The Meaning of Customer Focus
Updated Saturday, April 10, 2010
It’s a popular term, but I fear it can be applied to an organization based on the profit meter. The Halo Effect seems applicable here also. The temptation is calling highly profitable companies “customer focused” or being “customer centric”, and then “not focused on customers” once their profits go down.
What is a clear indicator of an organization focused on customers? We first have in mind that customer focus doesn’t really mean “A focus on the customer at the expense of having a sustainable business”. (James Taggart territory.) If that were the case, everything would be free. What customer doesn’t want it free? If “customer focus” were to be more fully defined, it might be:
- A prioritization of customer needs and pleasure, both seen and hidden, balanced with, and never at the expense of, the organization’s desire to exist with profit and pleasure. *
Unless my premises are faulty or the conclusion is inaccurate, I think “customer focus” is clearly indicated within a company by the following:
- A manager is given enough power and autonomy to study the customer experience, customer needs, product or service of the company, and directly control the defects and enhancements under the fewest and most simple constraints.*
It seems that the opposite happens more often. Different divisions and manager have control over different parts of the product, or the power to initiate dependencies, and their needs must be met in a twelve way compromise. That seems to be one of the factors at the genesis of my old phone, the Nokia E70. You will notice that phone had triple the technical features of the iPhone 3 years ago, but who cares?
This principle will be a guide towards a customer focused company:
Those closest to the product/service should wield the greatest influence over its improvement.
Minzberg shows how a company can be organized to better meet customer needs (market oriented grouping), or one that structured to have better standards (functional grouping). It’s not cut and dry of course, but crucial none the less. Corporate design IS the main way to orient focus.
About the author. I'm Adam Temple. After a degree in religion I ended up in the business world and just love it. Sermonspice.com was my first big splash as it's now a multi-million dollar company (which I love saying!). Bixly.com is the next notable effort. Expert programming seriously low prices. It came about as a last ditch effort to avoid working security detail. Bixly reminds me of adolescence: thriving with health and potential, but still learning.