Customer Centric Strategy – How Design Thinking Helps
What is a Customer Centric Strategy
In this world of globalisation, where everything is a competition, innovation and growth have become very difficult. To be honest, even the most customer-oriented organisation faces challenges in identifying and defining the actual business challenge. However, one common that every company finds it difficult is to understand the human brain. The human brain and behaviour are very difficult to understand, as it is a complex system in itself. This is where the design thinking steps in. A customer oriented strategy is drafted when business organisation will start to give due consideration in identifying the needs and wants of a customer and tries to incorporate those findings to offer the best possible user experience.
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is associated with the deep understanding of one’s customers and target. It is one of the most powerful tools to solve the user based issues. It is a customer centric strategy, where the designer needs to focus on the needs of the target, be it conscious or unconscious. They need to put themselves in their target’s shoes to understand them clearly. To do so they must ask themselves many questions from the perspective of the customers. They need to think about the targets desires, needs and emotions.
Design Thinking Process
The process of design thinking includes four key phases: what is, what if, what wows and what works.
- The what is stage is the initial phase which focuses on the development of design brief, key insights and empathy. The design brief defines the opportunities, challenges of the business and other aspects that help in business development. The key insights will act as the guiding principles of the ultimate solutions.
- The what if stage brainstorms new ideas. Moreover, during this phase different concepts are developed to solve the organisational challenges.
- In the what wow phase, the organisation needs to identify the concepts that can really “wow” the targets. These “wow” could be consumer wow, execution wow or economical wow.
- The what works is the final phase of the company. In this phase, the concepts are converted to prototypes, which are later converted to products.
How are Design Thinking and Customer Centricity Connected?
If you consider customer centricity as a deep understanding of customer behaviour and needs, then design thinking is the process through which the customer centricity is achieved. The process of design thinking is connected to insights related to customer persona. Further, these insights are translated to a meaningful growth of the organisation. In such scenarios, the focus is more on the possibilities and opportunities rather than the limitations of the organisation.
The design thinking is the best customer centric strategy because of its
- Feasibility: Abundant data is already available thanks to the development of technology.
- Viability: It works commercially as such activities maximize customer value.
- Desirability: It recognises and reflects the needs of the people
In the near future, every organisation should recognise the power of design thinking and solve the mysteries associated with customer centricity. This is the time where the complexities and competitions between the companies are growing rapidly. Therefore, design thinking is one of the best solutions to identify the customer needs and fuel the growth of the organisation.
