Enabling a customer-centric strategy requires a few different things. You need to understand the customer journey well and what problem they’re trying to solve. Once you know that, you can start designing an experience that meets your customers’ needs. It’s also important to remember that customer expectations change over time, so you need to be constantly iterating and improving the experience.

Technology is critical to enabling all of this, but it’s not the only factor. There needs to be a culture of customer centricity throughout the organization, from the top down. True customer centricity is carefully crafted and controlled using these five simple principles.

1 – Psychology: Creating a perfectly tailored customer experience

The first principle of customer centricity is psychology. Have you ever wondered why some businesses just seem to “get” you? They always have just what you’re looking for, without you even having to ask. They make you feel important and valued, like your business really matters to them.

It’s not just good luck or coincidence, it’s because they’ve taken the time to understand their customers’ psychology. Customer centricity is all about putting the customer first in everything you do. That means understanding what your customers need and want and then ensuring your products, services, and overall experience align with that.

Too often, businesses focus on what they think their customers should want, rather than taking the time to really understand them. As a result, they end up crafting an experience that is anything but consistent and contained. If you want to provide an exceptional experience that keeps customers coming back, you need to start by understanding what makes them tick. Once you realize that foundation, everything else can fall into place!

2 – Human Interactions: Understanding & carrying out the psychological principles

Services are interactions between people, even if they’re enabled by technology. Whether finding a date on Hinge or trying to hail an Uber on a rainy night, we’re still interacting with other humans, even through a screen. That means that services need to be designed with people in mind. We can’t just create generic experiences and expect them to work for everyone.

Instead, we need to tailor services specifically to the needs of the individual. That might mean designing different experiences for different demographics or customer types. Or it might mean creating personalized services that are unique to an individual user. However we do it, we need to remember that services are ultimately about people, and only by understanding people can we create great experiences.

3 – Processes: the customer journey should be designed with people in mind

Companies should map out the customer journey in detail and design processes to ensure customers stay on track. For example, marketing campaigns can raise awareness of a problem, and follow-up emails or targeted ads keep the customer interested. Companies can increase sales and loyalty by mapping out the customer journey and implementing processes to keep customers on track.

4 – Systems: Enabling flexible customer centricity

Businesses can provide their customers with a streamlined and personalized experience by having a solid back-end system. These systems are critical to supporting an insurer’s many complex rules and workflows, which are directly tied to enabling flexible customer centricity.

Systems can also help insurers to better understand their customers’ needs and preferences. As a result, businesses that invest in robust back-end systems can better meet their customers’ needs and create long-lasting relationships.

5 – Technology: Future-proofing your business & communicating with the customer

This is the age of technology, and if businesses want to stay relevant, they need to embrace it! That doesn’t just mean having a website or a Facebook page, although those are important. It means using technology to connect with customers in new and innovative ways. It all starts with having a flexible and stable back-end system. Without that foundation, any new front-end technology will be difficult to implement and maintain.

With a strong back-end, businesses can easily adopt new technologies and stay ahead of the competition. So if you’re looking to future-proof your business, make sure your back-end systems are up to the task. Only then can you take full advantage of all that technology offers.

What To Watch Out For Along The Way

Insurers have realized they need to be customer-centric to succeed in the long term. This means every decision made should be driven by what is best for the customer, but this is not always easy to achieve.

Technology and legacy processes can destroy the customer experience when these workflows don’t meet customer demands. And sometimes, insurance company metrics don’t align with customer needs, creating a disconnect in the experience.

Take The First Step Toward Building A Customer-Centric Organization

Starting with a robust back-end system to support workflows and processes allows insurers to build a customer-centric organization from the ground up. Partnering with a cloud-based technology platform like Snapsheet means insurers can manage this first step easily.

Request your demo today to see how to begin building your customer-centric organization using best-in-class digital technology from Snapsheet.

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