“The Customer is Always Right”
This has been a mantra often recited to me since the 90’s when I first had experience of working in contract research. Although I fully understand the reasoning behind this, it hasn’t stopped me from once in a while venting my frustration in private at the sheer stupidity, incompetence or downright lies of some customers seeking redress due to the unexpected outcome of the services that I have provided. In the research of this blog, I found out that the phrase is attributed to the founder of Selfridges. I have also found out that many prominent leaders, like Richard Branson, have decided to put employees first, customers second. Perhaps one of his employees can give me a few examples of this philosophy.
Don’t get me wrong – all feedback is good, as it helps us in the drive to create a truly excellent product or service that exceeds the expectations of our customers (yet still meets/exceeds the needs of the company and shareholders). I am happy to admit that on some occasions I haven’t got it quite right, and I am equally happy to admit that on some occasions I get it spectacularly right. When it isn’t right, I go through the same phases as all human beings, in the order:
- denial
- anger
- depression
- acceptance
- philosophical
- craving for chocolate
- elation
- resolution
- coffee
- procrastination and finally
- action.
When it goes spectacularly right, I skip straight to chocolate.
So, the reason for this particular blog. On Saturday I had a particularly frustrating morning using a well-known brand that may have usurped “to Hoover” as a verb for vacuum cleaning the household. Much marketing expense in placed on the power of its suction and I cannot fault this (replace the “lifetime” filter once every few years, mind). It is, indeed, truly powerful. HOWEVER, most of this vacuum is lost by the poor design of the various attachments, all of which vie for the opportunity to leak. By the time you get to the business end, all but the smallest of particles on your floor remain, just spread further afield by your vigorous actions. I have found that duct tape is quite a good solution, and removal of all but the most necessary of tubes, but this rather defeats the object: by this time you are on your knees reduced to scrubbing small areas at a time. I freely admit the this particular model was purchased in 2005 and that more recent designs may have solved this problem. BUT STILL, I got the feeling that the product was released in the beta test stage and that I shelled out a hefty wad of cash for the privilege of giving this feedback.
And then I got to thinking about my own experiences on the other side of the fence. How much testing can you do before going live with a product? How can you predict how every customer is going to use your product/service? What is the demographic that you are targeting? What is their level of technical understanding?
Some Science
Back in the late 90’s a well-known scientific consumables company produced a new chromatography column and put much effort into marketing the significant improvements that their product had to offer. The blurb looked good and I was eager to try it. It did indeed work, lasted longer than competitors products and allowed me to significantly improve my productivity and quality of data. It was clear from data shared by my customers however, that this was not a universal finding. One of the easy ways to showcase your company is to get a presentation or poster out for industry seminars. A popular topic is to run a comparison of chromatography products or conditions with a set of “standards”. In my humble opinion, these “standards” were often cynically chosen to highlight a company’s specific speciality, or to “prove” a particular viewpoint of the author rather than being an unbiased, objective experiment.
Anyway, it became clear after some questioning that the tests were flawed, because the customer’s equipment was not in an optimal configuration: all the good work done by the column was wasted by poor plumbing and layout. Many vendors increased their efforts in provision of training courses for analysts, free equipment reviews and assessments of technology.
The underlying reason for this need? Well actually I link this to Belbin Team Roles and the cultural attitude to risk set by the manager of the particular analytical department. The phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” should be taken out into the metaphorical parking lot and shown the error of its ways.
Full Circle
This issue of customer mindset was further highlighted by the introduction into the market of a completely redesigned chromatography system in the early 2000’s. Those working in the analytical testing industry will know exactly what I’m talking about, but don’t worry, you don’t need to swat up. Essentially, the product raised the bar for the whole technique by an order of magnitude for sensitivity, throughput and sheer quality of data produced (in whatever way you measure quality). But the first few years were tough – take-up of the product was slow, and quite a few of those using it reported issues. A lot of energy was used by nay-sayers (including the competition) to come up with reasons why it couldn’t work in theory and much emphasis placed on any practical evidence to support this. It was too radical for a risk-averse industry.
As with many things, it relied on a few persistent champions in the industry, a lot of practical effort on behalf of the manufacturer and a bit of luck (an oil crisis and a storm in Texas) to bring it into mainstream acceptance. Today it is considered an essential tool and there are me-too products out there. Ownership of such a product is considered essential for any modern laboratory, USPs are built on owning this single, consistent platform. Many of those early sceptics have conveniently forgotten their stance, as it is now too risky not to have one in your portfolio.
Like the vacuum cleaner, the brand has become the verb.
And I don’t think it would have happened if key people in that organisation thought that the customer was always right. Maybe I’ll come round to that way of thinking when I next vacuum. Come to think of it – I still have it after 5 years…
Steve Hoare: Management by Reflection 