Customer is King- Part I

Client Facing, Client Focus, Client Account, Client Data Management, Client Knowledge, Client Value, Customer Service, Customer Behavior, Customer Driven, Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Delight, Customer Care, Customer Acquisition, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Information.

Phew!!.. Let me take a 10-sec break, see you, readers, on the other end.
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Okay, welcome back!! Seriously we talk too much about customers/ clients these days and it is not uncommon to hear spooky words like understanding needs, building rapport, achieving trust, and creating value. Before I scare you with the specifics, let us understand who exactly is a client?? and who is a customer? Can these words be used interchangeably? These days, any client-related training I attend, this is the first question that the trainer pops up. What is the difference between a client and a customer?? How stereotypical!! Anyways answer: A customer is the end-user of a product/ service that a vendor has developed/ engineered, primarily on the basis of market surveys that capture the voice of the average customer (or should I say capturing the mind of the customer). And so most of these products are highly standardized and 'off the shelf', and there is nothing as design collaboration or risk-sharing or resource sharing or benefits sharing or a strategic alliance with a customer because these are some of the terms used w.r.t a client... The relationship with a client is more on a one-one level. It could be possible for a vendor to have millions of customers, but clients are always very few in number... As in, IBM provides IT solutioning to telecom giants ATT and Vodafone-Essar, so ATT and Vodafone-Essar become IBM's clients and in turn, ATT and Vodafone-Essar will provide telecom solutioning to millions of retail/ corporate/ federal customers (cannot call them.. as ATT/ Vodafone's clients). You will find my thoughts in this article inclined towards the telecom industry... Please get used to it.

Anyways, the relationship between vendors and clients can be strategic and there could be deals between them that could keep them tied to each other until it (the deal) exists of course. But it is a different ball game with a customer, there are obviously no such deals and there are no concrete predictability patterns on how all customers will behave. That is why lots of study goes into trying to understand customer behavior, customer loyalty, retention, etc. See the difference??

Now, jumping to the specifics, as for vendor, success only comes if you can sell yourself (Marketing/ Campaigning) to get business in the first place and once that has happened, promised delivery of services/ products/ solutions should follow at the promised time (Assuring fulfillment)... Again peeking into the telecom industry for example (Actually I support a telecom client, so I am conveniently doing this to you.. But, if you ask me the industry of the company that I work in, I wouldn't be able to tell you, because here in IBM, the business is so diversified and we are constantly trying to push our limits to become a player in any industry one can name... But there is this common perception that IBM is an IT services and consulting company, which I am tempted to deny, and IBM as such is trying to change this image... In fact, the biggest competitor, Accenture, is seen as a provider of solutions more from a managerial perspective, so IBM would definitely want to nullify Accenture's trump card... Anyways that is a different story altogether)... Coming back to the telecom industry, I find aggressive marketing right here. Let me give you another list of phrases:

zoo zoos; he is always on Facebook; har ek friend zaroori hota hai; keep it simple, silly; what an idea, sirji.
Do you not recognize each of these tag lines to some brand?? See how deep is the brand awareness penetration!! The point is, the recent trend in the telecom industry is that it is no longer about only voice... The modern-day telecom operator is expected to deliver the entire consumer media experience.. the whole voice-media integration thingy. Seriously, most phones out there do more than just telephony these days. Customers demand the entire package of being able to do almost anything with just a phone... And the providers have no choice considering the fact that a bulk of revenue comes from non-voice services... This is pushing the need to bring alive new vibrant technologies such as NGNs (Next-Generation Networks, which is trying to bring voice, data, and video onto one IP network). With most telecom service providers operating at increasingly decreasing profit margins, he who can woo his customers by driving the convergence of the telecom and media value chains and provide them at incredibly flexible costs, can and will win the cat race.

So why has the modern-day customer become so demanding? His options have virtually become endless, his perspectives have changed, his loyalty blinks and wavers when he looks at a new advertisement of a different brand... If one has to perform a Root Cause Analysis for such a scenario, you'll have to go back to a time when liberalization and globalization made their way in... Back then, it used to be a seller's market, it was the seller who decided on the price of his product because demand exceeding supply was the norm and the prices were generally on an increasing trend. But now, the tables have turned, it is a buyer's market now, it is the buyer who decides on the price of the seller's product... Supply may exceed the demand and prices are on a decreasing trend. The mobile telephony market in urban India has almost saturated, and that is why you see wireless providers shifting focus to tier III towns where there is still scope for growth and opportunities for everybody, unlike in urban India, wherein you have to eat into someone else's market to grow. As a matter of fact, the fixed telephony market has saturated in developed countries like the US, whereas in developing countries like India, it still continues to grow, but there is this mild accusation that the wireless providers are trying to cut- off an entire generation of people from fixed telephony by aggressively promoting the synonymous costs for both means. Could be justified, coz there used to be a time when 15 mins STD used to cost Rs. 100, now Vodafone gives me 1000 mins free STD. Besides who can forget the '1p/sec' scheme, which was a revolution by itself. Nevertheless, fixed telephony still remains cheaper than wireless (attributed to the infamous hurdle called 'roaming'). Excuse me if you find me wavering out of topic and talking too much about the telecom industry... Anyways what am trying to say is that the customers have so many ducks swimming in their pool, so only the duck that impresses gets picked up. :-)

So is there a genuine customer interest in any of these initiatives... Could be... Maybe No.6 or No. 7 on the vendor's list of priorities. But it's mostly only about using the customers to fuel business, survival, and image. I tell this because of this story I heard, it so seems that there are some people who support a product, engineer it through its life- cycle for years together, but still do not know who the end-user for that product is. Pity. So in a nutshell, client-centric thinking is the enablement of tactics that a vendor implements to give the clients an experience they'll never forget (in terms of delivering measurable productivity and value-driven solutioning which would in turn re-assure his immediate future in the market. Dissect any industry and you'll find the repercussions of this never-ending cycle.

And as if all this wasn't enough, people have started going gaga about comprehending the customer's customer and the dynamics even throughout the supply chain. Maybe you and I should reserve a special place in hell for these guys. Just kidding!!

To be Continued........