Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Business Philosophy, Customer focus, Customer obession
Posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 in Business |

Customer Obsession: Origins

Web business has it’s own lingo. Where else do you regularly hear about cloud computing, transparency, going viral, social media, search engine optimization or web 2.0? But there are some terms that are carry-overs from the world of brick-and-mortar businesses of the “old” economy.

I want to talk about one of those “old” business terms today: “Customer Obsession.” While the term “obsession” is currently in vogue, being popularized by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos and others, the notion of being radically focused on your customer experience is really a old economy idea. Businesses have always found that focusing on the customer leads to market share growth.

“Customer Obsession” Defined: “The deliberate choice to focus upon the customer experience and make customer needs and wants the primary driver of your business.”

Look How Far We’ve Come!

Everyone knows the story of Henry Ford and the model-T. When asked what colors the car would come in, Ford answered that the customer could have it in whatever color they wanted, as long as it was black.

In our current economy, we can hardly imagine someone saying something like that!  We are used to hearing Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee talk about a “laser focus” on the “customer experience.”  We’ve learned that customers really do matter.  We’ve come a long way.

Why Customer Obsession Matters

Even though we’ve come a long way, it’s amazing how few companies really care about the customer experience.  Oh they might say they do, but at the end of the day, they really only care about the customer experience because it makes them money. But people can sniff that out a mile away.

To truly be obsessed with your customers, you need to put in hours and hours of hard work. You need to connect with your customers. They need to connect with you. And maybe, just maybe the most wonderful thing might happen… you might become friends.

When you transcend the customer-business relationship and become friends with your customers, it is the most rewarding business experience possible. No paycheck comes close.

When you are obsessed with your customers and they know it and trust you, there are a whole bunch of benefits. Here are a few:

1. Customer feedback comes in like crazy. When people know you’ll listen, they’ll share. Until then, you’re just some big company out there somewhere.
2. Customers solve your problems. When customers are your friends, they do what friends do – they help. Instead of problems being an area to complain about, your customers become friends who come alongside you to help make things work. They have excellent suggestions, and see things that you never could.
3. Customers tell their friends about you. Because your customers know and enjoy your friendship, they feel like introducing you to others. The business benefit is called referrals. The personal benefit is friendships.
4. Google likes you. Google rewards websites that are customer focused. Google is in the business of connecting people with the best solutions. If you build your site with customer obsession, Google will reward you.
5. You focus on what matters. Businesses tend to focus on all the wrong things. Some focus on beating the competition. How do you know the competition is doing it right? If you are connected to your customers, you’ll know what you need to change. Other businesses focus on getting their site search engine optimized (SEO) or getting the right kind of inbound links. But those are all by-products of building a site that meets customers’ needs. Focus on what really matters: customer obsession.

The customer isn’t always right…
but the customer is always most important.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Business Philosophy, Customer focus, Customer obession

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Business.
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