What does it really mean to be customer-oriented?

A recent blog post of a former colleague of mine caught my attention the other day. His post was a comment on the definition of the customer-oriented corporation and what attributes characterize organizations with a profound customer-oriented focus. The post it self was made in Norwegian and may be found here, but I wanted to share the views of my friend with you in order to facilitate debate.

In this post the author argues that a customer-oriented corporation is one whom strives to focus its organization, including leaders, processes and culture to efficiently meet the changing demands and preferences of its customers. He also argues that customer-orientation in turn remains a concept tied firmly to the internal activities of the corporation, from production and development of goods and services to after-sale support and retention. In contrary to this term related concepts such as customer value (customer satisfaction using the product to accomplish a required task) and customer experience (the sum of the experiences gathered throughout the procurement and utilization of the product) are distinct from the internal, and largely cultural, aspects and may be treated separately.

Within the premise of this discussion the author describes several consumer trends that influence modern day business in general and internet based businesses in particular. It is argued that the emergence of four customer types have changed the way corporations engage in consumer behavior. The types put forth are the self-service customer (customers experiencing an ever increasing pressure on time and require new solutions where they may self solve the necessary tasks when available), the social customer (whom socialize and interact in increasingly open media whom cannot be controlled nor censured by corporations), the technological customer (whom by the way new technology has lowered entry-barriers to many markets is blessed with more options and is inherently less loyal) and the demanding customer (whom experience that the new players in the marketplace acknowledges and adapts to their needs and lends the same expectations to established and mature corporations). The combination of these trends in consumer behavior means that the customer makes an increasingly attentive selection in deciding the vendors from whom one acquires product and services. In thus real customer-orientation becomes a competitive advantage to meet the increasing expectations of the customer.

In his closing remarks the author advice business whom seek further engagement with their customer to base their interaction on dialog concerning the selection of products and services made available by the corporation and its partners as well as the customer experience through procurement and within active use of the product or service. In thus the key premise of this dialog should remain with gathering insights to establish:

• Simple and user-friendly physical and digital points of contact
• A general culture of service
• An ability to adopt increasingly complex customer needs (rather than a push-mentality)
• An organizational structure based on customer segments rather than a functional organization.

Given the ever increasing availability and globalization of product offerings we see today I believe customer-orientation has/will become the prevalent form of cultural adoption and product development in the years to come. Businesses will come to realize that the days of industrial prowess must give way to more modern approaches to their value offering such as may be seen with mass customization as the expectations of the individual customer gains even further momentum.  As I see it such a transition will likely be one filled with difficulty for many established players set in their (somewhat outdated) ways. I believe we are entering an era of lurking dangers, but also with profound promise for players whom act accordingly to the new paradigm.