FEATURES
IS THE CUSTOMER
REALLY KING?
PHOTO from GoogleImages
By Kelvin Odoobo
T
he guy who sits atop the corporate hierarchy is often known as the boss because he calls the shots and pays the salaries. However this is far from the truth. The ‘boss’ can afford the chair he sits on and the car he drives because someone else exists. That other someone actually calls the shots, pays the salaries, makes everyone’s day and in a good year funds the bonuses. Everyone in the corporate chain, from the managing director to the tea boy, the company driver to the storekeeper should keep in mind that they are what they are because of this someone. Career ambitions, the much soughtafter promotion, the desired additional perk or even record sales turnover can only turn from a figment of imagination
into reality if the actual boss is treated well. That boss happens to be the person who walks into your premises to buy goods or pay for services. That boss may decide to like your product and return again and again. They might even decide to throw your company name into their ignorant chatter in the salon or the bar. This will hand you numerous new fellows paying your business premises a visit; not to check your product out because they are already into your product without you doing anything about it. It should be pretty obvious to anyone by now, that the customer is really the king. This age-old adage, customer is king, might appear obvious to everybody, but the devil is really in the details. Many
22 | The SERVICEMAG September - November 2010
business people bid the customer to care about their goods or services but forget to do the tiny but very important things. The deal is only sweet while we wait to get our hands on the client’s money, and when money changes hands, the client becomes history. We treat an after-sales service as an unnecessary cost instead of a valuable tool to increase customer loyalty and repeat business. We are quick to judge customers by how they dress, segregating wealthylooking ones from those who do not put too much emphasis on their looks. In agri-business, for example, that is the number one death to potential transactions with first time clients. During one agricultural show in an East African country, a semi-illiterate