Richard Clifford
Consulting Corporation
Digital Transformation, The Customer-Centric Approach
What is customer-centricity?
I love the photo of the unicyclist. How does he captivate such a large audience? Imagine the work he has to do to convince the first few people to stick around and wait for the big show.
Customer-centricity establishes the customer as the primary reason for your company's existence. It uses every means to win and keep customers. It's as essential as motion is to the unicyclist —without movement, there's no balance.
Using a customer-centric approach, I help small—to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) grow through digital transformation.
Growth Challenges for SMBs
SMBs often face growing pains at employee milestones. These challenges stem from adapting structures, processes, and communication as the company expands.
Growing Past 10 Employees:
When companies grow past ten employees, there's a shift from informal to formal. Formal processes and structures become necessary as the team grows beyond a close-knit group. Employees need more explicit roles and responsibilities to avoid overlap and confusion. Staff require systems for onboarding, performance reviews, and addressing employee issues. Business owners must delegate tasks and trust their teams to handle more significant responsibilities. Maintaining open and effective communication becomes more challenging, requiring more structured approaches.
Growing Beyond 20 Employees:
Managing more than twenty employees brings new levels of complexity. Team dynamics can introduce potential conflicts in navigating interpersonal relationships. Business owners must introduce departments or teams for specialized functions. Owners must introduce a middle management layer to oversee teams and report to upper management. Preserving the company culture and values is more demanding as staff relations become less intimate.
Growing Beyond 50 Employees:
SMBs experience significant changes when they grow beyond fifty employees. Companies require formalized processes for HR, finance, and operations. They also need new technologies and infrastructure to support the growing workforce, clientele, and strategies. Staff also need more robust leadership and management skills. Maintaining employee engagement and effective communication across departments becomes more complex. Preserving the value propositions of the original agile company and avoiding excessive bureaucracy requires thorough planning, frameworks, and technology.
Growing Beyond 100 Employees:
Growing beyond one hundred employees requires long-term strategic planning and effective, repeatable execution to maintain sustained growth. Attracting and retaining top talent becomes increasingly competitive. Leadership demands sophisticated financial management and forecasting to manage resources. ICT (information, communication, and technology) must scale to manage the company's expanding demands.
I Help Businesses Manage Growth Transition
I help business owners manage these vital growth transitions, which allows them to maintain company culture, attract and retain top talent, adapt to change, delegate effectively, and avoid communication breakdowns through well-planned and cost-effective digital transformation.
I help organizations use technology to support their growth while assisting teams in learning and adapting to the changes necessary for sustained growth.
Customer satisfaction earns trust, and increased trust results in customer loyalty. Loyal customers will spend more and are less likely to go elsewhere.
Steve Jobs once said, "You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards."
Maintaining customer satisfaction as a company grows requires constantly investing in systems and processes through digital transformation.
The Unicyclist's Approach.
Think about how the unicyclist unveils his show, from the first spectator to arrive until the last one leaves.
Deep, long-lasting, and rewarding customer relationships don't just happen. They result from strategically planned and well-executed end-to-end customer experiences.
Customers evaluate these experiences based on every interaction with us, from the first marketing campaign they see to the last invoice they receive.
I help growing companies use technology to support their staff performance at every touchpoint.
About Richard Clifford.
I help growing businesses navigate digital transformation to ensure consistent service quality across all sales channels. By collaborating with your teams, I encourage adopting a customer-centric approach at every digital touchpoint, creating a unified brand presence and value proposition. This consistency enhances customer retention, increases spending and loyalty, and reduces churn.
My services include assisting teams in selecting and implementing the right software to digitize their processes. I also provide software engagement assessments, training, and change management support to facilitate adaptation as processes modernize.
I bring over twenty years of consulting experience, supported by an MBA in Digital Transformation from McMaster University and a Bachelor of Commerce in Business Technology Management from Toronto Metropolitan University.
I have consulted across diverse markets, including B2B, B2C, D2C, B2G, and nonprofit sectors within various industries: higher education, healthcare, food and beverage, entertainment, franchises, financial services, professional services, social services, truck and automotive, industrial manufacturing, logistics, chemicals, lubricants, and gas. This broad experience enables me to provide tailored solutions that help your business thrive in a competitive market.
I also leverage my business-to-business networking group, The B2B Cohort, to connect with and access a wide range of professionals who can further support your business needs.