Customer Is King
– Philip Kotler
Customer is your wife
– David Ogilvy
Customer is NOT king. Customer is NOT your wife. Customer is your BABY!
– Jinal Shah, If I Were Marketing
We marketers have been taught since decades that Customer is King and Customer is always right. I beg to differ.
Kings were feared. It is true that they were respected, but that was often out of obligation or by law. Kings were no one’s friends. You couldn’t just talk to the king, as you would with anyone else. You had to maintain your distance and always be on your best behavior. Can you imagine conversing with the ‘King’ on social media? Engaging him, drawing his attention, giving him a promotional offer? That would be a bit absurd, according to me!
If this is how Kings and their subjects interact, what does it say for your relationship with customers when you treat them with fear or are nice and respectful only out of obligation? You will hesitate to show your mistakes or behind the scenes moments. You will do what is needed, nothing above and beyond. You will know cursory information about them without really knowing what makes them tick. It will be a superficial, distant, polite and somewhat forced relationship.
Hence, I repeat. Customer is NOT King
So….is the customer your wife?
One of my favorite marketers and admen of all time, Mr. David Ogilvy famously said “Customer is not a moron, she is your wife“. Yet again, I beg to differ. A wife is an equal partner. She has her own mind, judgement, opinions, rules, ego! Ask any married couple if they have arguments, fights, disagreements. The answer will be a resounding yes! When it comes to couples, ego also comes into play, however subtly or sneakily. Expectations are sky high from each other. Forgiveness for not meeting expectations is slow to show up.
Keeping this in mind, when you think of customers as your wife, aren’t you doing them a slight disservice? The above mentioned issues with your wife are counter balanced with love and friendship. With customers, love is iffy. ‘Honorary wife’ without love or friendship carries only the attendant problems.
Time to repeat: Customer is NOT your Wife, either!
So who is the customer?
Customer is your Baby!
Even if you are not a parent yet, you can easily imagine how you will behave with a baby.
- You will be obsessed with your baby: its comforts, its happiness and health.
- You will do anything in your power to make life as easy and enjoyable as possible for your baby.
- You will stay up nights for it and not mind it one bit.
- You will have zero expectations and unconditional love for it. When you give unwavering love, your baby reciprocates likewise.
- There will be instant and constant forgiveness for anything it does.
- You will go out of your way to become the best you can for the sake of your baby.
- You will research healthy recipes, nutritional information, brain games, developmental games, anything else you can find for its all round growth and development.
- Patience will come naturally when you are around your little one.
- You will lovingly guide and teach your baby things that will help it grow into a good, strong, independent individual.
- The baby does not know what it needs. Even if it knows it wants to be fed or needs its diaper changed, it will not be able to communicate those different needs clearly. But you anticipate its needs and fulfill them intuitively. That’s because you know your baby well.
- You will never think of your baby as dumb. You know that it is still learning and you respect that.
Now let’s see how each of these Baby points translate for your Customer, shall we?
Simply replace the word Baby in the list above with the word Customer and see if it doesn’t make sense. It will make you the best consumer service brand, most customer-centric brand around.
- You will be obsessed with your customers: their comfort, their happiness and health (Can’t get more customer centric than that, can you?)
- You will do anything in your power to make life as easy and enjoyable as possible for your customers (E.g. you will figure out ways to increase consumer convenience such as home delivery or COD or free pick up and drop)
- You will stay up nights toiling away for your customers and not mind it one bit (E.g. FMCG brands like Unilever kept their factories open and fully functional even at the peak of coronavirus lockdown, to ensure their customers didn’t face product shortages)
- You will have zero expectations and unconditional love for them. When you give unwavering love, they will reciprocate likewise. (You will be awarded with their loyalty and love! Ask Nestle’s Maggi)
- There will be instant and constant forgiveness for anything they do. (Even when they troll you on social media or share complaints).
- You will go out of your way to become the best you can for their sake. (Think CSR initiatives, philanthropic efforts, cause marketing, purpose led turnarounds)
- You will research and share relevant information, helpful tips, unbiased advice for their all round growth and development. (Some examples are social media content, whitepapers, infographs, tutorials, webinars, etc).
- Patience will come naturally when you are around them. (Even when they take prohibitively long to arrive at a buying decision)
- You will lovingly guide and teach them things that will help them grow. (The best example would be services such as Canva or Coursera or Google Skillshop that teach people things they find difficult and thus help them grow their business)
- Steve Jobs once said “Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.” Customers often don’t know what they need or want. You need to anticipate their needs and fulfill them intuitively. This is possible by knowing your customer as well as your own baby.
- You will never think of them as dumb. You know that they are still learning (about you, your industry, its products, etc) and you respect that.
When you think of your customers as your baby, you will happily put them and their interests first. You will do it not only because your company has trained you to put them first, out of duty.
Are you convinced by now that Customer is your Baby?
Just try looking at consumers with this new lens and tell me how it goes. Did it help you be more patient, forgiving, proactive and willing? Eager to hear your experience. Do share it with me on Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter!