8November2018In My OpinionThe Transformation from Customer Centric ... to Customer ObsessedBy Jonathan Beamer, Chief Marketing Officer, MonsterBusiness leaders today love leaning into buzzwords: Big Data! Synergies! Omnichannel! They come and go, but one that we should all buy into, 100 percent of the time, is "customer centricity." That's because getting into the heads of the people who use your products and focusing completely on serving their needs benefits both buyers and businesses. According to PWC, 73 percent of consumers say their buying experience influences purchase behavior more than price, and 32 percent say they'll walk away from a brand they love after one bad experience. Meanwhile, Forrester reports that companies with better CX (yep, we've got jargon for our jargon) have higher stock values.Most companies start out with good intentions, customer-wise. And why not? They are the lifeblood of any business. But time passes, priorities shift, and sometimes we start viewing people as dollar signs. It's a fate that befell us at Monster, which was founded nearly 25 years ago, with the noble purpose of helping people find jobs. Part of the problem was that the industry stopped seeing job candidates as customers in the first place--they became a commodity that could be sold to employers. It became apparent quickly upon joining as CMO in December, that we ­ quite unintentionally ­ also hadn't been as customer-centric as we should be. And it was costing us and everyone else in our category. So, we're fixing it, and are steering the company back to being not just customer-centric, but customer obsessed, along with both sides of our two-sided marketplace but especially for job seekers whom we'd really betrayed. It's challenging, of course. But an energizing and ultimately rewarding endeavor, for all stakeholders. Along the way, I've learned three key lessons that may help you turn a platitude into something profound. Figure out where you're weakest--and own up to it.It's easier to gauge your level of customer centricity if you can see your customer right in front of you--think happy Traders Joe's shoppers. But for those of us who don't get much face time with the people we serve, we must find other ways to see what our customers really think of us.A good place to start is with the Net Promoter Score (NPS), the percentage of customers who would recommend your brand to their friends. When we looked at Monster's NPS, it was terrible. But, we're not alone in this, so are our competitors' ­ a clear Jonathan Beamer
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