Can You Hear Me Now?

Innovation Can You Hear Me Now? Evan Ramzipoor Brand Contributor ServiceNow BRANDVOICE Storytelling and expertise from marketers | Paid Program Oct 24, 2022, 08:27pm EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Most companies aren’t as customer-focused as they claim. Why not? Customer-centricity has achieved buzzword status. But how many companies really listen to their customers when it comes to making important decisions about innovation? Too many companies haven’t figured out the difference between hearing and listening to their customers.

getty Apparently, not that many. A global survey of 1,000 C-level executives, sponsored by ServiceNow and ThoughtLab, revealed that just one in 10 businesses involves customers in these decisions. Gartner defines customer-centric organizations as those that engage with and listen to customers, admit that their products and solutions won’t solve every problem, and adjust resources and internal structures based on customer needs.

Analysts agree: When businesses leave customers out of the picture, they fall behind . However, many executives are more concerned about pleasing the board than listening to customers. Anna Cui , an associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago who focuses on product development, says that’s a path to failure.

“The question really is not whether companies should be customer-centric or not, but how to be customer-centric ,” says Cui. Why listen? The pandemic presented a clear case study on the power of customer-centricity. At the height of the crisis, companies that quickly caught on to their customers’ evolving needs churned out new products and services to suit the market.

Their agility paid off. Quick-thinking companies stayed alive while their competitors lagged behind—or even went out of business. But it shouldn’t take a crisis to get businesses to listen.

Customers are eager to show their appreciation to companies that care about what they want. According to the 2020 Global State of XM from customer-experience-focused software company Qualtrics, people pay more for products and services when they feel connected and engaged with a brand. In fact, customers will gladly tolerate price hikes of nearly 20% on a business’s products and services, but only if that business delivered an excellent customer experience.

The empathy gap Companies that claim to be customer-centric typically use a standard set of tools to anticipate customers’ needs. Product teams create personas that aim to illustrate their ideal customer. For example, a company that makes eco-friendly toothbrushes might target millennials with disposable income and a love of the outdoors.

The goal is to keep the customer top of mind throughout the product lifecycle. The problem is that personas tend to capture what businesses think customers want, not what they actually want. Hayagreeva Rao , a professor of organizational behavior and human resources at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, says most companies aren’t interested in how people live their lives.

Rather they’re interested in justifying the innovations they had already planned to invest in. As a result, employees are generally not given the resources they need to empathize with the people they serve. “We should never un-person a customer,” says Rao.

“They’re not a segment. They’re not a profile or a persona. They’re a person.

” Jeremy LaCroix, principal UX design strategist at the Workflow Design Studio, decries personas because they give the illusion of empathy. LaCroix and his team lead regular design-thinking workshops with ServiceNow customers. “We ask the users questions,” says LaCroix.

“‘What do you want to do? When you need help, who do you go to? What does your day look like?’ That’s building empathy . ” Other businesses rely on surveys when they want to hear from the customer. After a customer service interaction, an email might pop up asking the customer to rate their experience.

But surveys can be especially problematic because people don’t always know what they want—and companies aren’t always good at asking the right questions. Survey questions can even bias or mislead respondents. This impedes innovation, says UIC’s Cui.

“Companies need to be aware of customers’ limitations in recognizing and communicating their needs,” she says. “They need to ensure innovation incorporates, but is not constrained by, customer insights. ” AI to the rescue Smart technology like artificial intelligence might provide a fast, unobtrusive pathway for putting companies in touch with the people who use—or might use—their products.

Innovators are already starting to catch on. About a third of businesses have adopted AI and smart technologies to quickly innovate in response to customer preferences, with telecommunications and financial services leading the charge, according to the ServiceNow/ThoughtLab survey. If you’re playing the long game, you need to be using AI to create a steadfast, loyal customer.

Jim Van Over, a field innovation officer at ServiceNow, is excited about how AI might help business leaders better understand their customers. But he’s worried executives don’t want to invest in these solutions because they think doing so will be difficult and expensive. “Not investing in them means death, though,” he says.

“If you’re playing the long game, you need to be using AI to create a steadfast, loyal customer that will stick with you for as long as you exist. ” Unlike surveys, which require people to opt in, AI simply accompanies users along the customer journey, evaluating where they get stuck, how quickly they resolve their problems, what they seem to enjoy, and what turns them off. The algorithm can then serve up unique experiences to the customer and even anticipate their needs.

And unlike a persona, AI doesn’t represent a best guess of who the customer is—the algorithm gets to know the customer. “Start thinking about how to become a digital technology company today,” says Van Over, “in order to facilitate tomorrow. ” Evan Ramzipoor Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.