What is Customer Orientation and Why Is It Important?

Customer orientation is a philosophy that suggests that a business operates around the needs of the customer. Rather than prioritizing what the business needs to grow, the goal of customer orientation is to put the focus back on customer needs and ensure they fulfill them. By doing this and putting customer needs first, the goal is to build a customer base that is more loyal and excited about your brand.

As a business owner, you know that it’s easier to think about the things you need for your business. You know you want to increase the number of sales you’re making. You know you want to try to cut costs and get a greater amount of profit. But, if you begin to think about your customers’ needs first, you may find that achieving those business goals becomes easier along the way.

Here’s more about customer orientation and why your business should prioritize the needs of your customers in everything it does.

Customer Orientation Is a Key Characteristic of Successful Businesses

Customer orientation is critically important when building a loyal customer base for several reasons. One of those reasons is that it can help improve retention rates.

Retention rates reflect a customer’s willingness to return to your brand for future purchases. And you do want them to keep returning.

Why?

If you see high customer churn, you’ll spend more money to gain new customers in the future. In fact, it costs between 6 – 7x more to get a new customer than it does to retain one. Additionally, if you are able to improve your customer retention rates, you’ll see your profits grow. Just a 5% increase can lead to up to 95% higher profits.

From these statistics, you can see that retention is key. Keeping customers around for the long haul isn’t as simple as sending ads or follow-up emails. You’ll need to adapt your company to be customer-oriented and to focus on retention. You will also need to develop essential skills across your organization. Those skills will ensure that all staff members interact with customers in a way that puts those customers’ needs first.

5 Essential Customer Service Skills

Customer-oriented teams need to emphasize customer focus. To do that, they will need to develop these five essential customer service skills:

1. Empathy

Empathy is extremely important in any customer service role. During customer service orientation, discuss scenarios that may occur to help agents or staff members walk a mile in their shoes. You want your staff to be customer-oriented and to think about how they’d feel (and what they’d want to achieve) if they were writing to your company for help or service.

Here’s an example:

Customer: “Hi, I called yesterday and was told that my account would work today with this new password. I’ve tried it several times, but I still can’t access it. This is wasting a lot of my time.”

Agent: “Hi, [Customer Name], I’m sorry to hear you’re still having trouble; I’d be so frustrated if that happened to me. Let’s get that reset for you right now. We’ll test the login process together to be sure it’s working properly before you get off the phone!”

2. Active Listening

Active listening is another helpful skill for people to develop on your team. When receiving customer feedback, your team should participate in that conversation. With active listening, team members listen to what the customer is saying, retaining that information by asking questions or reiterating and summarizing what they’ve heard so far. Both paraphrasing what the customer said and asking questions to clarify their wants and needs will be essential to meeting the highest standard of customer-oriented service.

Here’s an example. If Janet calls your customer service team complaining about a late delivery and how it has impacted her business, it’s your team’s turn to pay close attention and ask questions.

After Janet explains, the customer service agent should reiterate the conversation, ask follow-up questions such as when she expected the order or how her business was impacted, and then let her know that they will be working on a solution.

3. Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is a skill that can take time to develop, but it’s well worth the effort. When a customer has a problem, you want your team to be able to resolve it effectively. The reality is that not every customer interaction will be a positive one, but having a keen eye for conflict resolution does help.

For example, if Janet calls your company complaining and the customer service agent just tells her there’s nothing they can do and hangs up, she’ll likely be angry about that interaction. A customer-oriented agent will express their empathy and find out more about what happened to ensure Janet’s case is handled correctly, whether by offering her a refund or simply ensuring the problem won’t happen again.

4. Effective Communication

Effective communication is extremely important when helping a frustrated customer. Your team will handle customer complaints, and they need to be prepared to communicate well to make your customers happy with the outcome of the interaction.

For instance, if Bob calls the company and needs help setting up a new account, he should be connected to someone who can help. And when they do help, they should walk him through the process in a way that he can easily implement on his own. If the agent is too confusing or they connect him to a line that has him on hold for an hour, he’s much less likely to walk away happy, or stay on as a customer.

5. Adaptability

Another key skill to develop in a customer service-oriented business is adaptability. When a situation changes, your staff has to be able to adapt on the fly.

For instance, imagine that a customer purchases a product from you and is frustrated with not being able to get it to work correctly for them. Your customer service staff may begin to help them with a standard troubleshooting process, but the customer could become angrier if that isn’t quickly resolving the problem. In that situation, your team needs to know how to adapt.

Your staff should be trained to change their approach if the way they’re interacting with a customer doesn’t seem to be working well. That might include calling instead of using a chat or sending a manual to them and giving them time to review it before a technician arrives.

Here’s an example: if Bob writes to your team through a live chat and starts to seem anxious or panicked because he doesn’t understand how to use a new version of the product, it may be beneficial for the agent to call him to talk him through the process instead. Your team shouldn’t be afraid to try new approaches.

4 Benefits of Being Customer-Oriented

Now that you know some of the skills you have to develop to offer customer-oriented service, you’re probably wondering what the actual advantages are. Here are some of the top reasons you’ll want to focus on your customers and the benefits it offers.

Increased Customer Trust

When it’s clear that your business puts customers first and keeps customers happy, it will provide for great reputation. Even if there is a problem with a product or service, showing that your company is willing to listen to customer feedback and respond with an appropriate level of empathy and support will help you retain loyal customers. A service-oriented approach helps you build customer relationships and customer loyalty for the long term.

Higher Employee Satisfaction

In a service-oriented role, employees have the ability to turn negative situations into positive ones.

And, helping has additional benefits for your employees. Not only will being able to offer solutions resolve conflicts, but it will also help build better relationships with customers over time.

Additionally, those relationships can help employees feel fulfilled in their roles. It feels good to help customers and find solutions. As customers feel better and happier about their interactions and the products or services they’ve been using, your customer service team will get good reviews. That positive feedback will reverberate and help your team become more engaged and satisfied in their roles in customer service, as well.

This is extremely important for many reasons, but there is one that you should keep in mind: When employees are happy, they’re less likely to move on to other jobs. That means your company will have more skilled employees who will be loyal to your brand, and you can reduce the cost of new employee sourcing and onboarding, too.

Greater Product Sales

With a customer-focused approach, you’re likely to see a higher number of product sales and a better customer lifetime value (CLV). When you respect your customers and do everything you can to resolve customer complaints positively, your service-oriented reputation will build itself.

Over time, you will find that your customers stay loyal because they trust the service you provide. You may also find that your customers are happier with your products or services and are more likely to refer others to your brand.

Better Industry Standards

A final reason to offer a customer-centric, service-oriented approach is because doing so can help increase industry standards across the board.

Consider this: if you own a medical office and consistently stay on time, offer reasonable rates, and provide high-quality services, you’re going to see an increase in the number of patients you serve. You may have an office that grows rapidly, too.

As long as you keep up those standards, patients will want to come to your office, not the office of a competitor. And competitors will take note.

By being the best in the business, or at least trying to do your best for your customers, other companies in your industry will need to do the same to keep up. If they don’t, they could lose their own customers to you, a company that does puts customers first.

How To Become Customer-Oriented With Podium

With Podium, it’s easy to be customer-oriented and foster a customer-centric culture that helps your business thrive.

To get started, it’s necessary to train your employees on how to create a customer-centric culture. One way to do this is by looking at previous customer feedback.

With Podium, you have AI-powered review software at your fingertips. You can double your monthly reviews in under 60 days, giving you better insight into what your customers or clients have to say about the customer experience.

After reviewing customer feedback with your team, discuss options for coming back stronger in future conversations. To improve the customer experience, you may need to discuss taking a customer-centric approach when resolving issues or offering technical support. Review all feedback and implement the changes that make the most sense for your team.

Setting goals based on customer feedback and monitoring social media for additional insights will also help you develop a customer-centric business. And, with Podium’s AI-powered inbox, you can centralize your incoming customer interactions across multiple channels, allowing you to gather data on what your customers need and want from your brand. By setting goals, listening to customer feedback, and monitoring social media, you’ll position your brand to build better customer relationships, give your support team insight to help them offer the highest quality service, and improve customer satisfaction overall.

Podium AI

Consumer orientation means you focus on what your brand can do for your customers, not what customers can do for you. Learning about your customers, their needs, and their customer experience can help your brand thrive.

Podium’s CRM software for small businesses is designed to manage reviews, feedback, payments, and data. Podium’s modern CRM saves you time by managing all customer interactions, including payments and conversations, in one place. See how Podium’s CRM software can help your marketing team be 2x more effective. Watch a demo now.