You hear these buzzwords all the time when it comes to business models or optimization. But what they really mean often remains unclear.
Today I experienced a great example of true customer centricity - and not at a Berlin software scale-up, but in a small bistro bar in Barcelona.
Ever since I set up my second home here almost three years ago, I have regularly stopped into a street bistro in my favorite square. The owner, a friendly gentleman, knows me well by now. As I almost always order the same thing, he just asks: 'Como siempre? ('As always?') - and a few minutes later, my freshly prepared baguette with tomato and cheese and patatas bravas is in front of me.
I was here for several weeks in December and January and changed my order at some point: instead of tomato and cheese, I wanted my baguette with scrambled eggs. Then I went back to Germany for two months.
Now I'm back in Barcelona - and when my bartender greets me as usual with 'Como siempre?', I nod, lost in thought. A few minutes later, my baguette with scrambled eggs is in front of me. He had memorized my changed preference. He knows his customers - perhaps even better than they know themselves.
This kind of attention is not only found in small bistros: the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Hamburg stores the preferences of its regular guests and prepares everything accordingly for their next stay.
Why do so few companies manage to transfer this excellent customer service to the digital world? Instead, we are fobbed off with chatbots, unavailable hotlines and endless selection menus.
Yet the solution is so simple: listen, put yourself in the customer's shoes, remember things - and take them into account in the future. If you really think in a customer-centric way, you don't need big buzzwords.
Perhaps we should take a small street bistro in Barcelona as an example.
