customer relationship

Here are the unique practices that make customer-centric enterprise exceptional…

Are you a Nigerian? What I am about to say will not be too strange to you if you are a true Nigerian? We are living and transacting business with a customer-centric enterprise.

What I am about to say might be strange to a foreigner, but to my fellow Nigerian, it is something that we count 
as being normal.

Have you ever had anything to do with any government agencies or Banks, most especially an old generation bank? You will notice that they are product-centric in nature.

They always have the mindset that they are doing you a big favour by attending to your case.
I have said it in many of my articles that the organizational structure that works for a product-centric enterprise will never work for a customer-centric enterprise.

In an ideal customer-centric enterprise, there is a high level of flexibility in the organization which allows customer-facing employees to resolve customer issues completely.

Shoe week  They have access to tools and processes that allow them to go out of their way in order to resolve customer issues.
The second reason why product-centric organizational structure will never work in a customer-centric enterprise is that, in a product-centric enterprise, every activity will the organization is centred on product and product alone.

Employees are rewarded based on how much they are able to make for the organization and not how far they are able to satisfy customers. They also believe in the strength and quality of their products and not what customers are looking for in their products or services.

One basic thing about creating an organizational structure that works for a customer-centric enterprise is that the organizational structure must be cross-functional in nature.

It means the various departments that we have in the organization must be able to work together in order to achieve the objectives of doing business from the customers’ perspective.

One thing you should know is that in an ideal customer-centric enterprise, you cannot say because you are a Sales staff, you don’t want to have anything to do about customer service. The various departments in the organization are expected to work together in order to build a relationship with customers.

Organizations have to support coordinated process which will make it difficult for customers to know what is happening behind the scene.

Take, for instance, the idea of a customer moving from one office to another just because they want to change their GSM number does not make any sense. It can make organizations to lose valuable customers in the process. There is nothing wrong in if the front office representatives get the information and pass it to the appropriate quarter.

Technology can also have a strong impact on the organizational structure of an organization. If technology is been introduced into the process being adopted by an organization, it will be very easy to implement changes to the customer database and this will reflect in the other departments where customer information is needed.

Take for example, in an organization that have different subsidiaries, say ten subsidiaries and customers have to climb ten steps or call ten different numbers before they could affect any change in their account.

I once had a challenge with an unruly GTBankAccount Officer. For several months after I opened my current Account, my Account Officer does not dim it fit to give me a call. After much calls and email communication, I was able to call the Lady in question, and the attention was so poor, to say the least.

I have not bothered to call her again since then. I am also not willing to undergo the strenuous procedure of changing my Account Officer laid down by the Bank.  I have now decided to operate my current account without an Account Officer.

That to me is one of the lapses of GTBank as a customer-centric enterprise. Customers should be able to make a service request without having a sleepless night. I rest my case.