You could say that - once upon a time - it was companies that ruled the roost when it came to determining consumer culture. They decided what to make - developing products or services with features and benefits that they considered important, with little to no user input. Now, it’s not that they didn’t care about consumers, there was just an assumption that the quality of a business’s products and services would speak for itself, so that's what companies focused on.

Companies also had complete control over how people viewed their brand. They would advertise their products through television, radio or print, and consumers didn’t really have access to any other resources beyond word-of-mouth recommendations from family and friends to do their own research. Nowadays though, this has all changed…

Today’s businesses face much stiffer competition than they did in the past, and consumers have a wider range of solutions to choose from. This means that people won't settle for anything less than the best from you, because they don't have to - they can just take their business elsewhere if you fail to meet their expectations.

So, the pressure is on for today’s businesses to not only develop an offering that’s as close to perfect as possible, but also to entice audiences in and prove to them that it’s worth their time and money. And, now that consumers have access to an immense amount of information and content online, ‘proving it’ has become even more difficult...

First of all, while they once had to pretty much take a business’s word for it when it said “this product is the best!”, consumers can now do their own research and take a look at what the rest of the world thinks. They can check reviews, view product videos and demos, and compare prices to decide for themselves whether or not to part with their hard-earned cash.

Secondly, with so much media available to them, audiences can afford to be pickier with the types of content they consume. If they don’t find a business’s messaging particularly engaging and relevant, then they’ll ignore it and they’ll be unlikely to consider that business again. What’s more is that because they’re so acclimatized to what digital can do for them, today’s consumers also expect much faster, if not immediate responses to any interaction that they initiate.

In a nutshell, what we’re saying is that now, the consumer is in control, and their expectations - what they expect from a business’s products or services, and how it operates and communicates - are higher than ever.

So, consumer expectations leave businesses with a lot to live up to, and that’s why businesses need to adopt a consumer-centric mindset. But, we need a bit more detail, don’t we? What does consumer centricity look like? What does it actually involve?

Well, it involves focussing less on what your business thinks consumers want, and really working to empathize with and understand what consumers actually want. It’s about factoring their needs - embedding them, even - into your offering. And, if your company realizes that a product isn’t up to scratch and it’s not quite meeting consumer needs, it’s about taking the time to improve it rather than just continuing to sell as much as possible.

It goes way beyond just the product, though. When it comes to marketing and brand communications, consumer centricity involves talking with audiences, instead of talking at them. It’s all about providing exceptional customer service, with communication between the brand and the consumer being a two-way, back and forth dialogue, where the consumer is listened to, and where what the brand says is engaging and relevant to each individual recipient.

Instead of pushing out promotional messages en masse to make quick sales, consumer-centric businesses focus on providing value to audiences through their content. And, they look for every opportunity to personalize their relationships with consumers. Whether it’s through tailored emails, messages or notifications, or through search suggestions and product recommendations, consumer-centric businesses use what they know about their audiences - their demographic information, their motivations, and their behaviors - to give them more of what they want.

What is Consumer Centricity?

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