Enterprising companies around the world are increasingly developing and implementing customer-centric growth strategies, based on deepening relationships with their customers to emphasize long-term satisfaction over short-term sales conversions. With these strategies, the key indicator of success is customer lifetime value, a measurement of the customer's value over the life of the relationship. Other key metrics include share of wallet, products per customer, average revenue per user (ARPU), loyalty, retention, and on-boarding conversion rates.

The challenges of implementing a customer-centric strategy can be addressed along two dimensions: do you have the right insight into the customer and do you have the ability to respond to the needs and interests of the customer based on that insight? An organizational self-assessment will identify the key challenges and opportunities for any organization:

• Customer-specific offers. Rather than pushing products, does your organization have enough insight about the customer to create offers based on the individual needs of those specific customers at the moment of interaction?


• Consistent customer experience. Does your company provide a consistent experience for each customer-initiated contact across multi-channel touchpoints, defined as the web, call center, kiosk, or retail outlet? Does your company take advantage of this opportunity to understand the geographic, demographic, and psychographic characteristics of customers and build trust and strengthen their emotional ties to the company?