{"id":12136,"date":"2014-03-05T07:33:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T07:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/?p=12136"},"modified":"2019-10-03T12:09:34","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T16:09:34","slug":"new-customer-centric-customer-experience-4-ps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/new-customer-centric-customer-experience-4-ps\/","title":{"rendered":"The New and Customer-Centric Customer Experience 4 P\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Marketing 101, everyone learns the basic 4 P\u2019s of the classic \u2018marketing mix\u2019, as defined by Neil Borden in the 1960\u2019s: <b><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Product &#8211; manufactured item or service<\/li>\n<li>Place &#8211; making the product or service accessible to customers<\/li>\n<li>Price &#8211; charging at a point above break-even to make a profit<\/li>\n<li>Promotion \u2013 communicating to customers, prospects and others about the product or service<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Over the past fifty years, these 4 P\u2019s have held up pretty well.\u00a0 After all, the product has to be right, be functionally sound, be durable, and work well.\u00a0 The price has to be right; and, even in the case of expensive durables or services, it has to be financially sound.\u00a0 The place, reflective of distribution channel, must be in customers\u2019 hands at the right time.\u00a0 And, through promotion, the right target group or groups must receive needed communication about both the existence and availability of the product or service.<\/p>\n<p>As sound as the 4 P\u2019s have been, changes in communication and the move to greater customer focus within the enterprise have found customer behavior, and their loyalty, at growing risk.\u00a0 Companies have to be current with rising consumer expectations and need for personalized value.\u00a0 Digitization has made organizations both transparent and accessible, and has also increased the requirement that they become omnichannel.\u00a0 The traditional emphasis on functional touch points and transactional relationships has given way to a focus on overall <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-experience\/\">customer experience<\/a> that goes well beyond price-based commodity to greater innovation and relevance.<\/p>\n<p>Today, we\u2019re dealing with a different <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-experience\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">customer experience<\/a> and value proposition landscape.\u00a0 The contemporary customer is more mobile, content-seeking, impatient, and independent than at any time in history.\u00a0 Even with all of these new decision dynamics, the fundamentals of trust and perceived value have become increasingly powerful drivers of <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-experience\/customer-loyalty\/\">customer loyalty<\/a> and bonding.<\/p>\n<p>As organizations become more customer-centric, moving from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/services\/customer-experience-assessment-naive-to-natural\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">na\u00efve to natural<\/a>, or from simple customer awareness, through greater sensitivity and focus, finally arriving at customer obsession, they will be well-advised to add four new P\u2019s to their toolbox:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Permeation \u2013 Dedication to providing optimize value must be absorbed into every nook and cranny of the organization.\u00a0 Further, it must core to shared enterprise values\/superordinate goals and be an essential element of its DNA.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Proaction \u2013 Organizations can no longer be content to passively, tactically, and functionally react to customer needs and concerns.\u00a0 They must take the initiative in understanding what customers require as value delivery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Partnering &#8211; James Unruh, former chairman and CEO of Unisys Corporation, said: \u201c\u2026partnering with customers promotes a deeper understanding of customer concerns and of areas for improvement. Partnering relationships can create a seamless interface between an organization and its customers.\u201d\u00a0 Smart and evolved companies create value in partnership with customers, and value is as likely to come from people and information\/content as it is from products and services. If companies practice ideas such as \u2018creating interdependence\u2019 and \u2018building equity\u2019 with their customers, they are strategically differentiating themselves from competitors and making it more difficult for their customers to leave and begin a relationship with a new supplier.<\/li>\n<li>Paradigm \u2013 There are, to be sure, many ways in which an exemplary, world-class organization can be defined.\u00a0 From my perspective, it is an enterprise which creates trust, especially in stakeholder (customer, employee, and supplier) experiences, and in reputation and image.\u00a0 These are critical to optimizing customer value delivery; and inherent in such cultures is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/training-courses\/employee-engagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ambassadorial<\/a>, trust-building behavior of employees (with customers and each other) and customer-forward processes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The last P, Paradigm, is especially important.\u00a0 It speaks to making customer-centricity a paramount and lasting focus, of both a functional and an emotional relationship that exists between the enterprise and all of its stakeholders.\u00a0 Customer-centricity, after all, is about more than structure, strategy and systems.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the differentiation and engagement that lead to bonding between the organization and its stakeholders.\u00a0 It\u2019s about giving stakeholders a personal investment in the organization and its ongoing success.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the enterprise becoming more transparent and open, connecting with customers through branded, emotional experiences and sustained value delivery, resulting in its operation as a \u201cconscious capitalist\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Paradigm is about \u201cbeing human\u201d as an organization, not just as a buzzword to apply to customer experience optimization.\u00a0 As Sisodia, Sheth, and Wolfe wrote in their classic customer-centricity book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Firms-Endearment-World-Class-Companies-Passion\/dp\/0131873725\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Firms of Endearment<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cWhat we call a humanistic company is run in such a way that its stakeholders \u2013 customers, employees, suppliers, etc. \u2013 develop an emotional connection with it.\u00a0 Humanistic companies seek to maximize their value to society as a whole, not just to their shareholders.\u00a0 They are the ultimate value creators.\u00a0 They create emotional value, experiential value, social value, and, of course, financial value.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Customers have shown strong desire to affiliate, and bond with, companies that are paradigmatic in providing unique, consistent, and value-based experiences.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s actually a fifth new P \u2013 Personalization \u2013 that says more about the marketing mix as an extension of the customer-centric enterprise.\u00a0 The most valuable customers appreciate and want more personalization, a relationship, and an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/services\/emotional-signature\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">emotional connection<\/a>. It\u2019s up to organizations to a) identify the strongest emotional drivers and b) effectively leverage them. Successful organizations have either morphed, or have begun, by placing customers\u2019 interests ahead of the enterprise\u2019s. They build a veritable bank account of trust; and high trust, and the positive reputation and image it breeds, is an enduring strategic advantage, a definite competitive differentiator.\u00a0 And, personalization truly optimizes the customer experience, perhaps its most important benefit.<\/p>\n<table style=\"background-color: #dfdddd;\" border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<div style=\"padding: 10px; float: left; padding-left: 20px;\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Michael-lovwenstein.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5619\" title=\"Michael Lowenstein - Beyond Philosophy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Michael-lovwenstein.jpg\" alt=\"The New and Customer-Centric Customer Experience 4 P\u2019s by Michael Lowenstein\" width=\"98\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"padding-right: 20px; text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/our-team\/michael-lowenstein\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Lowenstein<\/a> provides strategic consulting, research design and in-depth, leading-edge analysis that helps clients deliver outstanding business results through deeper customer experience, communication, relationship, employee and brand equity insights. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Beyond Philosophy<\/a> provide consulting, <span class=\"GINGER_SOFATWARE_correct\">specialised<\/span> research &amp; training from our Global Headquarters in Tampa, Florida, USA.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Marketing 101, everyone learns the basic 4 P\u2019s of the classic \u2018marketing mix\u2019, as defined by Neil Borden in the 1960\u2019s: Product &#8211; manufactured item or service Place &#8211; making the product or service accessible to customers Price &#8211; charging at a point above break-even to make a profit Promotion \u2013 communicating to customers, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":12142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}