6 simple steps to encourage a customer-centric culture in your organization

If that sounds like your company, think again. The whole reason retail giant Amazon has become so successful, its leaders say, is the company’s “customer obsession.” In today’s competitive world of customer blogs, forums, and Tweets, you can’t afford not to be customer-obsessed.

In a global survey¹ commissioned by Ricoh, 70 percent of respondents said they would probably stop doing business with a company whose inefficient document processing slowed them down. A third said they would post negative reviews.

In another study², 86 percent of customers said their purchase decision was affected by online reviews. Sixty-nine percent trusted them as much as personal recommendations, and 57 percent said they wouldn’t do business with a company that got negative reviews.

Think about it: the business you’ve so carefully built for years could be taken down by a swath of unhappy customers in minutes.

But get the customer-service equation right and your bottom line will improve. Seventy percent of customers will stick with you if you listen to them and resolve their complaint. And just a 2 percent increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10 percent. Two-thirds of the people in the Ricoh survey said they their revenues rose 10 percent after they improved customer-facing processes.