When this happened to me, it made me think about customer focus and what it means.
Ok to the story.
During the summer, I’ve been able to do things that I don’t normally have time for. Like buying things needed at home to fix around the house.
On one such occasion last summer, I was standing there with the seller and we were discussing different approaches to what I wanted. As in many shops, you can see their computer screens. This is so that they can show customers their products and offers.
When we agree on the deal and he enters it all into the system, so an invoice will come out for me to pay, a big box appears on the screen saying “CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU ON ANOTHER GREAT DEAL”.
A bit stunned, I look at the screen, which is meant to give the salesperson a boost and a pat on the back. But the feeling in my body was a bit that I might have made a bad deal. Perhaps the seller was the real winner in this arrangement? The message was not customer focused.
I have experienced the same feeling when a salesperson calls me. I can clearly hear that it is a call center. Suddenly there is a lot of cheering and clapping. There is a lot of hooting and hollering. They are clearly happy and want to celebrate good business.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing good business at all. This is what a limited company is supposed to do, and it bodes well for the company’s product development and long-term survival.
And let’s not forget that it is profits that companies pay taxes on, which drives our common welfare.
We don’t celebrate enough, generally speaking, in our professional lives, so that’s not the problem either.
100% customer focus
So, having said that, it’s good to have good business and profits, and we should celebrate that; I think that when you have the customer next to you, you should have full focus on them.
We should celebrate when we have made a good deal. We will do this after we have given the customer all our focus and they are satisfied.
Then we can get together and celebrate, perhaps primarily that the customers are satisfied, and then that we have also done good business as a direct result. And why not celebrate with the customer that they have made a good choice when they chose to do business with you.
Have you had a similar experience that made you feel a bit worried that you made a bad choice?
Greetings,
Matts
