Customer Centricity is Still in its Infancy

Customer Centricity is Still in its Infancy

I ran across an interesting a article, and thread of comments on the topic of Customer Centricity. The post is an assessment of a Whitepaper that declares Customer Centricity to be all but dead, and wondering what's next. I found the author of the post to be fairly on target with his assessment, but couldn't help but notice the impassioned discussion as well. 

You can follow the thread here.

I believe much of the discussion, and much of the potential confusion comes from the fact that there is no real definition of Customer Centricity. As such, interpretations become overly broad, and the true meaning is lost. I recently published an article myself on the topic called 1:1 Customer-Centric Retailing.  

While I did not go into how such a strategy might ultimately be executed, I will state that I believe technology will allows us to finally accomplish our goals, but we are very much still in the infant stage of life. I see a future where each and every communication done by a retailer (other than the 1:1 interactions with in-store associates which already do this) can be personalized down to the "segment of one". Furthermore, this communication can be timed based on a customers preference, taking into account their past purchases, needs, lifestyle, stage in the customer life cycle, social interests, etc. 

My years in the Clienteling and CRM business have proven to me that customers want to have relationships with the retailers with whom they do business; and once a relationship is forged, they are more than willing to provide more information if they believe it will provide benefit to them. By then leveraging this information on a customer by customer basis, a retailer can finally see the true benefits of Customer Centricity. 

While CRM is not yet capable of this true 1:1 relationship management today, it is most definitely heading in that direction.