I receive the newsletter, Working Knowledge - A first look at faculty research, which is distributed by Harvard Business School, and occasionally reply to its articles.
The article: What Loyalty? High-end Customers Are First To Flee
I quickly read the valued replies from the CEOs of different companies, and wanted to offer an additional perspective to this important topic.
As the article is not business-sector specific we should ask ourselves how these ideas of customer service apply to specific businesses. Not all can accommodate the approaches suggested without difficulty. And while customer is king, not recognizing a potential problem can be the makings of soon-to-be big problems.
What is important to remember is that such approaches put a strain on other parts of the business and their approaches, many that require a certain amount of standardization in the business and (product or) service offered. If the customer's needs becomes a moving target, changing often and even only in modest ways, it can send a ripple effect through a business in responding to it. Now, not only is the business changing in the marketing and sales end of the business, trying to read the customer and change the offering to accommodate a new or changed need, but other groups in the business must also adapt so the business can effectively provide the service in a quality manner.
A market-driven, or customer oriented, business can be like a whip -- once it's slung out to satisfy a customer, it sends a wave through the business. If this isn't considered, any damage to the business will never be known. I suggest that the business that not only satisfies their customers' changing needs, but also manages the rest of the business to effectively accommodate that will be the business standing when others have fallen.
Frank Riganelli, Author
P.S. I have written a business-related book which reads more like a novel. It's called A Business Diary, Part I and it looks at issues that come up in the workplace.
About the author
- Frank Riganelli
- Frank is being called an up-and-coming author whose writing has been praised as suspenseful and sophisticated. After writing articles that have been published and distributed by a professional organization, Frank was mentioned in a news story at msnCareers before turning his creative style to novels -- his debut novel praised as thrilling and a roller-coaster ride. His life has been an interesting one for his age of 47, in which time he has traveled to a dozen countries and lived in several of them. He spent 15 years working in management positions of Fortune companies and as an instructor at the college level, before providing communication skills training in other countries. Some highlights of his background include providing tutoring services to a member of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Planning Committee; holding the position of director in an international language business; and being praised as the best trainer by a former student (corporate lawyer). He has worked as a Ghostwriter for a publisher, judged a short-story competition, has provided editing services for graduate research material at USC, and writes book reviews for a POD publisher.
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