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Your Marketing Reality – A Metaphor for “The Customer is Always Right?” Part I

By A. Toussaint Goudeaux

We begin a series of articles based on one of the great rule of business…

The customer is always right.

Before we even get into whether this is true or how true or when it’s true… we need to look at several angles within the question itself.

Who and what is a customer? What does “right” mean? Why have this rule in the first place… what’s with the always?

What’s the point, this rule is o-b-v-i-o-u-s.

That is the point. Everyone misses the obvious. But, it’s re-looking at what your blind to (often the obvious) that you learn to see the differences that make the difference. So let’s begin…

What do we mean by “the customer?”

Years ago I remember reading the book Guerrilla Selling by Jay Levinson he depicted an image that has stayed with me decades later.

There is the world – the biggest circle – inside are ever smaller circles made of suspects, prospects, and your customers.

A quick breakdown…

The world – everyone but you, the market. They are potential suspects.

The suspects – people who you think may value your product or services. They are potential prospects.

The prospects – people who have indicated an interest in your service or product. They are potential customers.

The customer…

Wait wait wait… notice, suspects are different than prospects and prospects are different than customers. Are there differences within the group we call customers?

Sure, some are jerks, some are dependable, and some idiots.

Okay, perhaps you need a full weekend off. But there is something to that.

A customer, at its essence, is someone, anyone, who transacts business with you. Transaction. An event. So, each trade event produces a customer.

But here are 3 types of customers. It’s a common problem with language. Words are great, but when a word becomes too broad in its meaning it leads to confusion.

Take for example this remark from a customer, “I’m happy with it.” “Happy” could mean, “I can tolerate it.” Or it could mean, “I love it and am telling everyone I know about it.” If your customers mean the first one, you’ll be out of business in a year, if they mean the second, you’re going to need more room for expansion.

What are the three types of customers?

The Normal Customers

This is everyone’s idea of a customer. They give you money, you give them value, they thank you, you thank them, and everyone goes about their lives.

They are the bulk of your business, they pay the bills.

The Pseudo-Customer

This is the one everyone has experienced, but because we only have one broad word – customer – we’ve been wracked with false guilt having dealt with them. These are the ones we shoulda, coulda, woulda ourselves to the borderline of madness.

These are people who you’ve completed a business transaction with, but they give you a tremendous amount of grief, belly aching, etc… they hate you, your business, your location, your methods, etc…

True customers are those who value what you offer more than the money and time they give up to acquire it from you.

Pseudo-customers are those who don’t value what you offer more than the money and time they give up to acquire it from youbut, mistakenly, transacted business with you anyway!

Pseudo-customers are accidents. They can never be completely eliminated. Different industries have different levels of them.

The Client

The client is a customer, but is in a special class. Just as a customer is defined by a completion of a transaction, clients do make transactions. But with a customer the trade is the extent of the business relationship – an event.

The client is part of a process, an ongoing evolving process, therefore there are often several transactions with them.

Clients are where you continually growing profits come from.

Better Questions

Are normal customers always right?

Are pseudo-customers always right?

Are clients always right?

Interesting, but what do I do with this information?

Think back on several “bad” experiences with customers. Both ones where you screwed up and where they had a misunderstanding (or were simply jerks).

Look at them one situation at a time.

• Were you dealing with a normal customer, pseudo-customer, or client at the time?
• Looking back, how could you have known the difference between them?
• What lessons can you take from looking at these experiences and use today?
• Are you finding that your running into more pseudo-customers lately? What does this mean for your marketing?

Toussaint Goudeaux is a Principal with Ontologi, a strategic consulting firm focusing on… well, focus. Focus may be the missing ingredient for a business wanting to move to the next level. For more information please visit http://www.ontologi.com

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