No, it is just two different views of the same thing. And, yes, it is the opposite because one is active and the other passive. However, does it really matter?
Let’s look at sales, which for many companies is the most customer focused department. Active sales means convincing customers that their expectations are met by ‘my’ feature set. But it also means to be ahead of competitors in securing the deal.
In most cases, customer experience is not quite up to expectations, because product features have somehow been forced to match them. But can this be called ‘customer centric’? In most cases, sales has volume targets and that alone puts the focus on the battle with competitors. Sales is competition-focused.
But what does customer-centric sales look like? First of all, when changing the focus from product features to customer expectations, there is a shift from sales to buying. Buying is driven by customer needs. Therefore, customer-centric sales is about creating needs. What is the easiest way to create needs? Customers invest, when they see opportunities. Creating opportunities for customers is therefore at the heart of customer centric sales.
Creating opportunities and helping customers to grow is the essence of customer-centric sales. Growth is the result of customer value creation. From that perspective, is sales the opposite of buying? No – buying is the opposite of sales.
