Customer Metrics Still in the Dark

Heaven knows, but we are all aware of the quickening competitive pace and shift to customer power in our markets. Political changes to the social meaning of business; social changes in customer needs; economic changes in global competitive advantage; and technology changes altering business models, pile up on us daily.

How do you manage this amount of change? ‘In the Dark’, a 2007 study by Deloittes, has found that an increasing number of CEO’s now recognize that non-financial measures, like customer satisfaction, innovation and employee commitment, are as important to their investors as traditional financial figures. But, they don’t know how to tune into markets and what indicators to use. Whilst 87% of companies are happy that their financial measurement is good, only 29% can say the same about non-financial indicators. A fact corroborated by corporate reporting specialists Black Sun. They found that in the year to 2006, although non-financial indicator reporting had risen amongst the FTSE 100, these centred on employee retention and CSR. Markets, customers and innovation, the very essence of sustainable organization, still take a back seat.

So what is needed is an adaptive customer strategy - a shared, directional, detailed, plan for delivering value to customers in an ever changing environment.