How to Create a Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy That Works

In today’s competitive climate, it’s difficult to create a loyal customer base and stand out from competitors. With the rise of social media, customers have become thought leaders who share their opinions with others publicly. It is the reason why businesses try to appeal to them. Customer-centricity reaches beyond that. It means caring about customers’ needs and wants instead of only thinking about sales.

If you’re looking for a way to retain customers, increase profits, and optimize your marketing efforts, a customer-centric strategy should do the trick. We’ll discuss tips, techniques, and high-quality tools like FullSession that can help you in your journey. 

Our team of experts created FullSession for specialists, so it’s one of the most effective tools on the market. You can use our behavior analysis suite to learn how your customer thinks and receive actionable insight on how to improve your website, web app, or landing page to be more customer-centric. FullSession offers essential tools such as session recordings and replays, customer feedback, and interactive heatmaps. You can start a 14-day free trial now or learn more about our solution.

Even though customer-centricity sounds like a buzzword, it actually isn't. All big players like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix have adopted a customer-centric approach which is why they have fiercely loyal customers.

If you want to learn more about customer-centric marketing, check out our customer-centricity guide. We’ll give you an overview of customer-centricity, including its definition, benefits, and critical concepts.

What is customer-centricity?

Customer-centricity is a business philosophy that puts the customer at the center of all decision-making. Every company action, from product development to customer service, is designed with the customer in mind. 

Customer-centric strategies aim to create positive customer experiences to increase loyalty, increase sales, and improve retention. It is slowly becoming the norm, so you should hop on the trend as soon as possible.

What is a customer-centric marketing strategy?

Customer-centric marketing is not a new concept, but it has gained renewed attention in recent years as companies search for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. 

Businesses have adopted practices, such as customer journey mapping and customer feedback surveys, to become more customer-centric.

Customer-centric marketing strategy contains the steps you want to take and the tools to make your company more customer-oriented. It is a detailed outline of how you plan to approach your customers to create a customer-centric culture and the results you hope to achieve. Strategies are a part of every marketing process, and customer-centricity is no exception.

Why is a customer-centric approach critical in building a marketing strategy?

Customer-centric marketing has many benefits, including increased customer loyalty, improved customer satisfaction, and lower churn rates. In addition, customer-centric companies tend to be more profitable and have stronger brand recognition. Ultimately, customer-centricity creates a superior customer experience that leads to customer loyalty and advocacy of your product or service to friends, family, and colleagues.

Moreover, because of social media popularization, even the slightest mistake can bring negative attention. That is another reason why a customer-centric approach is vital in today's marketing climate. You don't want negative reviews and experiences floating around the web. It will hurt your reputation. By becoming customer-centric, you'll be taking a more proactive approach to resolving customer issues. The goal is to create a sustainable long-term strategy that will increase the customer lifetime value and loyalty.

What is customer lifecycle marketing/management (CLM)?

Customer lifecycle marketing revolves around targeting your customers based on the customer journey stage. It allows more precision, and it's more cost-effective in the long run. The customer lifecycle describes different phases your customer goes through from the first time they interact with your business until they convert.

Thanks to different tools and services, identifying different customer lifecycle stages has never been easier. Because we share so much information online, creating a separate profile for each user or a group of users is a great way to increase the effectiveness of your targeting efforts.

It is also important to assign a metric to each part of the life cycle for easier identification and to measure the success rate accordingly.

The customer lifecycle is an integral part of every successful customer-centric marketing strategy because it allows you to create a personalized approach to resolving customer issues and inquiries.

How to create a customer-centric marketing strategy?

Becoming customer-centric isn't tricky, but it's time-consuming. You need to evaluate your current strategy, analyze weak points, and see what you can do to improve the general customer experience. Here's how you can do that.

1. Define your customer experience strategy

Defining your customer experience strategy is the first significant step towards becoming customer-centric. How do you want your customer to feel when using your product or service? What do your customers like? What do they dislike? These questions are essential to consider when creating your customer experience strategy. 

You can't become customer-centric without optimizing customer experience – they depend on each other. You can define your customer experience strategy by following the steps below:

1. Analyze current customer experience
2. Use qualitative and quantitative research methods to learn more about customers and their desires with the help of behavior analysis tools like FullSession
3. Revise your current mission, goals, and processes
4. Align them with your customer experience goals
5. Create a customer journey map
6. Analyze competitors
7. Define goals, targets, and objectives
8. Develop your customer experience strategy
9. Measure the effectiveness 
10. Optimize your customer experience strategy

2. Analyze customer behavior

There's no better way to become customer-centric than to analyze each part of your customer's experience while browsing your website. How does this help you become customer-centric?

Analyzing customer behavior will highlight any friction points your customer experiences while browsing your website. These friction points are usually annoyances that cause frustration in customers. If you identify the weak areas, you can improve them immediately and provide customers with a much better experience. On the other hand, it also highlights things that work, which you can apply to other areas of your website.

Software like FullSession is the best way to analyze customer behavior. One FullSession feature that will be extremely helpful in this case is interactive heatmaps.

Interactive heatmaps use a color-coded system to analyze problem areas on your web pages and highlight elements working well. It keeps track of where users click, so you'll always know which parts require optimization and which don't.

The issue with heatmaps is that they usually slow down your website, which is a big no-no. However, FullSession's interactive heatmap feature works in real-time and won't affect the speed of your website whatsoever. Find out more about FullSession's interactive heatmaps here.

3. Listen to customer feedback

Collecting and implementing customer feedback is the easiest way to become customer-centric. Your customers are the best source of information. They use your product or service. That is why they can give you user-centric insights, valuable for service and product optimization. There are many different ways to collect feedback from customers, both directly and indirectly.

FullSession is one of the best ways to collect feedback from users in seconds. You can collect direct feedback through our customer feedback feature, which lets you create short surveys that you can place anywhere on your website, web app, or landing page.

You can design them according to your branding guidelines and set when and where they should pop up. Using our customer feedback designer is very easy – just follow the workflow our team created, and your feedback form will be ready in under five minutes. Customers love our one-click feedback forms because they're quick and less time-consuming, so customers are more likely to respond to them.

4. Map the customer journey

The customer journey map represents a story of every interaction the customer has ever had with your business. Being customer-centric means that you should provide customers with the best experience during each customer journey stage. And, you can't do that without mapping customer journeys. 

A customer journey map will help you dissect customer experiences into smaller sub-categories. That enables you to take a more targeted and personalized approach, which customers appreciate. Here's how you can do that:

1. Identify different buyer personas
2. Select a target customer
3. Write down all touchpoints with your product or service
4. Identify everyday actions they make to divide the journey into smaller sub-sections
5. Assess which areas require more support
6. Analyze the results
7. Take actions accordingly

5. Predict customer needs

An essential part of being customer-centric is knowing how to anticipate customer needs. It is a big part of the success of major companies like Apple or Tesla. However, predicting the needs is probably the most challenging thing to figure out. But once you do figure it out, it will bring immense value to your business.

You can predict customer needs by gathering as much information about them. It would be best if you learned what they like and dislike, which trends they're the most drawn to, and how likely they are to hop on a new trend.

If you know what your customer needs before they do, you will create a solution to the problem they weren't aware of. That helps boost sales and gather a lot of marketing attention because the industry loves innovation.

6. Optimize your customer service

Your customer service is important because it's who your customers interact with the most. If they experience an issue or have a question, they will reach out to one of your customer service agents. That will be the first point of contact for many customers if we don't count the purchase. That is why it's important that your agents are proactive, friendly, and prepared to help customers.

It's always a good idea to invest in training and create a rulebook of proper behavior. We also recommend offering different customer service options, such as live chat software, email support, phone support, knowledge base, and social media support.

Record all calls and perform occasional quality checks to ensure that your agents do well. It is also smart to post an annual or bi-annual survey asking customers how satisfied they are with customer service. That is a guaranteed way to appeal to existing customers and potential customers. You can use FullSession's customer feedback feature to create and employ these forms.

7. Use software to increase customer success

Using the correct software can be a game-changer for customer success. We suggest considering a couple of different software types – user behavior analysis software, customer service software, and customer success software.

Customer service software helps with organizing queries and gives you omnichannel access where you can manage everything from a single place. Customer success software analyzes previous customer experiences, offers health scores for each customer, and suggests the best course of action to improve your customer success efforts.

Lastly, user behavior analysis software shows how customers interact with your website, web app, or landing page. It shows which areas on your website are the most attractive to customers and which ones require work.

Tools like FullSession offer handy features like session recording and replays and interactive heatmaps. The session recording and replay feature helps you record the whole customer journey on your website. You can analyze why the customer abandoned their cart or proceeded with the purchase. That is a great way to see how you can improve the user experience on your website.

Automation is another excellent way to increase customer service efficiency and reduce your employees' stress levels. You can automate various processes like social media posting, responding to common queries, and customer onboarding. That will give you more time to focus on other ways to improve customer success.

8. Develop an onboarding process for customers

Never abandon customers as soon as they convert. On the contrary, you should do your best to try to retain them and have them come back for more. That will inspire them to choose your business the next time they need a similar product or service. Setting up a comprehensive onboarding process is the best way to get the most value from a single customer.

An onboarding process helps customers get acquainted with your product or service and gives them tips on using the product for their particular needs. It would be best to let your agents know to create a personalized approach for every customer instead of giving the same response to everyone. An onboarding process should look something like this:

1. Customer purchases the product
2. You send a welcome or a thank you email
3. You give them a product or service walkthrough
4. You send instructional videos
5. You offer personalized help from customer service agents
6. Try to upsell your product by providing additional options or features
7. Send follow-up emails
8. Offer discounts or incentives for referrals or feedback

5 benefits of customer-centric marketing strategy

There are many benefits to customer-centric marketing. When a company puts the customer first, it can result in increased sales, improved customer loyalty, and higher profits. Here's why you should consider becoming customer-centric.

• Customer-centric marketing strategy helps you know your customers

One of the most significant advantages of a customer-centric marketing strategy is that it helps you learn about your customers. By understanding what customers want and need, you can create products and services that appeal to them. You can also create tailored marketing campaigns and lower targeting costs.

• Customer-centric marketing strategy builds better relationships 

Another benefit of customer-centric marketing strategy is that it helps you build better relationships with your customers. When you take the time to understand what your customers want, you can create tailored solutions that meet their specific needs. Customers love when businesses think about them. They're so used to rude agents and low-quality service. 

Once they find a company that treats them right, they will remain loyal. If you create a better relationship with them, you'll receive more interactions, engagement, positive reviews, and other forms of social proof. That also builds trust, resulting in more sales and repeat business.

• Customer-centric marketing strategy increases profits

Customer-centric marketing strategy can lead to higher profits for your company. When customers are happy and loyal, they are more likely to continue doing business with you. That can help your bottom line by increasing your revenue and reducing your costs. Knowing the profile of your customer will help you cut targeting costs. Satisfied customers can also shout you out on their social media pages, which gives you free marketing and brings even more customers.

• Customer-centric marketing strategy increases referrals

Being customer-centric will also provide you with the best marketing tool – word of mouth. First-hand experiences are very important, so individuals usually go for products or services that their friends or family have previously used. Referral marketing is entirely free. 

However, if you'd like to go a step beyond, we also recommend creating an appealing loyalty program to increase the number of referrals even further. Even though this requires an investment for gifts and rewards, that amount is insignificant compared to the value you'll receive from these referrals.

• Customer-centric marketing strategy increases customer retention and loyalty

If you appreciate the customer, they will give the love back by telling nice things about your company. They will support your business, like your pages, refer you to friends, join mailing lists, and interact with your social media. Loyal customers are more passionate because they appreciate the customer-centric approach. Moreover, acquiring new customers is much more expensive than retaining existing ones.

Go customer-centric with FullSession

So, what is customer-centricity? It's the idea of designing your marketing strategy around the customer rather than pushing your products or services on them. It sounds simple enough in theory but can be challenging to put into practice.

That's where FullSession comes in – we can help you increase customer-centricity within your company and create a lasting change that will benefit you and your customers. Our web analytics tool lets you learn more about customers and how they interact with your business. You will receive actionable feedback and know precisely which potential friction points could damage the customer experience.

Web analytics tools like FullSession are the first important step towards becoming customer-centric because they show you what annoys your customers and what doesn't. You can ask for direct feedback through our customer feedback tool or collect indirect feedback through interactive heatmaps, session recordings and replays.

Don't wait – start reaping the benefits of being customer-centric today and sign up for a 14-day free trial.

Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy FAQs

How do you increase customer-centricity?

You increase customer-centricity by introducing changes to your current strategy to provide your customers with a stellar experience. The idea behind customer-centricity is that customers are the most important part of your business. Without them, your business wouldn't be profitable or exist, for that matter. 

Therefore, you must do everything to make them feel welcome, safe, and cared for. That can be as simple as upping your customer service game, offering discounts, rewards, and gifts, enforcing better customer communication, and doing everything with customers in mind.

Why change to a customer-centric approach?

Because it will improve your reputation, profits, and retention rate and help create a better connection with customers. If you take care of your customers, they will become loyal to your business. 

Loyalty is essential for multiple reasons. It's cheaper to retain a customer than to acquire one,  customers are more likely to recommend your product or service to others, and they will praise your business, which will positively impact your reputation. Overall, it's a great way to stand out from competitors and build a solid and reliable customer base.

What is a customer-centric mindset?

A customer-centric mindset represents a way of thinking where businesses put customers at the center of their operations. They develop a product with customers in mind, diligent with customer service efforts. A customer-centric mindset aims to provide customers with a superb experience, improve profits, and gain a competitive advantage.