Putting yourself in the customers’ situations and viewing things from their perspective is important because it helps us better understand the customer and what is likely to form the right solution for him/her. Now that we have defined, discussed and clarified the concepts customer orientation and customer focus, it probably makes sense to elaborate on why it makes sense to be customer focused. Why is it advisable to be customer focused? In brief, it means putting the customer in the driving seat and focusing on his/her needs, wishes, aspirations and dreams – as opposed to you focusing on yourself and your business. This entails feeling what your customer is feeling, thinking of what the customer is dreaming of and what he/she is aspiring to achieve or become. This means putting yourself in the shoes of your customer and viewing things from the buyer’s or customer’s perspective. In the context of sales and the interaction between the seller and buyer, being customer focused refers to the seller taking the viewpoint of the customer. This is not always prevalent or even included in definitions for example found through a simple Google search (see, for example, customer focus by the Business Dictionary). Upon closer examination, customer orientation is – or seems to be – on a higher level of abstraction than customer focus. Although customer focus is closely related to that, customer focus can be understood as forming the strategy for customer orientation for the salesperson or organization. ![]() ![]() With the above introduction, customer orientation can be understood as an approach, as a mindset that puts the customer and his/her interest first. For those who are interested, the study by Viio and Nordin that resulted in the model of double-loop sales adaptation was inspired by Chris Argyris’ model for organizational double-loop learning (see, Argyris, 1977, 2002). In the context of sales adaptation, Viio and Nordin (2017) refer to this as double-loop sales adaptation, which they present and discuss in their recent article Double-Loop Sales Adaptation: A Conceptual Model and an Empirical Investigation published in the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing. For an organization or salesperson to be truly customer oriented, this involves a customer-oriented behavior and mindset. However, as argued by Viio and Nordin (2017), customer orientation and focus on the customer not only manifests in one’s behavior or actions. Moreover, as they point out, adopting a customer-oriented way of working involves avoiding actions that sacrifice customer interest and satisfaction to increase the likelihood of making an immediate sale. As Saxe and Weitz state, “highly customer-oriented salespeople engage in behaviors aimed at increasing customer long-term satisfaction” (1982:344). Being sales oriented refers to focusing on the salesperson’s and selling firm’s interest, whereas being customer oriented refers to focusing on the customer. In their article, they present a scale that can be used to determine the degree to which a salesperson is sales oriented or customer oriented, the SOCO scale. customer orientation of salespeople in the Journal of Marketing Research by Saxe and Weitz (1982), customer-oriented selling refers to: “the degree to which salespeople practice the marketing concept by trying to help customers make purchase decisions that will satisfy customers needs” (Saxe & Weitz, 1982: 344). This is to some extent helpful but doesn’t quite solve the riddle, which is why a somewhat more scientific approach is selected.Īccording to the seminal scientific study on sales vs. A quick Google search results in the Business Dictionary being awarded a top hit for defining customer orientation. That definition is rather narrow, merely focusing on actions. When searching for a definition, nowadays many people turn to a search engine for help. To understand how they interrelate, a good place to start is to define customer orientation (in the context of selling and buying). At this point, some might ask “Aren’t they the same thing?”. ![]() To properly understand what the concept ‘customer focus’ refers to and what being customer focused means, let’s first look at the broader picture and how customer focus relates to and differs from ‘customer orientation’. Let me explain this in detail – or, if you’re in a hurry, just watch the below video to cut to the chase. ![]() As a result, being customer focused can help you improve your sales, business, and profits. Being customer focused is likely to make customers more interested in dealing with you (as opposed to choosing your competitor).
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