Customer is King; But should a King be your Customer?

The too much glorification of today’s Customer and the adage “Customer is the King” can turn your tomorrow’s dreams into nightmares.

“Your majesty, two hundred shoemakers have assembled in your courtroom to display their make of your royal shoe”. Needless to mention, each shoe was prepared after months of painstaking work. After a long wait the King finally selects a shoe but in the end rejects it by saying “That’s not my favorite color” …… well, this story isn’t atypical because here the customer is the King.

Coming back to our era, no businessman would ever want to have a customer who is like the king of old times. But, yes we do talk about the now clichéd adage: “Customer is the King”. This has more to do with providing “more value” to the customers, in short making them “more satisfied” by means of “more compromises or adaptations”. And yes, business is now more customer-centric, than what it used to be when the Ford was all black. And the quest for such an orientation would continue till customers feel they have finally landed into an eternal bliss.

Let’s take a minute off, to realize a subtle difference. A prospective customer goes to a shopping arcade and visits one of the garment stores and immediately grumbles “You don’t have the AC, at least the next-door shop was offering me a cold drink in this scorching heat”. This is what happens when the “value” held by the product on-sale looses its’ significance and something “else” takes precedence over “the decision making factor”. And this is just one case in point, to keep it simple. We do discuss at length about the New Economy business, but seldom forget to talk about the New Age customer who will now become the “CustEmperor”.

In a survey over a base of 2,000 senior executives and managers, 85 percent of respondents said their customers' expectations are higher than what was two years ago. The tough part is that meeting current customer expectations can cause those expectations to keep rising even higher. Each time a customer receives service that makes a positive impression, it becomes harder to impress that customer the next time. And the pressure flows down the value chain. CRM is then thought of another savior, but “Technology does not make the customer king”. Bad news is that a better informed customer becomes all the more demanding. Trying to provide better service through technology or customer care or just by offering your customers some cold-drinks; isn't anyway unfounded. The issue of contention is that who will bear the cost. There has already been much debate on the issue of Ad-spending, and the hefty cost bearing. But, your zeal to provide “more” for the same “less” that you are getting will land you nowhere. This would gift you the 4C’s in the process: Cost, Complaints, Cut-throat-competition and of course more customer Churn.

Small businessmen do question at times: “Why should we have this passion for customers when they, in return to our services, default on payments, complain continuously, or make unreasonable, unethical or illegal demands?” Is segmentation the answer? Segmenting customers by value potential will become more common, so that the best customers will continue to get the best services. But, this is against the much popular adage, Customer is the king, and then another social concern rises: Service Differentiation.

Giving in too much to the unseemly demands of the customers, would allow them to have obnoxious gist. The improper treatment vetted out to front-line staff by some of those prospective customers is a forewarning. “Customer is the King”, is a fitting adage, but we need not take the phrase in its literary sense. It means treating your customer in an appropriate manner. So on his second, third or for that matter hundredth visit back to you, he doesn’t get an increased level of service, but the appropriate level of service. Acquiring customers today is difficult and a challenge in itself, but you need not go head-over-heals to catch hold of them. Curse me if you like, believe me if you can, even too much of love can turn your adorable kid to a spoiled brat and in no time. Isn’t it better for all of us to remain as a reasonable customer and not be an impish CustEmperor. Certainly, history would be made from the decisions you & I will make today.

Disclaimer

This article in no way reflects the views, opinions, thoughts or beliefs of any person, institution or organization related to the author and is the personal expression of the author.