Customer obsession - a term that has landed on the tongues of hundreds of business owners over the past few years - is something that many people claim to have, but few are able to back up. Just being there for your customers and answering their questions isn't enough. So how can your company become customer obsessed?

To better understand the obsession with--well, customer obsession--you must first take into account that the buying process has changed significantly over the years. Customers can now access more information than ever to make an informed decision and have grown to expect a certain level of competency in your products and services that was never before required.

The Four Operating Principles

According to a white paper by Forrester Research, Inc., there are four operating principles that will help you guide your company towards what it means to be a customer-obsessed firm. These four principles can help you shift your organization from a more traditional approach to one that is customer-centric:

Customer-Aware → Customer-Led

In the old days it was perfectly acceptable to simply collect data on your customers and use this information to determine what would be the best fit for them. Organizations that are customer-obsessed will delve much deeper into understanding the 'why' they are interested in your product. It goes without saying that to be customer-obsessed, you don't want to sell your customers what you want them to buy, you need to listen to what they need.

Data Rich → Insights Driven

Despite having more information on customers than ever, only one third of this information is being utilized, and even less of that data is being used to provide measurable business outcomes. Customer-obsessed firms need to better understand the processes and systems required to make data readily available, readable, and secure at a moment's notice.

Perfect → Finished

How many people do you know that have to own the latest and greatest technology the moment it's announced? This recent phenomenon is referred to as hyperadoption. The quicker you can get your product out, the faster you will win over new customers. Instead of taking advantage of this opportunity, many companies are still mulling over how to perfect their solutions, and ultimately, miss the hype of developing the latest craze.

Siloed → Connected

Traditional siloed models can often involve long decision processes and conflicting customer experiences. To combat this, customer-obsessed companies often utilize smaller, multidimensional teams that focus solely on serving a single customer segment. They are also responsible for ensuring that all stakeholders are capable of reaching consensus quickly and efficiently.

If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience, and that really does matter, I think, in any business. It certainly matters online, where word of mouth is so very, very powerful.”

-Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon

How is V-Soft a Customer-Obsessed Firm?

V-Soft is proud to be customer obsessed. We have been a People First company for two decades now, and it shows:

We listen to your goals; we will not force ours onto you.
We look at data and make recommendations from the evidence of success.
We are quick, but do not hurry: we thoroughly test and reach conclusions that help the customer to be quick to market.
We communicate with all of the project's stakeholders to be sure that this is the right solution.
We leave nothing to chance.

About the Author

Mark McBee is a 25-year IT industry veteran. He was a founding member of a $250MM National VAR and a managing partner and COO for a regional Managed Service Provider. During that time he was on the partner advisory boards of Lenovo, HP printing and Imaging and Okidata. He currently serves as Vice President of Managed Services/Cloud Services for V-Soft Consulting.