Successful organizations today realize that to achieve customer satisfaction, they have to serve said customer faster, more conveniently, and more effectively than the average. And this applies to both internal and external customers.

To achieve this, whoever is client-facing needs to have all the information they need to respond effectively and efficiently. Therein lies the catch; how to have all the information regarding the customer at hand, despite the information coming in different forms and from different sources. If an organization wants to be customer-centric, it needs to solve this challenge.

One of the solutions that can place your organization at an advantage in this regard is a system that consolidates your information from various sources, relates them intuitively, and makes them available to relevant staff members as and when they need it, at a moment’s notice. The information could be in hardcopy documents, softcopy PDFs, Word or Excel documents, photos, or in databases that hold information from your line-of-business systems (such as your ERP, CRM, HRMS, and such). The system could go further to present relevant information directly to the customer through a personalized portal. These are the kinds of challenges that electronic document management and content management systems seek to address. The idea is to ensure that all the information your team members need to respond effectively to external and internal customers is at their fingertips, regardless of where they are physically.

Responsiveness to the needs of the customer, whether planned for or not, will inevitably affect the relationship. It will determine whether the client takes away their business, or not only stays but also refers one or two more of their friends.