Let Your Customers Make Executive Decisions

It may seem funny to say but customers should by the bosses of your company or business. They should be the CEO who determines which directions your company will take, what products to sell and how they service their clients. They are the reason you are in business. The old saying "The customer knows best" is still a fundamental principle in business.

Think of a company called Digital Edge and their philosophy towards customers:
"They rely on customers to find uses for minicomputers, rather than burdening the company with huge costs of developing and marketing applications on its own. Digital salesmen, engineers selling to other engineers, nurture strong and lasting relationships with customers" (Peters & Waterman, 2006).

According to Digital Edge's philosophy they feel that if they can allow the customer to dictate how the products are used they can then move towards manufacturing their products for their customers needs. For example, let us say we invented the first tape recorder thinking it would be great for kids. We then find that people are using them in business meetings instead of just buying them for Christmas gifts. We then listen to our customers and offer more business related tape recorders to them in the future. They have defined our operation.

The advantage of letting the customer dictate your operations is that you will likely have higher sales volumes and in turn more revenue. You are providing your customers with the products they want and for the applications they want them for. Therefore, you have an instant market for these products.

There are some risks to this philosophy if your customer base is small. Your customers may be so limited in their scope that they will be self-serving in the sense that the product may appeal to them but not to the wider market. This is one of the reasons why companies should continue to look outside their customers for the answers to their questions.

There are a few ways to do this. They can poll randomly throughout the country to see what kinds of general products customers are interested in or they can keep on top of all the latest industry news. They gauge this information against the needs of their current customers and make an educated decision as to what types of products or services will expand their customer base. There is no substitute for intelligent management.