Put Customers Before Profits

Sounds like a nice slogan. But it isn’t easy. Glenn Ross at All Business published a post called How to Lose Customers and Fail at Business which consists of a 20 question true/false quiz.

The quiz is divided into three sections: Employees, Online Presence and Customer Interaction.

I’ll let you in on a little secret – the correct answer should be FALSE. But ask yourself truthfully, would you answer “false” to some of the following:

• If we have customer service training, we do not show the link between customer service and reaching our business goals.
• We hire on the basis of how well we think the prospective employee can do the job, not how well he or she can interact with and assist customers. 
• We have not measured how user-friendly our Web site is in the past two years. 
• Our monitoring of incoming customer emails is delegated to low level employees. 
• We do not track customer complaints in order to identify trends.
• Our senior managers seldom interact with customers. 
• Our policies and procedures were designed with the organization’s needs in mind, not the customer’s.

We like to think we put the customer first in all we do, but the need for sales and profitability tends to get in the way.

So how do you ensure that every department and manager put the customers first when hiring, marketing and measuring? 

1. Constantly ask the question – is this for the benefit of the customer or my bottom line?
2. Listen carefully to customer complaints – is there a trend that needs to be addressed – an employee or a process that isn’t customer -focused?
3. If I were the customer – how would I feel about the sales process and the experience?
4. Do managers and executives regularly interact with customers? with front line employees? with customers in the call center?

You can have the best, well-intentioned front line employees that want nothing more than to serve and care for their customers but if the managers are out of touch with what the customers want in an exceptional experience, then eventually that will make it difficult for the employees to put customers first.

Rob McKelvie offers 7 ways to put customers first in your business planning and executing that is worth reading.

Take Glenn’s quiz and then pick ONE of the 20 questions and truly analyze how your business approaches that one item.  Is there a way for you to change that one item and make it more customer focused?

If the customers are happy – they return, they refer and they bring the profits you need.  Which came firsts, the profits or the customer? The CUSTOMER, every time.