Customer focus: A Midas touch

By on January 8, 2012

In today’s highly competitive business scenario where firms compete for securing the maximum market share, customer acquisition and retention is highly important. For this the firm must adopt customer centric approach and incorporate customer focus as the guiding philosophy for business functions.

Customer focus is a philosophy of business that places the customer interest as the top most priority along with those of stakeholders like employees, shareholders or owners etc. to build up prolonged profitable relationships (Nwokah and Maclayton, 2006). The possible way a firm can make it unique from its counterparts is the way it handles the customers; how a firm positions itself in the minds of the customer to augment their interaction and trading with the company and to supplement revenue generation progressively (Huthwaite, n.d.). Customer focus needs to begin with the product development; a product must be worked out on the basis of customer needs and demands. It is such product development and consequently, diversification that can ensure to promote future growth of the business in terms of revenue, sales volume and market share (Jones, Dimitratos, Fletcher and Young, 2009). Customer focus is a management style and it stimulates business functions from every aspect. When product and services are designed and developed with a customer centric approach and customer are treated with admirable customer service, the firm can be confident of benefitting from the advantages of a strong brand image, competitive edge, enhanced customer loyalty, and amplified sales resulting in enhanced revenues (Dale, Marvell and Oliver, 2005).

In its essence, customer focus acts as a mechanism to align all the business philosophies, values and functions towards the most fundamental purpose of any business: increased profits and higher sales volume. Customer focus does not overtly improve the sales volume of any company, but steadily over a time span, its implementation has an affirmative impact on the business finally resulting in increase in revenue generation.

REFERENCES:

  • Dale,G., Marvell,A. and Oliver,H.2005.  AS Level for Edexcel: Travel & Tourism. Oxford: Heinemann
  • Huthwaite,n.d. Creating a Customer Focused Sales Culture [pdf] Available at : http://www.huthwaite.co.uk/pdf/case-studies/first-national-bank-creating-a-customer-focused-sales-culture.pdf [Accessed 28 December 2011]
  • Jones,M., Dimitratos, P., Fletcher, M. and Young,S. 2009. Internationalization, Entrepreneurship and the Smaller Firm. Glos: Edward Elgar
  • Nwokah, N.G. and Maclayton, D.W. 2006.Customer focus and business performance: the study offood and beverages organizations in Nigeria.Measuring Business Excellence, The Journal of Organizational Performance Management. 10 (4). Pp. 65-75.

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