Involve loyal customers in the solution that the company is offering Customer who are influencers are keen to broaden their network, enhance their reputation and gain access to new information. Companies could make use of this by letting them be the first to profit from new research results so that they can show their followers that they are influential thinkers. A company could ask customers to join them in thinking up appealing solutions and then enlist their help in implementing them. There’s a good example of this in Florida where the number of young people starting smoking was becoming alarming. The state of Florida asked influential young people such as student leaders, athletes and cool kids who didn’t smoke or wanted to stop smoking to help them come up with a solution. Around 600 young people got together. They explained to the officials who also attended why their anti-smoking campaign wasn’t working. Outraged by the fact that cigarette companies were aiming their advertising campaigns specifically at getting youth to start smoking to replace older people who had died (often as a result of lung cancer), they set about devising a plan that would work. A group calling itself SWAT (Students Working Against Tobacco) then travelled through the entire state spreading their anti-smoking message. They succeeded too: in ten years, the number of young people smoking fell by 50%, despite a vicious counterattack by the tobacco lobby. Finally Companies whose most important business objective is customer focus deliver a consistently superior customer service and, as a consequence, they are able to count on higher profits. Research by John Fleming and Jim Asplund7 points out that customers who feel involved generate 1.7 times more sales than average customers. Companies whose employees
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