Customer Centricity | jan '16

Large companies today spend billions to manage their public image. And in many industries no part of that image is more important than how people think a company's customer service is. Customer Service is becoming a lot more than an ‘industry buzzword' as large companies who treat their customers poorly are starting to lose customers right and left.

Customers want good customer service, but if companies can just hire good PR people to cover problems up, how do we, as customers, ever demand that companies improve. We thought that a good start would be to close the information gap, so that customers know who is good and who isn't. With that in mind, we have sifted through customer surveys and studies as well as some real-life experiences of customers, to pinpoint and ultimately learn from, the 10 worst companies for customer service. 

Today's customer is growing accustomed to researching and purchasing across multiple channels, even for a single transaction. The best omnichannel marketers understand this, and it shows in their advertising, messaging, and customer interactions. However, too many businesses have taken an inside-out approach, focusing on individual channels at the expense of a consistent experience across channels. 

Old habits die hard, but die they must if marketers are to alter their strategies and place the customer at the fore.

“Customer centricity has become an imperative,” says Chip Overstreet, SVP of marketing at cross-channel personalization provider MyBuys. Here, Overstreet, and other experts offer six questions marketers can ask themselves to determine if their business is on track to being customer centric.