An enormous amount of time is given to focusing on our customers. We spend hours on polishing our service, we are constantly looking for ways to improve and we are grateful for their custom and rightly so, because without them we wouldn’t be in business.
However, whilst we are caught up in the busy life of serving our clients, I wonder how often we consider how we are performing as a customer? We are all someone’s customer. Mostly we happily receive the service our suppliers offer and don’t comment until there’s a hitch in normal proceedings.
Recently I referred to a customer as one of our ‘favourite’ customers. Why are they our favourite customer? Of course there is the obvious answer, they give us business, but then there is so much more to it than that.
A good customer has been open to forming a relationship with us, they provide us with precious feedback, they respect the need for our terms and procedures and they recognise the value of our offerings, they sometimes even refer us.
It got me wondering, how do we rate as customers, what would our suppliers say about us?
Do we give feedback to our suppliers?
Do we acknowledge their payment terms and pay on time?
Are we grateful for the service? Do we tell them?
Have we referred them?
Maybe if we take the time to consider our own behaviour as customers, it will help us understand and serve our clients in a more efficient manner. Certainly food for thought!
