Customer-Centric Leadership: The New Priority for CIOs
A lot of businesses are going through digital transformation and things are rising out of that like Agile software development as well as agile business. When we think of these, we think of design thinking, which is more user-centric. Customer-centric leadership can be used to create a successful customer-centric environment.
Customer-centric leadership starts with a leader. Leaders will create the environment to create a good customer experience. The customer-centric leadership requires focus on both are different mindsets as well as a different way of working. To have to understand and get a deeper insight of what exactly a customer wants from you. You can adopt various methodology to bring out input from the customer.
As per latest data, around 78% of IT leaders are saying that the direct interaction with customers has increased importance during the past years. Now companies are treating customers as a priority. How customer is experience is quite critical to know how company will win in the business market. So, customers have become a priority for the organization.
Customer experience is about how an organization interact with its customer whether it is in digital space or in the physical world. The prime goal is to deliver those experiences which delight the customer.
Various studies show that organizations are competing on the basis of providing positive experiences so that they can differentiate them from others. It has put a pressure on the CIOs to deliver the technology needed to power interactions that actually fulfill the expectation of customers.
Customer experience has become the new business imperative nowadays. CIOs must develop their inner in order to succeed. Give more and more time to the customer experience. Companies which are shifting their entire mindset and operating model around delivering a branded and differentiated customer experiences are achieving highest level of brand equity in the market and enjoy highest shareholder value.
Customer experience challenges for CIOs
In the past years, CIO has prioritised technology availability, infrastructural modernization and efficiency gains. For them, the customer experience imperative is relatively new. Those requirements are still vital but IT leaders now must focus on leveraging all those prior elements in order to create the experiences that customers seek. Truly understanding the customer is still a big challenge for CIOs. There is no any Direct Line to the organizations and customers. IT teams have only a direct ongoing interaction with employees who are their internal customers.
Identifying the desires and needs of customers is not the role of the CIO. The product Marketing Officer understands what the customer actually wants by focusing on the needs and analysis of a customer, the services provided to them. CIO provides the technological capabilities if required in order to meet those needs.
Tips for Customer-Centric leadership
- Be visible. Don’t find yourself locked behind your desk. Get out and talk to your team members, partners, and customers. Get feedback and input and put that back into the system and make sure they feel a part of the system.
- Express a passionate commitment to serve the customer. The leader has to be committed towards customers and then the teams and partners follow same. Provide an environment where you set up a team and your partners up for success by providing the things they need to be able to serve the customer.
- Your employees and teams are your greatest asset. Hire people who are more talented and provide them all the resources and tools they need in order to get the best out of them.
- Hire for attitude. People with a positive mindset will benefit for the team as well as for the institutions. Look for the people who can generate positive environment in the institution.
- Empower your employees and team members to make every experience greatest. Give them the lead way to make decision. If something happens to those decisions and you may have to clean things up. But encourage your team members to participate actively so that the experience gained will be better.
- Use social media platforms to create brand awareness and gain more traffic to your website. Engage social media with a genuine voice so that it can resonate with the customers.
