Who or what is a customer?

Many businesses talk a lot about customer focus. I’d like to suggest that identifying exactly who the customers is may be a good start to delivering customer satisfaction. The problem is that the customer could be one or many people.

The client to buys the product

The consumer who uses the product

The user who identified the need

The advisor who made the recommendation

The approver or authoriser who agreed the choice

It makes communication and engagement more interesting when you realise you need to satisfy all these people, each of whom may have different needs, expectations and priorities.

This is why stakeholder and message management is such a vital part of delivering change.

What do you think?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Management Consultant, Project and Change Leader. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower and a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute.