Executive summary
- Focusing on the needs of the end customers is good for business. It will enable sports organisations to add more value to national and local partners, increase effectiveness and sustainability, and hence meet their key objectives.
- The new Government Sports Strategy advocates a more ‘customer-centered’ and collaborative approach by all parts of the sector. “This strategy is first and foremost about meeting the needs of the customer, understanding what they need at different stages in their life”. Sporting Future.
- At the heart of customer-centric organisations is a strong conviction that success comes from consistently focusing on a defined group of customers.
Customer centricity is a conviction not a strategy
The world, and hence customer expectations, is constantly evolving. Selling functional products and services is now rarely enough. Customers expect their entire experience to make them feel good. Despite this, the number of organisations that can consistently deliver great customer experiences are few and far between. Those that do have evolved beyond a customer service mindset to embrace customer centricity. Virgin and Air New Zealand create memorable experiences for passengers, while Amazon are making shopping an ever faster and simpler experience.
At the heart of every customer centric organisation is a strong belief that they will win if the customer wins. This is more than a marketing strategy or business goal. Customer-centricity is a passion that fuels every decision and action. It's "how we do things around here” and hence it’s baked into the mission, values and priorities.
A great example of this is the Virgin brand, driven by the passion of its founder Richard Branson. In a great blog post, Branson talks about why Virgin Atlantic, then Virgin Blue and ultimately Virgin America were founded. They were founded by frustration with the customer experience, and a strong vision for creating a better way. Winning was about much more than profit. Winning was measured by whether the customers won; be it through better options, lower prices or more fun.
It’s easy to dismiss this as a luxury that big companies can afford. But the philosophy of “we only win if the customer wins” has been part of the Virgin culture since Branson’s very first record shop.
What is customer-centric sport?
“The sporting landscape has changed enormously in the last decade with shifting social patterns giving rise to new activities while others decline in popularity. Sport England’s new investment strategy seeks to put the customer first, focus on those least active and transform how sport is delivered across the country.”
Tracey Crouch MP, Minister for Sport Tourism & Heritage
So what does customer-centricity have to do with sport? Everything. After all, the passion to get people out enjoying sport is what drives many people to work in the industry. But the experience that customers enjoyed 20, 10 or even 5 years ago isn’t necessarily what they want now. For sport and physical activity to thrive and grow over the next decade, our industry needs to evolve along with our potential customers.
Who is the sporting customer?
An early sticking point for customer centric sport is often agreeing who the customer actually is. Departments have different "customers" for their work and staff want to provide them with good "customer service". External partners may directly provide revenue, or at least have the direct relationship with participants. This all leads to a broad and confusing definition of the customer, and hence too many competing priorities.
“If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience” Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon
Nike has a mission "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.” As a result, everything from their marketing to their product design is laser focused on the end athlete rather than its various partners or stakeholders.
So who is the sporting customer? To get the ball rolling, I believe the ultimate customer is the person actually engaging with the activities as a participant, coach, official or volunteer. So a simple definition of customer-centric sport becomes: offering anyone engaging in sport and physical activity a great experience that is based on their needs.
How do we champion customer-centric sport?
Building on this definition, here are 3 suggested actions to strengthen your ability to champion customer-centricity.
1. Agree who your customer is
It’s vital that sport organisations make the tough choices about who the target customer is. Trying to please all potential customers equally, will consume a lot of energy and still leave many ‘customers’ with an average (at best) experience.
Start by running a workshop to identify all the current definitions of the ‘customer’. At the same time ask what staff and partners do to focus on these customers, and what implications it has for other parts of the organisation. Then discuss these definitions with the management team or Board. Decide which customer is the one that the whole organisation should be prioritising and focusing on.
2. Build a strong conviction about the benefits of customer centricity
Customer-centricity is a passion that runs through a whole organisation, driving every decision. This means that leaders must role model this commitment to making decisions based on how they impact the customer experience.
Discuss your mission, vision, values, strategic priorities and KPIs at the next management or Board meeting. How visible are they and how well do they focus the organisation on the agreed customer? If the customer-focus is implied rather than obvious, it may be time to update the wording to ensure everyone is on the same page.
3. Review how decisions are currently being made
Organisations can’t be a bit customer-centric. ’Centricity’ implies there is a consistent way of making decisions, one that makes decisions predictable.
Look back over recent management decisions and discuss whether they were centred on the experience of customers, members, competition structures, rules, stakeholders, programmes etc. Where does your CSP organisation seem to be currently centred?
Paul Roberts Roberts Sports Ltd expertise is in helping organisations to unleash sustainable customer-led growth. Through applying proven business principles Paul helps organisations to connect their customer insight to market impact.
This approach is based on Paul’s 20 years of international experience working for market leaders, challenger brands and start-ups across the financial services, telecoms, sport, marketing and energy industries including Sport England, PwC, HSBC, RFL, UEG, England Athletics, British Gymnastics, Sporta and Sport NZ.
Paul has led Customer Centric workshops at the CSP Network Convention and for individual CSPs. He is currently jointly commissioned by the CSP Network and 2 CSPs to support their customer centric improvement journey.