag! services are available in-app, including a fully integrated support experience and direct communication between the customer and walkers.

IRT: A Customer Experience Case Study from Australia’s Aged Care Industry

DECEMBER 14, 2017

In this case study of Illawarra Retirement Trust (IRT), the seniors’ living development, Strativity Australia explores the impact committing to a customer experience strategy has on developing a more customer centric culture.

The Cost of Deprioritising Customer Experience During Tough Times

InMoment XI

JANUARY 27, 2022

When future times of crisis present themselves (as they’re sure to do) we as CX professionals can carry forward this lesson: that both operations and customer experience need to be prioritised in order to make it through hard times. Balancing Operations and Customer Experience: A Case Study .

The Best Customer-Centric Uses of Data

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

Becoming customer - centric —putting the customer ’s needs and interests at the center of your goals and processes—is impossible without customer data. You need customer data to track progress toward goals, deliver on promises, and continually upgrade your product. Customer feedback. Support tickets.

George Orwell’s Insights Into Customer Service, Customer Experience, and Customer-Centricity

SEPTEMBER 2, 2014

And why most ‘ customer - centric ’ change efforts fail to yield an organisation that shows up as customer - centric . Perhaps genuine customer - centricity is unnecessary – maybe it is a matter of faking it like the patron and employees of the Hotel X were faking it.

How Can Law Firms Leverage Technology to Become More Customer-Centric?

JUNE 24, 2021

The future of business is customer - centric . Especially after the pandemic, it’s more important than ever for companies to create meaningful customer interactions across all communication touchpoints and focus on engagement rather than aggressive self-promotion. Why is customer service a problematic aspect of the legal industry?

Building a Customer Centric Culture with Annette Pedroza

DECEMBER 31, 2020

Listen and subscribe to our podcast: In this episode of the Customer Service Secrets Podcast, Gabe Larsen is joined by Annette Pedroza to learn about building a customer centric culture. To explain this further, Annette suggests: I think when employees hear leadership talking about the customer , that’s really important.

Why I Prefer Not To Do Business With Customer-Centric Businesses

OCTOBER 2, 2014

Why is it that I prefer not to business with a customer - centric business? Which supermarket chain was applauded, by many, for its customer -centred way of doing business? What was held responsible for fuelling this customer -centred way of doing business? Allow me to share my answer by referring to the UK grocery market.

Customer Centric Action Plans

ClearAction

DECEMBER 16, 2017

Customer Centric Action Plans Lynn Hunsaker. Monitoring voice of the customer is one thing, but can all your employees name the customers ’ top ten wish list? The post Customer Centric Action Plans appeared first on ClearAction Customer Experience Consulting. Originally published by MyCustomer.

How Not To Go About Effecting Behavioural Change And Moving Towards Customer-Centricity

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

Let’s assume that for the purposes of this conversation that when I use the term customer - centricity I am pointing towards a specific behaviours which show an organisation as being attuned and responsive to the needs of their customers – their core customer base. How did it go? Or are you?

Integrated CX: The Complete Guide

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

How to Set Up Your Business for Integrated CX Setting up your business for integrated customer experience requires a strategic approach that encompasses technology, processes, and a customer - centric mindset. Discover how integrated customer experience strategies can drive sustainable business growth and customer satisfaction.

30 Top CX Thought Leader Blogs To Follow

Blake Morgan

JANUARY 20, 2022

These 30 top blogs cover a wide variety of CX-related topics, from creating a customer - centric culture to refining the contact center or delivering personalized experiences. With more than 30 years of experience in all areas of CX, Annette uses her blog, CX Journey, to help transform business culture to become customer - centric .

Economics of Empathy – Why Customer, Employee, and AI Centricity Pays, featuring Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

MARCH 20, 2024

Passionate about customer - centricity , Emma helps organizations worldwide implement transformative strategies for better customer service.

What Is The Access to Transformation And Authentic Customer-Centricity?

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

What Has Transformation To Do With Customer - Centric Business? What has this conversation to do with all things Customer and especially customer - centric business? And let go of all the policies-practices-products-people that generate bad profits – profits made at the expense of your customers .

Why engaging HR, Finance, Legal, and IT to embrace the customer is vital!

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

That would leave one group with a customer - centric mindset and the rest without one. Therefore, everyone in the organization has to embrace the customer - centric mindset—even those who never interact directly with a customer . We all know happy employees make happy customers . You’re not a law firm.

Celebrating Tony Hsieh's Contribution to CX

CX Accelerator

JANUARY 11, 2021

The all-too-sudden and tragic passing of former Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh has sent a ripple through the business world, and the customer experience (CX) community is no exception. In the past, I’ve often chuckled upon reading about Zappos in a book or hearing the name mentioned in a keynote address as a model for customer - centricity .

How To Cause Customer-Centricity By Shaping The Work Context (Part 1 of 3)

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Case Studies Culture Customer Experience Customer Service Employee Engagement Leadership / Change / Transformation Management Organisational Design adjustment costs customer centricity customer experience customer satisfaction customer service handling difficult customers hotels organisational change six simple rules work context'

10 Best Customer Experience Books

MARCH 21, 2023

For example, there are plenty of good customer experience books to read if you want to learn more about customer experience. To help you out, we have listed our top 10 must-read customer experience books. Learn how to leverage the most under-utilised and powerful human resource in business today – Customer Empathy.”

[Experience Action Podcast] CX Pulse Check – February 2024

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Delve into AI’s ripple effects on customer service roles, where efficiency gains are weighed against the potential for job displacement, and explore how historical economic shifts can inspire optimism for a workforce braced for change.

The Best CX Leaders ROCK at These 3 Things

OCTOBER 26, 2017

You see, most leaders want to show customers they care, but many aren’t sure how to do that. They need to see why customer experience isn’t just a catchy phrase. Being customer - centric means so much more than just talk. The best CX leaders put themselves in the customer’s shoes. What sort of action?

Elevating Tradition: Innovating Customer Experience in Established Businesses

Win the Customer

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

McKinsey highlights that this approach has been a game-changer for numerous established businesses looking to innovate in customer - centricity . Tailored Recommendations In today’s age, customers expect businesses to understand their unique preferences. Cultivating a Customer - Centric Culture 1.

How To Cause Customer-Centricity By Shaping The Work Context (Part 2 of 3)

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

What Is The Core Insight-Lesson For Those Working On Customer Experience And Customer - Centricity ? Because it involves taking the “road less travelled” What is this central insight-lesson: To achieve customer - centricity make the organisation listen to those who listen to customers .

Why Hire a Customer Experience Keynote Speaker

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

If you want to jumpstart CX efforts across your company, there’s no better way than a customer experience keynote speaker. A customer experience keynote speaker brings their passion for customers and shares valuable case studies , best practices, insights, and motivation for your team.

Automotive Reputation Management: Win with Digital and Drive Customer Acquisition

MARCH 27, 2024

This is a valuable source of insight into how your company can deliver experiences that reflect the lives of their customers . With these insights in place, your organization can make the transition from digital strategy guesswork to streamlined research processes and personalized, customer - centric marketing.

Customer-Centric Cultures Don’t Just Happen

PeopleMetrics

JANUARY 14, 2015

The same can be said of customer centricity . Customer centricity doesn’t happen overnight. If you want to build a customer - centric culture at your company, then you’d better be able to live with process and incremental improvement. It requires ongoing effort and commitment. Seeking Result: Must Love Process.

Customer Centricity Masterclass with Doug Leather

Peter Lavers

JULY 7, 2015

“ Customer Centricity is the eco-system and operating model that enables an organisation to design and deliver a unique and distinctive customer experience”. The masterclass was brilliantly delivered by Doug Leather and included practical case studies & examples of best practice and animated discussions.

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Banking & Capital Markets

The bank of the future will integrate disruptive technologies with an ecosystem of partners to transform their business and achieve growth.

Disruption is creating opportunities and challenges for global banks. While the risk and regulatory protection agenda remains a major focus, banks must also address financial performance and heightened customer and investor expectations, as they reshape and optimize operational and business models to deliver sustainable returns. Innovation and business-led transformation will be critical for future growth. To remain competitive and relevant, every bank must embrace disruption and strategically build a better ecosystem — not a bigger bank.

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Five priorities for harnessing the power of GenAI in banking</p> "> Five priorities for harnessing the power of GenAI in banking

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The Banking & Capital Markets team

Enjoys traveling with family, and coaching his daughters’ basketball and soccer teams. Enjoys running and playing basketball and golf.

Lee Ann Lednik

People-focused leader committed to building trust and transparency amid increasing complexity. Passionate working mom of three. Aspiring photographer. Avid sports fan.

David Kadio-Morokro

Passionate about technology, innovation, and leading EY people to solve clients’ most challenging problems.

Heidi Boyle

Passionate about helping people thrive in the workplace and creating a sense of belonging for all. Writer. Musician. Cooking enthusiast.

Seasoned financial services professional. Resides in Massachusetts with her husband and three children.

Kellen Maia de Sá

Collaborator and problem-solver with the desire to do the right thing. Leads efforts to help financial services clients with the disruption and impact of COVID-19.

Terry Cardew

Builds trust by helping banks solve business issues and stay competitive. Devoted husband. Father of six. Avid skier. NY Giants and Yankees fan. Supporter of The Fresh Air Fund and Lynne’s Kids.

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