Paying Lip Service To Customer-Centricity Is Not Enough

What do companies KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Amazon U.K, and World Disney World have in common? A genuine commitment to strengthening relationships with their customers.

Some of the most innovative brands are ripping up the marketing mix and delivering against a new “customer mix” framework.

Many consumer-focused businesses now describe themselves as customer-centric, but there’s a huge chasm between talking the talk and walking the walk. To better define what customer-centricity really means in practice CMOs (and the rest of the executive team) need a new framework.

The well-known Marketing Mix focuses on Product, Price, Place, and Promotion (supplemented by People, Process, and Physical Evidence) and was created in an age when the balance of power was very much in favour of big business.

In the maturing Internet age, the power of customers demands an alternative. A Customer Mix framework reflects this, including Who, Why, What, Where, When, and What’s Next.

Here’s how three very different customer-focused brands are delivering against it.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

KLM is paying more than lip service to its stated aim of being the most customer-centric airline. After witnessing how customers wanted to communicate via social channels in the aftermath of the Icelandic volcano eruption in 2010, it has declared social media to be the centre of its customer service efforts.

Since then KLM has reorganised its marketing and service functions and launched a Social Media Hub to handle all incoming requests. It aims to respond to queries within one hour and resolve problems within a day.

Thinking about the Where and When of the Customer Mix, KLM also monitors sentiment on social—not just direct complaints—to identify negative experiences at check-in, the lounge, or baggage carousel. And it ran a marketing campaign in 2014—#HappyToHelp—where its staff spent a week offering to help as many passengers as possible on Twitter and in person at Schiphol and other key airports, irrespective of the airline they were travelling with.

KLM continues to develop how it uses social. In 2015 it activated private messaging on its Facebook page and saw a 40% uplift in customers contacting it this way. And in late March, it began to allow customers to receive their boarding and check-in confirmations, boarding passes, and flight status information by Facebook Messenger too. KLM says customers find it convenient to have access to all this information in a single place wherever they are.

Amazon U.K.

Amazon’s relentless assault on traditional retail models continues to resonate with customers, which is no surprise given it delivers against every aspect of the Customer Mix.

Amazon considers Why the customer journey may be important to a purchase decision, using free delivery and one-click ordering as marketing tools. And it covers off what its target customers are most interested in ordering with personalisation of the on-site experience, marketing emails, and bundling services (and therefore perceived value) through its Prime subscription service.

The online retailer’s market-leading supply chain and fulfilment proposition cover Where and When. It’s increasingly clever about getting the right products in the right place to fulfil next-day and even same-day delivery in the U.K. And it’s also thinking about Where and When with developments such as Amazon Dash, trying to be relevant and supportive of customers at every stage in the customer journey.

Finally, Amazon Prime comes into play again when Amazon considers What’s Next. It’s driving lifetime customer value by adding value through content/entertainment as well as free delivery and special offers. The loyalty-driving power of Prime will only increase as it pushes further into categories such as fresh food and fashion.

Disney

Walt Disney World in Florida is a perfect example of how any business can utilise digital channels to support customer journeys and help to build customer relationships. So it’s no surprise it’s continued to remain popular with European tourists despite the development of Disneyland Paris, which does not offer the same experience.

The American theme park resort recognises that the question of Who its customers are and What they want isn’t straightforward. Children are its real customers, although their parents make the purchases. If the kids are happy, then the parents will be too. There is even a “No Sad Kids” rule, which park staff help to enforce through the free ice creams and fast passes they are authorised to give out.

For many European tourists, a trip to Walt Disney World will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The business has one chance to maximise customer value and make an impression that the guests are likely to take home and share with family and friends.

So guests can use an app or site to book fast passes for rides, meet and greets, and dining up to 30 days in advance of their vacation (or 60 days if staying in a Disney hotel). Once at the park, the app also shows queue times for different rides, helping guests to make the most of their trip.

Engaging customers before they arrive, and supporting them while they are there, again plays to the idea of considering Where and When the customer needs touch points in order to maximise your relationship with them.

It’s relatively easy to come up with gimmicky marketing initiatives that attract consumers’ attention and put a spotlight on your brand. But following through by thinking about how to strengthen relationships with your customers at every stage of the customer journey is what’s required before your business can truly claim to be customer-centric.