The importance of developing a consumer centric culture is not just limited to being a regulatory requirement, according to Kate Paton, director of financial services people consulting at KPMG.
Speaking at Pimfa’s Consumer Duty Conference 2024, Paton explained that creating a consumer centric culture could represent a “fundamental shift” to truly put customers at the heart of what companies do every day.
She hoped to encourage organisations to think about developing this kind of culture, not just as a compliance exercise, but as a change of culture, behaviour, and mindset.
Key drivers
The role of staff is one of the factors that can drive an organisation’s cultural development, according to Paton.
She pointed out organisations that have highly engaged employees have customer satisfaction scores that are one and a half times greater than those that don’t - which she described as a “big shift”.
She added this was a “really key driver” in creating a world where an organisation is truly customer centric.
Paton pointed to a number of different factors which can determine employee engagement, with personal purpose, mastery, and autonomy being among the most important.
Personal purpose revolves around linking organisational purpose to employees and their personal beliefs and values.
Paton explained that mastery is about employees having the right skills to do their job currently, but also about continuing to learn so that they can improve in the future.
She said: "Mastery gives people the feeling that they’re equipped with the skills to genuinely help their customers and give them the good outcomes that they need."
Finally, Paton clarified that autonomy is about employees being able to get on with their work and to do it well.
“No one likes being micromanaged, no one likes someone else breathing down their neck saying ‘what have you been doing with your time’,” she added.
Evidence
Paton spoke about the importance of evidencing the cultivation of such a consumer centric culture.
However, while she acknowledged there were “no true, direct measures of culture”, Paton advised looking at some of the indirect measures, pointing specifically to behaviours.
She stated that, for her, one of the most important things is measuring behaviour as “culture manifests in the behaviour of people day-to-day”.
“You walk into an organisation and you can feel the culture, but it’s intangible and you can’t measure it, but can you measure what people say and what people do,” she explained.
“Therefore, behaviour is a much better indicator of what your culture is.”
Paton concluded by stating behaviours “drive mindsets” so being able to change people’s behaviours over time could lead to their thoughts changing as well.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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