Customer insights consultancy UserTribe, of Copenhagen, Denmark, recently asked me to contribute to its 2017 Customer Outlook. It’s a collection of ten “high-profile international experts” (I’m the “Experience Economist”) writing on “customer involvement trends, dos & don’ts”.
Exploring Customer Centricity in a New Light
I took the opportunity to relate together two concepts that I have usually talk about separately: customer centricity – putting the one who pays you money at the center of everything you do – and the Experience Economy. The upshot? Not being customer-centric is a surefire way to commoditize yourself.
Download the full Outlook here on the UserTribe website, for embracing your individual, living, breathing customers is the first step to de-commoditizing yourself.
“So if you wish to be customer-centric, you must think about, understand, and interact not with markets but with individual customers, and then mass customize your offerings to each individual customer. In fact, thinking about, understanding, and interacting with markets instead of customers actually commoditizes yourself. In my book The Experience Economy, co-written with my partner Jim Gilmore, we talk about the dynamic of commoditization, where customers treat your offerings as if they were undifferentiated commodities to be bought and sold solely on price, price, price. And we go into depth on how customization is the antidote to commoditization, for when you customize for individual customers you cannot help but be differentiated!”
– Joe Pine from UserTribe’s 2017 Customer Outlook
Learn from UserTribe while exploring the Customer Outlook, for embracing your individual, living, breathing customers is the first step to de-commoditizing yourself.