The barometer of customer centricity in Romanian companies

Transcription

1 The barometer of customer centricity in Romanian companies A survey on the perception of executives and managers about client centricity as part of the company strategy and processes Edition 1

2 Why a study on client centricity in companies? Although client centricity is not a new concept, it has become increasingly relevant in the context of digital business transformation, digital marketing, and the need for managers to monitor, understand and model customer experience. In this report, we talk about client centricity as a strategy that aligns the development and delivery of company products around consumer needs in order to increase the value of the company. Why a survey of client centricity in the Romanian companies? Because we want to see if in this world of a connected customer who now has a multitude of channels to observe, analyze, compare, choose client centricity goes up on the agenda of decision makers' priorities in the Romanian companies. We would like that, through the annual editions of this study, to provide a comparative analysis of how companies make this concept of customer focus, not just an instrument to generate more business, but the central part of their mission. This study was conducted in partnership with the Doingbusiness.ro team. 2

3 Why is it important for companies to have a client centric approach? Apparently, a sales-oriented culture seems to be more efficient for the company, but the customer-centric approach is more profitable in the long run. This is because client centricity not only leads to better products / services, but also to creating interactions with customers before and after sales, in order to generate repeated sales, loyalty and profits. To understand why client centricity brings so many benefits, we need to determine why customer satisfaction is so important to business. Loyal customers are up to 10 times more valuable than their first-time buy It's 6-7 times more expensive to get a new customer than to retain one you already have 7 out of 10 Romanians say they would try a new brand or a new company for a better customer experience 62% of global consumers and 73% of those in Romania have stopped buying from a brand or organization because of a poor customer service experience When it comes to sales, the probability of selling to an existing customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer 3

4 TOP 5 CONCLUSIONS 4

5 Main results of the study This study probes the perceptions of executives and managers about client centricity as part of company s strategy and processes. The questionnaire, which received 424 responses, was applied between 20 September and 20 October In this report we talk about client centricity as a strategy that aligns the development and delivery of company products around consumer needs with the goal to increase the value of the company. The study was conducted in partnership with Doingbusiness.ro. Values Criteria Internal actions External actions Obstacles 75% of companies consider the insights of consumers' needs as the main value that supports client centricity of the company 53% of companies consider increasing customer satisfaction as the most important criterion in assessing client centricity of a company 50% of companies place a premium on the creation of processes that deliver superior customer service in the set of internal actions to increase customer satisfaction 63% of companies focus on expanding the range of products related to customer needs in the set of external actions to increase customer satisfaction 89% of companies say that the main obstacle to better client focus is the lack of the necessary data management technologies 5

6 Main conclusions of the study From the comparative analysis of the respondent segments, it is clear that only large companies in Romania have the knowledge, technology and resources needed for a consistent approach to client centricity. Consumer retention is an important value for only 27% of companies, leading to opportunity costs in many companies, but especially to insufficient leverage of the customer base. Organizational culture unaligned with customer needs is a challenge for 70% of companies, which is more difficult to address than the challenge of 89% of the lack of adequate technology. Although for 75% of companies knowledge of consumer needs is first, consumer experience is relevant only to 18% of companies. Centrarea pe client în companiile din România Only 15% of Romanian companies currently have a budget dedicated to client experience, while only 29% of companies involve the client relationship team in the company budget. Top-down communication, which is mainly used by Romanian companies for this topic, is less effective and can hardly generate authenticity and involvement. Responsibility to develop criteria for prioritizing initiatives to improve consumer experience in 40% belongs to top management of companies, which can only be a management act that is disconnected to the reality. Only 42% of companies say they provide training for employees to understand the client-centric approach, but only 33% operationalize clientcentric values of the organization. 6

7 SURVEY FINDINGS 7

8 1 Categories of consumers. Overall, the companies which answered the survey questionnaire have 94% B2B customers, 74% B2C customers and 25% B2G customers. What categories of customers does your company have? (multiple responses) 100% 94% 90% 80% 74% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 25% 20% 10% 0% Business-to-Business (B2B) Business-to-consumer (B2C) Government organization/state enterprise (B2G) 2% Other Answers: 424 Skipped this question: 0 In order to have a clear picture of the types of clients the companies which responded to this survey have, we start this report with this chart as it will also help us understand better the findings that follow. Thus, we see that 25% of the pool of clients are state-owned or governmental organizations. 74% are consumers and 94% are businesses. 8

9 2 What matters most. For 53% of companies, customer satisfaction increase year-on-year is the most important criterion to be the best in the market in terms of customer focus. What makes a company the best in the market? (one answer) Annual increase in consumer satisfaction 53% Increase annual service quality by lowering demandsettling times 24% Consumer retention 14% The annual increase in solving customer requests 7% The annual increase in the rate of use of company representatives in relation to customers 2% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Answers: 326 Skipped this question: 98 For 53% of CEOs and managers in Romania the most important indicator for knowing that their company is the best in the market on client centricity is increasing consumer satisfaction rates every year. Only 24% of the respondents consider that the most important criterion is the increase in the quality of services by lowering client response times and just 14% of the respondent companies look at customer retention. 9

10 SURVEY FINDINGS BY INDUSTRY 10

11 1 Categories of consumers. The analyzed industries have mostly B2B customers. Only in the retail & wholesale sector, we see a prevalence of B2C customers. What categories of customers does your company have? (multiple responses) 120% 100% 93% 98% 93% 89% 96% 98% 80% 66% B2C 60% 40% 52% 30% 33% 41% 34% 51% 27% 25% B2B B2G Other 20% 0% 13% 13% 7% 4% 1% 2% Construction/Real Estate Industry/Production Information Technology Retail & Wholesale Professional Services Transportation Answers: 424 Skipped this question: 0 In this section we show the specific results obtained by six industries with a total weight of 76% in the overall number of answers. Thus, we see that these industries have significantly more B2B than B2C customers, with the exception of retail & wholesale trade where B2C customers have a weight of 89%. However, it is relevant to know this information to properly analyse the results on the following pages. 11

12 2 What matters most. For 66% of the production companies, increasing customer satisfaction every year is the most important criterion for a firm to be the best in terms of customer focus. What makes a company the best in the market? (one answer) 70% 66% Consumer retention 60% 50% 50% 53% 49% 44% Annual increase in consumer satisfaction 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 13% 35% 9% 4% 39% Construction/Real Estate 28% 25% 26% 22% 19% 19% 13% 15% 12% 11% 5% 6% 4% 5% 1% Industry/Production Information Technology Retail & Wholesale Professional Services Transportation The annual increase in solving customer requests The annual increase in the rate of use of company representatives in relation to customers Increase annual service quality by lowering demand-settling times Answers: 326 Skipped this question: 98 In construction and transport, companies find that through annual growth in service quality and lower demand-settling times, differentiate the best in the market regarding customer centricity. In all the other analyzed industries (industry/production, IT, retail & wholesale trade, professional services), the most important criterion for differentiation is the year-on-year increase in customer satisfaction. 12

13 CONTACTS 13

14 Contact details and acknowledgements Constantin Măgdălina Trends and Emergent Technologies Expert Elena Badea Managing Partner Valoria Business Solutions Diana Dumitrașcu Executive Director Doingbusiness.ro We would like to thank all the respondents for their support in conducting this survey. We are delighted to see such a high interest in this topic and the prompt responses. The present study was carried out with the support of Doingbusiness.ro team. About Valoria Valoria Business Solutions is a company providing training, consulting and executive coaching services. The company's mission is to transform the potential of teams and organizations into value. Competence, confidence, innovation and passion are the values that sustain us in everything we do. We believe in people, in their aspiration for personal and professional fulfillment, and their willingness to accelerate their potential. Learn more about us at: The present slide-deck is a study/quantitative analysis which aims to highlight trends related to the topic and advance working hypotheses to be validated by further extended market research, on representative samples. This material is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing. It has an informative purpose and therefore we recommend professional advice before taking any action. 14

15 Valoria Business Solutions SRL Training I Consulting I Coaching Elena Badea, Managing Partner Mobile: elena.badea@valoria.ro Web: 15