Articol de: Constantin Măgdălina, Emerging Trends & Technologies Expert
What the client wants, the executives must implement – so it seems to be the commercial relationship nowadays. Empowered with decision-making within the company, executives are guided by customer feedback. The disintermediation that the internet and technology have generated has given customers the power to choose, and the information asymmetry that once was for the benefit of the companies has become rather insignificant currently.
Because the level of customer-centricity of Romanian companies depends on the company’s strategy, the perspective of CEOs on this topic is an essential one. CEOs decide on the strategy while the Financial Directors manage the resources to support the implementation.
In order to compare the perspective of the CEOs and the Financial Directors, we selected from the Barometer of customer centricity in the Romanian companies the main conclusions resulting from the analysis of the answers received from 145 General Directors/CEOs and 80 Financial Directors.
• The importance of customer-centricity for the company. The top level of CEOs’ importance is the annual increase in consumer satisfaction (57%) and the annual increase in service quality by lowering demand-side times (25%). For Financial Directors the same two issues are the most important ones, but the percentages drop to 50% and, respectively, 24%.
• Company values that support customer focus. Both 76% of General Managers and 76% of the Financial Directors uphold the satisfaction of consumers as the most important value. Unfortunately, the focus on consumer experience is a priority only for 22% of the General Managers and 21% of the Financial Directors. Even lower is the value given to the retention of consumers, marked by only 29% of the Financial Directors and 22% of the General Directors.
• Internal actions to increase customer focus. In order to be more customer-centered, the company must focus on creating processes that deliver superior customer service (54%) and training employees to understand the customer-centered approach (52%), say the CEOs. At the same time, Financial Directors prefer actions such as facilitating the cooperation between the company’s departments (51%) and rewarding customer relationship performance with bonuses and promotions (49%).
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