Every business needs a customer. The very existence of any given business is a customer. Without a customer, there is no business. Perhaps that is why, the famous saying, a customer is king and a customer is always right came into being.
Theodore Roosevelt once said that People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Business is about how much you care, not about your business but about those who are the reason why your business exists. Jeff Bezos was even more categorical. He said that if we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately, we will turn out all right.
“When you’re busy, avoid taking the quickest action. Instead make the extra effort to truly serve the customer,” said Marylin Suttle.
I chose to write this article when I learned that Family Bank of Kenya will be conducting a customer appreciation week called #familybankappreciatesyou just to show they customers how they care and value them. And I asked myself, how many businesses often put aside a day or two just to say ‘thank you’ to their esteemed customers? Very few and family is a step ahead. Research shows that a customer, who upon shopping or buying something from your shop or any service rendered, is told ‘thank you’ is likely to come back that that who is not told the same.
The decision by Family Bank to set aside a week to appreciate their customers is a clear demonstration of where excellence should start in any given business; at the top. When the top management has the interests of the customer at heart, those on the ground automatically replicates the same to the customer.
The business of doing business is a serious business. It needs strategy. It needs ideas but above all, it needs the art of always putting the interests of the customer before anything else.