by Thiago Brant, reflecting on a pivotal experience as a Product Owner launching an MVP for a financial institution. Initially focused on technical aspects, a usability test highlighted a critical oversight: customer usability. This revelation underscored the importance of customer-centricity—prioritizing customer needs and experiences above all else. Drawing insights from Agile principles and SAFe, the article explores how companies can embed customer-centric thinking across all functions. It emphasizes the value of understanding customer behaviors, innovating collaboratively, and fostering a culture where every decision aligns with enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

I once worked on a project as a Product Owner. The objective was to launch an MVP of an online loan solution for a financial institution in four months. The financial company urgently needed to migrate to the digital world to avoid disappearing from the map.

It was their first time using Scrum as a framework, and the team absorbed it very well. The entire process, with its ceremonies, went smoothly. We were grounded in market research and exploring competitor solutions. We had an excellent technical team and were engaged with the initiative.

On the eve of launching our first version, we finally organized a usability test with a natural person compatible with the solution’s persona.

And that’s when everything changed for me!

With the team ready, we gave our user the mission of requesting an online loan for a hypothetical trip. She sat down at the notebook and started the process. We were worried about the interest rate values and whether they would be acceptable. To our surprise, the first significant objection appeared when she needed to provide her date of birth.

She couldn’t do it! Our technical team chose a data component that the user could not use. She broke out in a cold sweat, asking, “This is when I would call my son to help me.” She was uncomfortable.

This important moment showed us something crucial. Even though our team was skilled and we planned carefully, the test taught us a big lesson:

• If we don’t focus on what the customer needs, even the best plans can fail.

As we looked over all the feedback we got, it was clear that

• Making sure customers are happy isn’t just part of our job—it’s what makes us successful.

And

• There is no point in having a great team with everything working if the customer is not at the center of everything.

What is Customer-Centricity?

But what does customer-centricity mean?

According to SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework):

“Customer Centricity is a mindset that focuses on creating positive customer experiences through the full suite of products and services the company offers.”

In other words, it is a mindset that directs all our products and services around our customer’s experience.

Still, according to SAFe, this is due to:

• Customer focus – Aligning and focusing the organization on specific, targeted user segments.
• Understanding customer needs – Going beyond just listening to customers requesting features and investing time to identify fundamental, ongoing customer needs.
• Thinking and feeling like the customer – Striving to see the world from the customer’s point of view.
• Building end-to-end product solutions – Designing a complete solution to user needs and ensuring that the initial and long-term customer experience continually evolves toward the ideal solution.
• Knowing the customer’s lifetime value – Moving beyond a transactional mindset and focusing on creating long-term relationships based on clearly understanding how the customer gains value.

An important distinction here is that we have two different views to consider:

• The customer is the person who buys/pays for your product/service.
• The user is the person who uses your service.

Importance: Why Does a Customer-Centric Approach Matter?

There are several reasons to adopt a customer-centric approach, but I’ll start with the one that perhaps catches the most attention from corporations:

Brands that have a clear commitment to improving their customers’ quality of life outperform the stock market by 120%.

See this article on HBR from 2022: HBR

This article, cited in the Meaning and Purpose module of Management 3.0’s Agile People Leadership Workshop, also provides other impressive information:

• Over the last decade, purpose-driven brands have seen their valuation skyrocket by 175%
• 77% of consumers feel a stronger connection to purpose-driven companies over traditional companies
• 66% of consumers would switch from a product they typically buy to a new product from a purpose-driven company

That’s right! Having a focus on the customer will help the company have more revenue. This is also the #1 reason SAFe lists, adding:

• Greater employee engagement: Knowing that we are doing something meaningful and solving real people’s problems makes us more engaged. Teams with a sense of purpose are more effective than those without.
• More satisfied customers: This is self-explanatory. If we meet our customer’s needs, they will be more satisfied. They are more likely to make repeat purchases and they are more likely to remain loyal to your brand, even in the face of competition. Also, satisfied customers often share their positive experiences with others, generating valuable word-of-mouth marketing.
• Better product resilience and sustainability: This is the much-talked-about “Love the Problem.” Companies that understand their customers’ problems and challenges will go further. A customer-centric approach involves actively seeking feedback from customers, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and innovate to better meet their needs and it allows you to adapt quickly to changes and stay relevant in the eyes of your customers.

Customer-Centric Culture: How to Create a Customer-Centric Strategy?

Creating a customer-centric strategy involves focusing your business operations, processes, and culture on delivering an exceptional customer experience.

But how?

According to Jonathan Hughes, David Chapnick, Isaac Block, and Saptak Ray in an article for the University of California, Berkeley, market leaders achieve this by:

• Embed customer-centric thinking and practices in the company’s DNA across all functions
  Ensure that every department and team within the organization prioritizes the customer’s needs and perspectives. This means integrating customer-focused strategies and practices into the company’s core operations, values, and culture, so that customer-centricity becomes second nature in every decision and action. (See both Brazilian examples below)
  
• Seek competitive differentiation through every aspect of the customer journey and experience
  Strive to stand out from competitors by offering unique and superior experiences at every touchpoint in the customer journey. This involves identifying and enhancing moments that matter to customers, from initial awareness and engagement to post-purchase support, ensuring that each interaction leaves a positive and memorable impression. (See Amazon example below)
  
• Externalize innovation
  Encourage and facilitate innovation beyond the company’s internal efforts. This can include collaborating with customers, partners, and other external stakeholders to co-create products, services, and solutions that address real-world needs and challenges, thus driving growth and differentiation. (The Open Innovation initiative like Cubo Itaú in Brazil is a great example)
  
• Reorient sales – from selling to customers to selling for customers
  Shift the focus of sales teams from merely pushing products to genuinely understanding and addressing the needs and desires of customers. This approach prioritizes building relationships, solving problems, and adding value, ultimately fostering loyalty and long-term customer satisfaction. (See Apple example below)
  
• Marry customer-centricity with employee engagement
  Recognize that engaged employees are crucial to delivering exceptional customer experiences. Foster a workplace culture where employees feel valued, empowered, and aligned with the company’s customer-centric goals. Engaged and motivated employees are more likely to go the extra mile to meet and exceed customer expectations. (Refer to the last section of this article, or read my other article about Enhancing the Employee Experience with Management 3.0)

Practical Approaches to Customer-Centricity

I’ve come across two exciting approaches from companies moving to a customer-centric approach:

• A sizeable Brazilian bank placed a notice at the entrance of all meeting rooms with the phrase, “Is your client participating in this meeting?” It was a reminder for the meeting to bring the client into the topic to be discussed.
• In another company in Brazil, with many innovative initiatives, a chair was placed in each meeting room and event space with a cover simply reading “Client.” It was a reminder that we always have to have the client participate in our discussions.

Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organizations, has an interesting test to determine whether an organization’s purpose is valid. One of the questions is: “What would happen to your organization’s sales if your customers had to watch an honest video of how your products/services are made?”

I would adapt this to: “What would happen to your sales if the customer was inside the meetings where things are decided?”

Think about it. But here’s an important warning: look at the story of the online loan I told at the beginning and the Haier vegetable washing machine. These two stories have an interesting aspect. In both cases, the customer was not a simulation but the actual customer in the customer’s environment.

As crucial as initiatives to consider the customer in the company’s day-to-day operations are, the most important thing is understanding your customers, observing them, and interacting with them where things happen: in real life.

In the following skills and tools session, I will focus on this practical aspect of involving the customer.

Customer-Centric Skills and Tools

To be customer-centric, we will need some essential soft skills:

• Empathy
• Communication
• Problem-Solving
• Patience
• Adaptability and Flexibility
• Building Relationships
• Collaboration
• Emotional Intelligence

With this mindset, we can apply several powerful tools, such as:

• Personas: Help us understand our customers and their behaviors. Tip: Don’t just focus on data; go into the field and get to know your actual customers.
• Empathy Maps: What do our clients think and feel? Create empathy with them. Tip: Create an empathy map by observing your clients and experiencing what they experience.
• Customer Journeys: How does the customer interact with your product? What steps do they follow until they solve their needs? Tip: Build this journey by observing your real customer in action while performing tasks.
• Design Thinking: Human-centered design. Create solutions that effectively solve people’s real problems. Tip: Pay close attention to the steps involved in field research, and do it in the field.
• Jobs-to-Be-Done: What does your client want to accomplish? Tip: Watch them in action and ask yourself: why do you want to do this? Use the five whys here.
• Ethnographic Method: Observe your client in their natural environment. When are they happy? When do they get upset? Where does it hang?

Examples of Customer-Centric Companies

Haier: Haier again, the prominent Chinese household appliances company known for its innovative management practices, serves as a prime example of customer-centricity. Haier revolutionized its organizational structure, transforming its traditional pyramid into 4,000 autonomous units resembling micro-enterprises, all dedicated to creating value. This approach, termed ‘Zero Distance,’ brings the company closer to its customers by decentralizing decision-making and fostering direct interactions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Haier exemplified agility by swiftly adapting its production line to manufacture masks, showcasing its commitment to meeting customer needs promptly.

Amazon: Amazon is also a great example with its easy return policy. Concerned about its customer experience, Amazon created a policy where customers generally have 30 days to return an item for almost any reason. To give you an idea, “The Amazon paradigm heralded a major change in consumer expectations that we now see reflected across the entire retail industry.”

Apple: A friend once visited Apple in New York to exchange his cell phone. He wanted a top-of-the-line model with the most memory possible. The person who helped him tried to understand his needs and offered another model with less memory and 300 dollars cheaper. When asked about the commission and whether it makes sense for a seller to offer a cheaper product, the attendant replied, “Here at Apple, we are not sellers; we are consultants available to help the customer find the best option for them.”

Nubank: Here in Brazil, we have the example of Nubank, a digital bank obsessed with its customers’ experience, whose purpose is ‘To fight complexity to empower people.’ Nubank has consistently met my expectations, far exceeding other companies’ performance in customer service. While other companies require a cumbersome process to reach someone, Nubank stands out by providing seamless access to attentive customer service representatives with just a few clicks.

How Does Management 3.0 Contribute to a Customer-Centric Culture?

In the last five years of actively working with Management 3.0, I have found that many of the practices and tools we cover are related to teams and workers. But where is the “Helping to Delight All Clients” I mentioned above?

It is interesting to state here what Management 3.0 considers to be a customer:

“Customers are not just our external customers. We consider everyone involved in the system as customers: co-workers, other teams, customers, shareholders, etc. We must delight all customers, not just stakeholders or our co-workers.”

That’s why “we manage the system, not the people.” Management 3.0 aims to create a working system that benefits all stakeholders, including customers and users.

When we talk about “Engaging people and their interactions,” it is because people involved in work will solve other people’s problems more effectively. When we say “Improve the system,” we want a more optimized system to generate value for our customers. When discussing “Co-create work,” we discuss a continuous feedback cycle involving everyone, including our client.

Ultimately, all five Management 3.0 principles lead us to a customer-centric environment, and its six management visions support us in making this part of our daily jobs.