So I’ve made grand pronouncements like everything has Changed and suggested that we had better adapt business to those realities or risk it all.   And I believe it’s true, but first let’s spend a moment talking about what hasn’t changed, and that is largely . . . business.   We continue to operate as if not much at all has changed.   Oh, there’s new flash and sizzle, new media, and purported secrets to getting to Generation X, Y, or Z.   Madison Avenue would have you think that they “get” the changes and you don’t.   But, really, you do.   You just don’t give yourself enough credit.

But the way business operates and, maybe more, thinks, has really not changed.   Business focuses on controlling costs, increasing profits, reducing risk, growing market share, expanding segments, what to offshore, how to acquire or not be acquired, and propping up the stock price.   All reasonable topics for a dutiful executive.   But there has been very little emphasis placed on how can we do more for our customers or make them happier?   So, if you are guessing that the heart of what I will discuss is a Customer-Centric approach, you’re more right than wrong.

And Customer-Centricity is a fine notion, but nearly every executive will be in denial that it is a thought they need to linger on.   “Oh, we are very focused on our customers” is the retort that is reflex.   Bull.   I’ve sat in dozens of boardrooms with senior executives and staff over the years, witnessing extended business conversations on far ranging topics.   As an outsider, it is not hard to notice that the word Customer will rarely even come up in discussions that ought to have them at the center.

“How are we going to make our numbers this quarter?” must be the most repeated sentence in the world.   And, hey, it’s true, at that moment, in that discussion, there is little point in discussing the Customer.   Thinking of the Customer happened quarters ago from that moment.   If you’d thought of him then, you wouldn’t be stressing the moment now, perhaps.   

Consequently, I’ll maintain that we are terribly self-centered.   Now, more than ever, it’s the Me Generation of business.   While that is a damning accusation, I’ll offer that it is also a natural instinct and everything we’ve grown up with teaches it.   Our society is fiercely about self-preservation and getting your own.   The default social thought on people on welfare is “freeloaders”, not “poor folks down on their luck”.   We’re told it’s “Dog eat Dog” and, unfortunately, every experience bears that out.

We should look for evidence then that business is not thinking of the Customer.   I told you that you didn’t get enough credit for what you knew to be true.   Let’s use your own experience as a consumer to explore this.   Answer these:

• Does your bank still have a five-day hold on your deposits even after their new ability to transfer funds in the same day?   Have they also raised their miscellaneous fees?
• Is your new electronics purchase disappointing because it is insanely difficult to use for even a college-educated person?
• Did your cell phone company offer to switch you to a new plan or promotion, but only if you committed to a new two-year agreement?   Or did you almost fail to even catch that detail as it was mentioned only after the come-on?
• Did you pump your own gas and face a locked, dirty restroom, not to mention no one cleaned your windshield?
• Does your credit card come with a six-page booklet of tiny print in confusing legalese?
• Been surprised and disappointed lately about what a warranty doesn’t cover?
• Was the clerk at the mall more interested in Friday night’s plans than coming over to see if you could use help?
• Have you waited way too long on a support line only to be left fully unsatisfied by a representative that couldn’t or wouldn’t address your issue?
• Do you now think of too many items as “disposable” due to poor quality, expensive service, and lack of a quality alternative?
• Is your phone bill difficult to read and list a confusing array of charges and fees?
• Have you walked away from a product or service that failed without getting just compensation because they made it too difficult or costly to get satisfaction?

If you didn’t answer “Yes” to the bulk of those, then you’re rich enough to have “people” for those things.   For the rest of us, I probably stirred a bit of consumer rage that we may have preferred to leave buried.   It’s a fact of modern life, right?   We routinely settle for way less than we should get.  

What can you do?   You would choose differently, for sure.   If you could.   But it just doesn’t exist in most cases.

Is this insane, or what?   That most of us walk around with daily consumer experiences that are horribly unsatisfying, looked at objectively, is amazing.   Why isn’t this a Marketer’s dream?   It is a world full of unhappy Customers, waiting to be lured with something better.  

And be lured, they will.   Even if it is only to another disappointing provider.   Look again at one of my favorite back- arsed businesses, cell phone providers.   Their main preoccupation is customer retention.   Why is it such a problem?   We hate them and are happy to take the time to go get a new phone and switch services just to poke them in the eye.   Come on.   Admit it.   We love to get the better of them once in a while when we can.

Marketers spend heavily trying to figure us out.   We’re called finicky, elusive and hard to please.   No, they’re just dense, folks.   They never give us what we really want.   Why can’t they get it?   They spend marketing budgets in the millions – in a week.

The answer, be it for a Corporation, small or large, or for any one of us as an individual, is that true Self-Knowledge remains one of the highest accomplishments we can hope to attain.  

Please read that line again and let it sink in.   Do that and I won’t go quoting the Dali Lama or Deepak Chopra, however appropriate.

Next Page, What the Change Will Be

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