A ‘customer-centric’ culture has always been our top priority. Over the past 90 years, we have been able to surmount whatever challenges throw our way by putting the customers first, holding dear to our hearts the following words of the founder: ‘We are right about being wrong. Customers are always right.’ Then why are we facing this crisis when our priority hasn’t changed?

That is because the customers have completely changed. The pandemic brought about profound changes in the customers’ daily lives. Hence, the question we need to ask ourselves is: aren’t we the ones dwelling in the past and the old ways of serving customers? Let us be humble and go back to the basics of customer centricity. We must clearly understand who our customers are, what they want, what values they aspire to, and restructure the business to adapt to the changing world.

As I mentioned in my previous letter, a company’s or industry’s success or failure depends on its vision. As we endured challenges over the past few years, the company took some time to re-assess customer expectations and evolving needs, and created a New Beauty vision that builds on three pillars: Life, Digital, and Empathy. Vision must be executed with speed, as it is the first step into a new era of customer centricity.

The value that we want to capture is the yearning for ‘authentic self.’ We must push into new frontiers of customers’ ‘Life’ and explore new opportunities so that they fully unlock their beautiful authentic self. We also need to make good use of ‘Digital’ technology to quickly grasp and cater to the needs and wants of customers. Last but not least, we need to win customers with ‘Empathy’ by understanding the everyday problems they face.

Amid a changing world, we must never stay in the comfort of past success. We must constantly doubt and ask questions to deliver the best possible outcome. In other words, we have to transform us from the inside out and undergo ‘internal innovation’ if what we do is outdated. We must closely examine customers of the past, present, and future, and keep offering innovative products and services that satisfy them by making drastic changes when customers are not interested.

China’s fast-fashion app ‘Shein’ is a successful brand example that disrupted the fast-fashion market with internal innovation. Shein aggressively used big data to rapidly identify customer needs and deliver trendy products. The Chinese retailer also built a flexible supply chain to reduce its garment-to-delivery cycle to be as short as seven days, which typically takes 2-3 weeks with other brands. As a result, Shein initiated a new era of ‘real-time fashion.’

In times of great uncertainty, finding the right answer that everyone agrees on is next to impossible. In particular, companies must make infinite decisions when developing and executing new strategies, which is highly likely to breed conflict, thereby causing organizational silos.

Times like these hence require us to define the problems from the customers’ point of view and stay aligned. Only by putting our heads together as customers – not as each function or organization – can we reframe our perspectives and soberly assess reality. In addition, this approach finally allows us to reach a consensus on the challenges to tackle and to identify clever solutions as ‘One Team.’ A customer-oriented mindset will be the only answer for both the customers, the employees, and the company.

Dear ‘Team Amore’,
We must put the customers at the heart of our business as they are the only ones able to make or break our business. We need to know today’s customers, not yesterday’s customers. Let us stay up to date when approaching the customers. Making the best use of digital and data technology will allow us to genuinely understand each and every customer’s life moments and respond to their needs and expectations in real time.

Let us live by the spirit of ‘pioneer craftsmanship’ which confidently pioneers the future of beauty based on long-standing expertise. When each and every one of us become ‘pioneer craftsman,’ we will go beyond customer satisfaction, far exceed customer expectations, and bring New Beauty to life.