Focus on customers

Is customer focus a part of your organizations strategy?

Is customer focus a natural part of your business strategy? If not, you might want to reconsider your strategic focus areas.

Fortunately, most companies have a customer focus on the strategic agenda, and that makes a lot of sense. Customer focus should be a top priority in all organizations if you want to increase loyalty – and earnings.

Great relations pay off

Everyone knows it is expensive to lose customers. Therefore, most companies have a systematic focus on reducing the number of dissatisfied and disloyal customers – and derived customer departures from this. It requires customer focus.

We define dissatisfied and disloyal customers as customers who score 0-6 on a 10-point scale. Most people also know that very satisfied customers, ie. those who score 9-10 are more profitable than those customers who score 7-8, and who are thus simply satisfied. It is still the fewest companies that, as part of their strategy work, count on a business case around lifting customers from score 7-8 to score 9-10. There are plenty of both company cases and major general analyzes that show the positive profitable correlation, e.g. below analysis from Temkin Group.

The analysis shows that the very satisfied customers are more willing to repurchase, forgive mistakes and test new products from the same company compared to satisfied and dissatisfied customers.

At the same time, the analysis also shows that it pays to maintain a good relationship with the customers who give a high NPS score – and that it therefore pays to retain a loyal customer rather than attract new ones.

Outside-in customer focus in your strategy work

Although analyzes say one thing, companies often do something else. In their work with customer experiences, most companies focus mostly on reducing the number of dissatisfied customers.

However, the overall customer focus strategy should be more interested in knowledge and efforts that can move the satisfied customers up into the category of very satisfied customers with an NPS score of 9-10 – namely the category that within the NPS methodology is called promoters – and who are your most loyal customers. In connection with customer focus in the strategy process, it is important to have a clear overview of the extent to which your company is permeated by an outside-and-in customer focus.

Get the organization on board

To define this focus, you can take a starting point based on the questions below and get closer to an integrated focus on customer loyalty in the entire organization.

“How close are we as a management to our customers and their needs?”
“How proactive are we in on-goingly following the development in the customers needs?”
“Are we capitalising enough on the knowledge our customer surveys provide us, this including the written commentaries of the customers?”
“To what extent are we actively encouraging our customers to supply their feedback – both positively and negatively – or to add their inputs for brand new ideas for products and service improvements?”
“To what extent is it easy for our customers to use their warranty on things that does not function?”
“To what extent is our customer focus integrated in our organization?”
“Is our customer focus an integrated part of the staff development interviews, recruiting interviews and bonus and incitement structures?”
“Do we have a clear common language that we use in working to create good customer relations and very satisfied customers (score 9-10)?”
“Do we have a clear internal communication about customer focus?”
“Do our employees know how they can actively create and improve good customer experiences?”

Good luck on your customer focus

The questions are not exhaustive, but intended as inspiration to get started with the right outside-and-in focus and create a strategy that embraces customer focus internally within the organization.

We hope that you found the article interesting and that it has given you useful perspectives for working with your business strategy, so that customer focus becomes an integral part of your business.

Are you interested in knowing more about how increasing customer focus with NPS can create value for your business? Then you can read HERE about how you as a CFO can get involved with the company’s activities around customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Written by

Peter Tranberg Møller

Partner & CX Advisor

10 years of experience in CX, customer relationships and building CX platforms that deliver real value.

Frequently asked questions about strategic customer focus

What does strategic customer focus mean?

Strategic customer focus means incorporating customer needs, experiences and loyalty into the organisation’s priorities and decisions. The customer is not treated solely as the responsibility of sales or customer service. Customer insight is used across leadership, product development, marketing, delivery and service to influence both business direction and everyday actions.

Why should customer focus be part of business strategy?

Customer experiences influence retention, repeat purchases, recommendations and brand reputation. When customer focus is part of the strategy, the organisation can prioritise improvements that matter most to customer relationships and business performance. It also creates a shared direction and reduces the risk of feedback remaining isolated in reports or individual departments.

What is an outside-in strategy?

An outside-in strategy begins with the customer’s needs and experiences before deciding how internal processes, products and services should be designed. An inside-out approach primarily begins with internal structures and assumptions. Working outside-in requires continuous feedback, direct customer dialogue and a willingness to adjust priorities when customer needs or market conditions change.

What is the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty?

Customer satisfaction describes how satisfied a customer is with an organisation or a particular experience. Customer loyalty also concerns the likelihood of staying, purchasing again and recommending the organisation. A satisfied customer is therefore not necessarily loyal. Price, competing alternatives or changing needs may still lead that customer to choose another provider.

What are Promoters, Passives and Detractors?

In the NPS methodology, Promoters answer 9-10, Passives answer 7-8, and Detractors answer 0-6 on the recommendation question. The groups help organisations understand different levels of loyalty. The rating should always be combined with the customer’s explanation because comments reveal which experiences create loyalty or dissatisfaction.

Should an organisation focus only on dissatisfied customers?

No. Critical problems and dissatisfied customers require attention, but strategic customer focus also involves understanding what creates highly satisfied and loyal customers. Organisations should reduce the causes of Detractors, develop relationships with Passives and learn from the experiences that create Promoters. This provides a more balanced customer experience strategy.

How can NPS, CSAT and CES support strategic customer focus?

NPS can track overall customer loyalty, CSAT measures satisfaction with a particular experience, and CES indicates how easy or difficult it was for the customer to achieve a goal. Combined with comments, customer data and business outcomes, these metrics can show which parts of the customer journey should receive strategic attention.

How can customer focus be embedded across the organisation?

Customer focus must be translated into clear objectives, responsibilities and actions for every relevant department. Feedback should be shared in the systems and meetings where decisions are made. Recruitment, onboarding, training, leadership communication and workflows should support the desired customer behaviours. Employees must also have sufficient authority to act on relevant customer insight.

What role does leadership play in a customer-focused strategy?

Leadership must make customer focus a visible priority, allocate resources and monitor both customer and business outcomes. Leaders should regularly meet customers, review feedback and remove organisational barriers that employees cannot resolve themselves. Their decisions demonstrate whether customer focus genuinely has strategic importance or is merely a statement of intent.

Should NPS and customer satisfaction be included in employee objectives?

Customer metrics can be included in team and leadership objectives, but they should not stand alone or be linked mechanically to individual bonuses. Excessive focus on one score can encourage unintended behaviour or influence measurement practices. Combine outcomes such as NPS and retention with actions such as follow-up, resolution time, learning and completed improvements.

How can customer feedback be converted into strategic initiatives?

Consolidate feedback across touchpoints and identify patterns according to frequency, severity, customer impact and business relevance. Investigate the root cause, assign an accountable owner and define the intended outcome. Individual issues may require immediate resolution, while recurring problems should inform broader changes to processes, products or policies.

How can an organisation measure whether its customer focus is working?

Combine experience metrics such as NPS, CSAT and CES with retention, churn, repeat purchases, complaints and customer lifetime value. Process measures such as follow-up rates and resolution time provide additional context. Analyse development over time and across segments and touchpoints to determine whether specific initiatives improve both customer experiences and business outcomes.

Customer focus and business strategy

Make customer focus part of how your business works

Customer focus becomes powerful when it is measured, shared and acted on across the organization. See how nps.today helps you use NPS, CSAT and CES to understand what customers need, identify what creates loyalty and turn feedback into actions that improve customer experience, retention and business performance.