Michiel Toppers
The equipment-rental industry is changing rapidly, and digital innovation is moving at a tremendous speed. Competitors from emerging markets are growing stronger. As an established equipment rental company, you need to make sure you stay ahead of your competition. Customer centricity is the key word that can enable you to help your equipment rental company succeed. By staying in control with a primary focus on your customer, you will be sure to have all the tools that you need to be ahead of the game. But being customer-centric is not as simple as flipping a switch!
Customer centricity is not a function of a single group within the organization. The mindset has to be innate to your company culture and brand messaging. Starting at the top of your organization and moving downwards in a way that enables the proper organizational structure, investments, and key performance indicators.
Image 1: Becoming customer-centric requires all departments to collaborate at all levels
While each department will maintain its individual goals, there need to be company-wide goals with a focus on becoming customer-centric.
Looking to get proactive about prioritizing customer centricity? Take these steps to align your departments toward customer success:
Define and re-structure your business scope
Evaluate your company’s goals and ask the following questions: What do you do well, what do you not do, what do you need to build, and with whom do you need to partner? You must establish a clear vision for the organization and what it stands for. Make a promise with purpose so your target customers know what to expect.
Know your customer more deeply than just numbers
Knowing your customer is key to a successful equipment rental business, so focus on building that internal understanding of your customer profile and relating it to the entire organization. Moreover, every department and touch point needs to have the same view of the customer and should behave with them in a manner consistent with the vision.
Create an understanding of your customer’s customer
Knowing you customer is one thing, but in order to provide the right equipment or service at the right time in the right way, it is also critical to understand your customer’s customer. What do they demand, and what would make it more interesting for them to use your customer’s services?
Align your key performance indicators with customer needs
Create the overall company-wide KPIs and then determine how each department and individual KPIs support the larger goals. If each group is measured differently and rewarded for individual departmental goals, the customer will unfortunately always come second or third.
Only use software applications that are based on customer centricity
Of course, each equipment rental company uses software applications to support their daily business and processes. For each software application you use, ask yourself whether it is built to enable customer centricity or only built to help you do your job without any further thoughts about how to help you improve.
Curious about how we focus on customer centricity with our industry solutions? Get in touch to book a free demo.
Michiel Toppers