Ensuring Customers Come First.....

We all get busy with our task list, long emails to clear, back to back meetings, issues to be solved day in and day out, and in all the hum drum, the real purpose of our existence gets lost. Customer(s) those who pay the salary bills of the whole organization expect solutions to their challenges... How can we ensure that Customers Always Come First !! I am sharing a few thoughts.

1. Every one in the organization must serve customers - There is no better way to teach customer centered thinking without putting them in the center. If everyone employee is responsible for serving customers, pitching the products, explaining the offering, understanding the customer context and resolving the customer service issues. The issue is no longer what's my view, it is what's my customers problems and challenges? And did we finally follow up with the customer to make progress?

2. Every decision is centered around what's best for the customer - If every decision is measured by its impact of customers, every decision maker must ensure enough understanding of customer behavior or expectations is available before a decision is reached. Not an easy task to achieve, when we start counting the number of decisions to be made and number of decision makers..... yet, the customer must come first.

3. Use data and not assumptions - If and when a decision requires assumptions about customer's expectations, get more data. Assumptions must be validated first.....

4. One customer does not represent all customers - It is a common tendency to take one customer's perspective as representative of all the customers. It is not about the 1st customer or the largest customer, "Customers" come first.

5. Solve the easy and the hard problems - Solving easy problems can help the team maintain motivation as positive feedback adds to the confidence. However, hard problems can pile up until a focused effort is made towards solving them.