Most of the time when we are thinking about customers, it’s through the lens of customer service. We think about keeping service levels high and dealing with complaints. Customer closeness is certainly something that informs these parts of your business, but it’s not something that lives in any one area or function. True customer closeness can only be achieved when every part of your organisation embraces and understands it.
Marketers are always taught to think empathetically and solve problems for customer, but this often gets lost to product features, thought pieces and webinars. Being close to your customers is about more than using their first name in your emails, more than just having a load of data sitting in a CRM. It’s about digging deep into their needs, motivations and values. It’s not just a tool for marketing or sales, it’s the starting point from which all services and promotions are formed.
"Getting closer to customers will impact your bottom line, but only if you're willing to listen, change and adapt to their needs." Mona Souli, Senior Community Manager
Metrics such as customer service reviews can tell you what happened, but they rarely reveal why. Customer closeness looks at the entire lifecycle of your customer, what brought them to you, what are their needs, desires and values. With an in-depth understanding of your relationship, it is much easier to create actions and improve processes. This isn’t a one-off project or something you put on a poster and call it a day. It’s a continuous and ongoing cycle of gathering data, analysing it, forming actions and measuring results.
