Marketers are failing to achieve a customer centric approach to business despite appreciating its vital importance, according to a new report conducted by B2B Marketing and digital agency Squiz.

The report shows marketers are convinced that their business should be taking a customer centric approach, with 68 per cent of respondents stating that customer centricity was ‘vital’ to their marketing efforts, with a further 23 per cent describing it as ‘important’. It was also clear most marketers thought they were achieving success: when asked whether they believed their organisation was customer centric, 64 per cent of respondents answered ‘yes’.

However, the details of the report reveal a much more complicated picture. When asked to what extent their department actively sought information about their customers’ wants and needs, 53 per cent of marketers claimed it was a primary focus, but that still left 40 per cent of respondents describing it as a ‘background activity’ and a small but remarkable seven per cent saying that listening to customers was ‘not currently a focus’.

An industry where almost half of organisations are treating customer insight as a background activity – or not a focus at all – does not seem compatible with a view that most B2B marketers have fully embraced customer centricity.

Elsewhere in the report there were further contradictions. Eighty-five per cent of respondents ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that human creativity and technology are required to be truly customer centric; but only 14 per cent of respondents’ organisations are placing the maximum emphasis on getting that right.

Commenting on the report, Steve Morgan, managing director EMEA at Squiz, stated: “We think the key finding from this survey is that UK B2B marketers think they’re achieving customer centricity, but are failing to realise what needs to be done to actually succeed in it. It’s fantastic that the majority of marketers recognise the importance of getting close to their customers: they just need to start thinking strategically and discover what’s possible in today’s digitalised business environment.”

By: B2B Marketing
http://www.b2bmarketing.net/news/archive/news-marketers-failing-be-customer-centric