Customer focus as an integral part of the company's work

To date, customer focus (hereinafter - CR) is one of the key elements of the "business vocabulary", which is actively used in the philosophy of companies with various specializations and scales. It is most often used in the context of marketing and service. At the moment, CR is the basis for building trust and long-term relationships with a client. Thanks to the strategies underlying CR, companies have the opportunity to: - gain and maintain a positive reputation; - form and strengthen a partner network; - attract new customers; - build long-term, mutually beneficial relations.We offer to consider the most popular cases, systems and algorithms of customer focus. As already mentioned, CR is a common set of tools used in various industries, but let's talk about CR, directly, in the IT field. So, as you know, IT specialists have to interact quite a lot with the outside world - with customers, to resolve working issues on internal processes.

That is, we can say that they are a connecting link, and, accordingly, they are faced with the task of providing high quality professional communication for customer satisfaction and maintaining the level of customer focus of the company. Why is it important?

Establishing long-term business relationships with a client and forming a partner network gives the company financial stability, a good reputation in the market and is one of the most important factors in ensuring competitiveness. There are certain elements of customer focus, the implementation of which is a necessary step in the formation of the company's CR. One of the modern tools for determining CR is the Customer Orientation Index, or MRI. Let's take a look at how MRI works. It is based on measuring the CR level of the corporate culture through the analysis of employee behavior. This measurement, as a rule, is carried out by an online survey of company employees. Based on this data, the company's QoS level is assessed in comparison with the existing database of companies that have already carried out an assessment using MRI technology. Thus, it allows you to evaluate your own results in comparison with other companies and see the dynamics of your own changes.

What does MRI do?

• Makes a customer-oriented corporate culture measurable for all employees;

• Defines specific actions that will support the company's development strategy;

• Creates a reference point for measuring progress;

• Creates focus and incentive to focus on customers across all divisions of the company;

• Involves employees and collects ideas for the development of customer focus in the company;

The next and important point of building a company’s CR is the development of corporate culture and training of employees in business communication. To increase the level of CR, the company must train its employees on how to implement work tasks, as well as how to respond to typical and atypical situations encountered in the work process.

For the development of customer focus, a so-called customer advocate within the company is also required. In Western terminology, this position is called: Chief Customer Officer (CCO). In the Russian equivalent - “Client Director”. The CFO examines the business process to see if the client's interests are being met and if the process needs improvement.

An important element of the creation of a company’s CR is, among other things, diagnostics - a constant check for CR. Diagnostics should include both an assessment of internal QoS (employee satisfaction) and an external assessment of QoS of employees (attitude towards customers). CRM systems are used to technologize CRM in modern management. We have already discussed the main criteria for the formation of a customer-oriented company. And now we propose to dwell in more detail and study the concept of a CRM system. In world practice, CRM has long been a key tool for a marketer.

First, let's figure out the definition. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. “This strategy is aimed at creating long-term and profitable relationships with customers through understanding their individual needs” - this is the definition of this concept is given by the world-renowned company “Pricewaterhousecoopers”. The emergence of CRM is a business response to increasingly complex customer requests. These systems are a technical solution with which you can implement customer focus in practice, take into account the various aspects and characteristics of the customer and the history of working with him. So, the conclusion can be made as follows: customer focus is, first of all, the teamwork of the entire organization. Competent use of CR tools, and just respectful attitude towards the client. Taken together, all these techniques will help in winning his favor and in further mutually beneficial cooperation. It is important to remember that a truly customer-oriented company is when within it any employee observes business ethics not only when communicating with the client, but also “within” the team. We hope this information was useful to you. For a more detailed study of CR processes, we recommend that you read the book "Customer-centricity: Customer Relations in the Digital Age" by the authors of the book: Peter Fader and Sarah Thoms.

Thank you for your attention and wish you a productive and good day!