Developing Measures for Customer Centered Goals

Customers are the heart of your business. A customer centric goal orients the efforts of your company around the buying desires of a specific segment or market. In order to operate your business in a customer centric manner, you must understand the measures of success for your business.

Here are several tips to develop your own measures:

1. Your most profitable customers define success.
   Ask your most profitable customers for details about what they consider a successful delivery of your service. Measure factors inside your company that contribute to reaching the customer definition.
2. Focus on specific solutions of value to the customer.
   When customer definitions of success are not available or unclear, measure the efforts solving specific problems. Orient your efforts to solve these challenges more efficiently, more completely, and in less time.
3. Use short but regular surveys to collect details.
   Small surveys are invaluable to developing a clear picture of customer desires and concerns. Use your findings to improve existing services while orienting your focus on what customers will purchase.
4. Identify what results a customer desires as they contribute to long-term objectives.
   By measuring factors that contribute to customers' objectives, you will know exactly how you benefit buyers. Use this insight to describe every product as if it were a critical factor to reach those desired results.
5. Document changes in customer desires over time.
   Use measures that inform you of changes in customer desires. Track what triggers these changes and you will become more flexible and be able to solve the right problem at the right time.
6. Work through the point-of-purchase from the customers' experience.
   Understand how your customer perceives a purchase from before, during, and after the interaction. Look for triggers that initiate action or identify a need.
7. Ask, "Does this contribute to a positive customer experience?"
   Every process of your company should advance customers’ objectives, if it does not; it is not advancing your own objectives. Measure those things that reduce distractions, placing more efforts on improving the customer relationship.
8. Focus measuring relationships not transactions.
   Re-evaluate your current measures refining those who just measure short-term gain without considering the long-term value of repeat customers. Calculate customer lifetime value, acquisition costs, and return on retention efforts.
9. Determine how you will test measures early in the process.
   Your first measures will not be the right measures, know how you will determine this before investing too much time or money. Test every measure against control efforts to verify its usefulness.
10. Only measure those things useful to improving experience.
    Every measure must advance your customers’ experience, do not waste time measuring things you are not going to use. Ask, "What do we do with this measure?"—require a clear and logical answer.
11. Develop measures specific to customer segments.
    Each customer segment will have identifying characteristics that validate a buyer's inclusion to that group. Analytical measures can improve your ability to qualify accounts for particular products or demands.

Your measures of customer centric efforts are unique to your organization and contribute specifically to your business objectives. They should wrap around your customers’ desires in respect to your unique value; in fact, advances in customer relationship should differentiate your organization from competitors.