Are customers king of your castle?

While the past decade has been known for its technology evolution and increased pace of business, it has not quite achieved its focus and success in terms of customer-centricity. Quinton Pienaar, CEO of Agilitude, Africa's first Salesforce.com reseller, says this is not entirely the issue of focus, but also the ever-changing technology landscape.

"Today's technology allows customer-facing teams to create and deploy customer journeys based on rich customer insights. This results in a one-to-one customer connection and creates closer, long-lasting relationships with customers."

Pienaar says, according to a Customer 2020 report, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator: "This means that businesses have to start now to embed a customer-centric methodology into its overall approach if they want to succeed."

Cloud, mobile, big data, and most recently, the Internet of things (IOT), have dramatically impacted both technology and customer service with its rapid evolution. The continued growth and adoption of these trends is significantly changing the way we interact, and this means that customers will continue to evolve and mature, having many more avenues to find the service they want."

While he says this is a potential threat, it is also a very big opportunity. "The time is now for customers to pursue a customer-centric culture. By creating value out of the data and proactively defining the desired needs of the customer, a business is more likely to succeed."

Agilitude has key partnerships with leading customer-centric brands such as Salesforce.com, Zuora and Informatica. Pienaar says his team helps customers find new ways to interact with clients: "We know that customer experience is a major driver in buying decisions and focus entirely on helping customers better understand their journey, and as a result, their needs.

"Renowned author, Wally Lamb, says: 'The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.'

"It is in this journey that our most significant differentiator lies," says Pienaar. "Our partner community, along with Salesforce.com at the centre, provides value-added extensions and allows us to provide what customers need, simply and efficiently. Ultimately, we collaborate, we don't merely develop solutions, with customer-centricity remaining at our core."

For more information, visit www.agilitude.co.za.