Who does your company exist to please? In your daily business operations, who ultimately determines whether you and your people get paychecks or pink slips? Who do the mission and vision statements place at the center of your employees’ universe? If your answer to all three questions is the customer, you’re not alone. Most leaders wake up each morning hoping to live up to their company’s promise to maximize customer value and deliver the best possible customer experience. Unfortunately, good intentions don’t always translate to success, and “customer-centric” is an ideal that most companies fail to uphold.

Creating a customer-centric company is a classic case of easier said than done. It’s a concept that every business leader at any level wants a grasp of and usually doesn’t have.

Tough economic times are coming, and if you aren’t giving your customers the most for their money right now, they won’t think twice about dropping you when times get tough, and that will be when you need them most.

No wonder “customer-centric” is thrown about so freely at most executive planning sessions. It’s even replaced “innovative” as the new, mandatory strategic language. It describes a way of doing business that is no longer optional, and most leaders are finding that living up to the phrase requires more than changing a few words around in the company’s vision statement.

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