Metrics_ How to Improve Key Business Results - Martin Klubeck [60]
You might ask, how could you not know who your customers are?
I’ll admit, I found it hard to fathom at first. But, it can actually happen. A story a colleague enjoys relaying centered on a clerk in an admissions office in a college. The clerk had been dealing with freshmen for at least two years too many.
On one of these occasions, a freshman was giving the clerk the common refrain that he was her customer and deserved better than he was getting. He ranted about how she should be doing everything in her power to satisfy his needs since he was the reason the school existed.
“Where is your customer service?” He shouted one last time, enjoying the attention the other students were giving him.
She calmly waited for him to pause. She wanted to make sure he heard her clearly.
“Deary, you’re mistaken. You’re not the customer, you’re the product.”
You might be thinking, “nice retort” or “cute comeback.” But the bad part is that my colleague was a faculty member. And worse, those listening found it extremely humorous. Of course, I can’t blame them—it was a funny line. But, how true was it?
Do we sometimes confuse who our customers are? Another well-known joke is the grocery clerk who argues that “we could get a lot more done if we didn’t have to deal with customers.”
If it is obvious who your customers are and what they want, then there wouldn’t be so many customer service courses and seminars. It may be one of the most basic axioms: the truth is not always obvious.
The truth is not always obvious.
You would think the opposite to be more likely. Falsehoods and lies should be hard to find. The truth shouldn’t be hard to find. The truth shouldn’t be hidden or obscured by extraneous data. The truth should be obvious.
What should be obvious—like the truth or who your customers are—is not always obvious.
So how do you determine who your customers are? Since it’s the prerequisite for developing effectiveness metrics, I think it is worth covering a simple process for determining who your customers are.
One simple view is that your customer is who pays your salary. This allows you to determine your customer on a personal level (as well as an organizational level). Let’s start with the obvious (but not necessarily the “truth”). You are paid by your organization. But how is that funding derived? If you are a for-profit, it most likely comes from the sale of a product or service. The buyer of that service or product may likely be a vendor or distributor. The next logical question is, who pays the recipient of your product or service? You should follow this logic until you’ve identified the end user or purchaser.
Let’s look at a car’s airbags. The worker who quality-checks the airbag believes his customer is the automobile manufacturer who has the contract with his division. That is accurate, but not the truth. It’s neither the car manufacturer nor the dealership that buys the cars. This is clearer when we look at the buyer who is the rental car agency. The rental car agency then rents the vehicle to a final end user (customer). Is that the true customer? Yes, but there is another customer. The passenger who sits in the “shot gun” seat who actually benefits from that particular airbag is a truer representation of that customer. That of course can be extrapolated out to include those who love that passenger. The passenger’s children, parents, and spouse.
If the person quality-checking the airbags sees the underlying truth about the real customer for their work, how would it change that worker’s behavior patterns? How would it change that worker’s self-esteem?
In a not-for-profit organization, this process still works. Consider Habitat for Humanity. When you volunteer your time to Habitat for Humanity, is the site supervisor the customer? Or is it the Habitat for Humanity organization? Or is it the person who will eventually take possession of the home? Or is it the children who will have a “real