Customer centricity

I just read this post on FC Experts about the disconnect between what organizations say and what they actually do when it comes to being customer-centric (for planners, think attendee-centric). From the post:

Take proposals, for example. I was just with a new client in Europe. This innovative and technically superior corporation had a challenge on their hands. They were driving a value strategy and customer centric messaging throughout their organization but not seeing bottom line results. When we were given sales and marketing collateral such as proposals, white papers, case studies, and a website to review, and conducted multiple interviews, the question we were asking ourselves was, “Where is their customer in this picture?” All this stuff was about the seller…their great achievements and super powerful products and services. We found that 90-plus percent of the content was about them and their solutions.

Sound like your organization? To find out, poster Jeff Thull suggests that you "compare your collateral, your proposals, your web sites with two of your best competitors. Shuffle them up and re-assign them. Is there a difference?" All too often, there really isn't.