Client centricity has always been important to achieve growth and sustainable earnings. Now however new digital tools and competitors have raised customer centricity to new levels. For incumbents this is a call to action (CTA) to take up this battle for speed and straightforwardness in collaborating with their clients. New tools and technologies allow faster, highly integrated feedback to clients.

This race for excellence is highly competitive. Companies often do not have a choice but be early adopters of the new ways of collaborating with clients. Excellence in client centricity is a key differentiator  that provides a competitive advantage to companies, that put the client consequently into the center of their actions, both in terms of direct interaction with the client as well as in terms of streamlining their internal processes to meet the client needs.

I reinforce. Excellence in providing the relevant service to the customer in the digital age is key. Offerings, products and even companies are very similar these days and hence replaceable. Key performance Indicators (KPIs) like Customer churn show how fast clients replace one product with another . As offerings get increasingly comparable the barriers to move to competition get smaller.

In addition numerous studies indicate the financial impact of client retention in the digital age:

• Retaining a customer costs 4 to 5 times less than acquiring a new one (Forrester Research)
• A 5% increase in customer retention can improve your profitability by up to 75% (Bain & Co.)
• The likelihood of closing a sale with an existing customer is 60 to 70%, but only 5 to 20% with a new customer (Marketing Metrics)

For all these reasons it is evident that every company needs to differ from competition and requires to have an eye on retaining existing clients :

Ways to create a unique statement of client centricity:

1. Be specifically easy to work with – be approachable, offer low contact barriers

• provide excellent client support as this is a company´s face to the client
• ensure displaying a clear online value proposition that touches on the needs of the clients visiting

2. Provide a special extra service or goodie – offer your clients what they value most for free

• offer loyalty programs tailored to the needs of your client personas
• eg a place to exchange emotions as offered by the award winning Zippo campaign #sharethepain, special services like free shipment for certain personas etc

3. Ensure a  seamless client experience & journey

• deploy lean integrated processes or procedures that do not unveil internal complexity
• ensure a seamless client journey across all channels that offers internal knowledge transfer of the client interactions

4. Treating each client individually – know the clients´ painpoints in the moment of contact

• provide a 360° client view on the fingertips of client facing employees
• ensure the individual in your company in contact with the client is provided all relevant information on the client at the time of contact