The Customer Centricity Canvas

Systematically improve customer orientation to move into new dimensions.

The Customer Centricity Canvas: Customer Orientation in Compact Form

Putting the potential for improving customer orientation compactly on a sheet of paper. You can’t, you say? With the Customer Centricity Canvas (short: CCC) you focus on the essential elements and can thereby systematically improve your customer orientation. The framework was published in the book Customer Orientation. Since then, it has become very popular for analyzing and improving customer orientation.

Every company is well advised to improve its customer orientation if profits and growth are to be continuously increased. The Customer Centricity Canvas helps to bring all essential elements of customer orientation into a comprehensible system. Against the background of usually several optimization potentials, one can thus quickly compare different options for improving customer orientation.

Advantages of the CCC

  1. The abstract term “customer orientation” is given a concrete regulatory framework
  2. The structure of the CCC is very simple
  3. Due to its size, all parties involved are forced to “cut to the chase”
  4. Determine the potential for improving customer orientation on a site
  5. You recognize dependencies better
  6. Share your rating with others
  7. Prioritize the different potentials and secure a clear focus in the transformation

Here you can download the canvas as a PDF document.

Download Canvas
Customer Centricity Canvas CustomersX

Application areas of the Customer Centricity Canvas

The CCC is a universal tool for the structured analysis of a company’s customer orientation. It is suitable as a tool for the following exemplary tasks:

  • Discuss potentials for improving customer orientation
  • Elaborate different transformation approaches to improve customer orientation
  • Shaping the digital transformation of your company in a customer-oriented way
  • Establish and strengthen customer orientation as a “belief system” in your company

The CCC is a suitable method whenever several people in a room need a common understanding about how to improve customer orientation.

Preparation and implementation

To work with the CCC, you should make the following preparations:

  • Pre-evaluation of the customer orientation of your company with the Customer Centricity Maturity Check
  • Sticky notes, pens
  • CCC template in DIN A0, A1 or A2(download)
  • Surfaces / walls for hanging the canvas
  • 3-4 hours time

If you plan to use it in larger groups, e.g. as part of a workshop, then it is advisable to involve a moderator. This can help you to take new perspectives and structure the work better. However, you can learn the basic mechanics of the CCC yourself.

Design and structure of the Customer Centricity Canvas

The Customer Centricity Canvas divides customer orientation into four building blocks. At the core of CCC is value generation (co-creation) with the customer. The left-hand side shows what is required in the company to achieve value for the customer and the company. In contrast, the right-hand side of the CCC documents how to optimize customer management in order to increase profit and growth.

Customer Value-based Decision Making

Customer orientation is based on a high level of understanding of customers’ needs and value to the company. This understanding must be condensed into a customer value model. In addition, the existing decision-making processes and decisions must be analyzed to determine whether the customer value analyses are also used for the respective decisions. This area determines the potential to better align decisions with customer value. The following questions will help you determine potentials:

  • Do we have valuable customer insights that help us differentiate ourselves from the competition?
  • What additional customer insights should we gain?
  • How can we improve our customer value model?
  • How can we optimize our decision-making processes?
  • Which decisions should be more closely aligned with customer value?

The customer value model is one of the key success factors for improving customer orientation. This requires valuable customer insights and the analysis results should be used in as many decisions as possible.

Customer-centric transformation

In most companies, customer orientation is misunderstood as customer management or even just customer experience management. Improving customer orientation requires the company to adapt to changes in customer buying behavior. The adaptability (responsiveness) of a company is another important success factor for improving customer orientation. In this area, the potentials are determined which elements of the company are to be transformed. The following questions will help you determine potentials:

  • How can the attitude and behavior of employees be made more customer-oriented?
  • How should leadership and culture be adapted to strengthen customer orientation as a belief system in the company?
  • Which competencies are missing in the company to improve customer orientation?
  • How should the structure and processes be changed to strengthen customer orientation?
  • How can the company’s network help to improve its own customer orientation?
  • What needs to be changed in the IT infrastructure and IT systems to increase customer orientation?

Before customer management is adapted, it is always necessary to transform the respective areas in the company first. In this area, the challenge is to use rigorous prioritization to gain a shared understanding of what needs to be transformed in the business to improve customer centricity.

Co-creation

Value is only ever created by the customer’s use of offerings. Customer-oriented companies therefore try to integrate the customer as much as possible into the value creation process. The amount of co-creation is another success factor for improving customer focus. In this area, the potentials are determined as to how the customer can be integrated more strongly into the service production and marketing. The following questions will help you determine potentials:

  • How can co-creation be used more for proposal design?
  • How can co-creation be used more for the production of the offer?
  • How can co-creation be used more to sell the offering?
  • How can co-creation be used more to support other customers?

Customer-oriented companies do not see themselves as value creators, but the customer. Therefore, it is important to continuously determine potentials on how co-creation can be increased in the company across the four dimensions.

Customer Management

Customer management is very often mistakenly equated with customer orientation. However, before customer management can be improved, existing potential must be realized in the other three areas. Value creation, in the sense of growth and profit in customer relationship management, only occurs when the company has been successfully transformed. This area determines the potential for improving the value of the customer relationship for both the customer and the company. The following questions will help you determine potentials:

  • What should we change about the business model?
  • What should we adjust about the market development strategy?
  • Does the brand positioning need to be changed?
  • How to improve customer relationship management?
  • How can the customer experience be optimized?
  • How should the design of the 4Ps be changed?

Winning a new customer is many times more expensive than getting an existing customer to buy again. This assumes that your customer management is optimally aligned and that you have invested in the right customer relationships. Customer Management is therefore the externally tangible part of your efforts to improve customer orientation.

Conclusion - The CCC accelerates and systematizes discussions on improving customer orientation

The Customer Centricity Canvas is a very effective tool to discuss the potentials to improve customer centricity in a simple, visually appealing and systematic way. The greater added value is that teams gain a common language and understanding about the importance of individual elements. In the discussions, each participant also becomes aware that customer orientation is a system in which all blocks build on each other and are interdependent. Therefore, the CCC is a great tool to plan the (digital) transformation of a company.

Good luck!