Most businesses will boast about how they ‘Always put the customer first’ or how they ‘offer the best customer service’ but if we’re truly honest, for most business owners customer service is an afterthought, it is a means to an end, a pre-requisite of what is actually most important to any business, sales. And there’s nothing wrong most business owners  with that, customers have become programmed to expect a certain level of service for years.

Regardless of the size of your business or the industry that you operate in, In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, ‘times they are a changin’ or perhaps more aptly, Customers are ‘a changin’ and to get ahead of this curve and out in front of your competitors, your business will at some point, need to shift to a ‘customer first’ culture.

Research now shows that 70% of customers will make repeat purchases based on how they have been treated on the previous interaction, AND if part of your marketing strategy is focused on peer 2 peer feedback, then keep in mind that customers are more that twice is likely to share a bad experience than they are a good one.

Ok, so what exactly is a customer first culture?

Essentially, as quaint as it sounds, it is ‘putting the customer at the heart of every business decision that you make’  how each decision, even the decisions which initially may not seem to directly affect customers, will impact the overall customer experience.

Of course, some may read this and assume that if customers are getting more, the business gets less, absolutely, the best customer first strategies will reconcile business needs with customer needs. If you’ll will allow me to boil all nuance out of this strategy for a moment and focus on the headline:

Happy customers = Repeat Customers = Positive Profits 

On the surface, you may see this as a marketing strategy, it absolutely isn’t, it’s a culture which must flow through each business area and staff member from the top of your business down, focusing on how each customer interaction, digital or in person and optimized to exceed customer expectations.

If we can learn anything from behavioral research around Gen Z, or how they will affectionally be known from now on ‘Zoomers’ Traditional brand loyalty and buying decisions based purely on price point are becoming a thing of the past, customer loyalty is now based on a few key customer questions:

• Does this business speak to me personally?
• Do they share my values?
• What will this business do for me?
• How convenient is it to access what I need?

Customer first culture means something different for every business; Its based on business needs and priorities, so the key is to define YOUR version, here are a few simple ways that you can begin to implement this:

It starts with you, the owner. You need to define the culture and set everybody within your business up to deliver it with gusto!

• Look across every business area to enable everybody to deliver a consistent customer experience.
• Identify business areas which are not delivering this culture
• Allow business areas to work collaboratively to simplify operational process that prioritizes the customer.
• Share success stories and champion the staff members delivering to reinforce best practice. 

A little personalization goes a long way, now this could be a blog in of itself, so simply put, personalization is proven to drive sales, customer loyalty and customer advocacy. 

Customers are people too, right? everybody wants to be recognized as an individual with unique traits, desires and needs, so when a business recognizes this and personally tailors its service delivery, process and product offering to what is relevant to the customer it yields results, both in sales and in reputation.

That old truism 'You only get one chance to make a good first impression'

Each and every staff member must be committed to the strategy, it only takes one staff member having a bad day to change the perception of your business, from being applauded for its excellent customer experience to being attacked online and negatively reviewed in one interaction.

• Engage employees in the 'big picture' approach to customer experience.
• Set clear standards and make sure each employee has the skills and knowledge to deliver