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Don't worry too much about making your customer happy - worry about keeping their customer happy. Your customers have customers - it's customers all the way dow

Don't worry too much about making your customer happy - worry about keeping their customer happy. Your customers have customers - it's customers all the way down. Why is your customer doing business with you - what product or service are they reselling to their customer? * Maybe they leverage your SMS app to send update notifications, telling their customers about a hot sale. * Maybe they use your IaaS to host their real-estate website platform, letting their customers track who's looking at their agents' houses. * Maybe they use your hand-picked tomatoes in their restaurant's home-made tomato sauce. However they rework your product, they're depending on you to deliver consistent quality on-time, so they can continuously deliver this to their customer. If they can't provide this to their customer, the customer will find some other source. (Or else that customer's customer will find a new source.) Your customer won't be a customer for long, if they lose their customers. Especially not if your poor product (or poor delivery/uptime, or poor presentation/reseller experience) drove their customers away. ------------------- This blog article was troublesome to read. It was very slow to load, slow enough that I found the Google Cache before it loaded: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GmcavdrvM5oJ:ninjodo.com/customer-service-killing-business/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Gmcavd... Secondly, after about a paragrah, a large splash popped up and blocked the article. Adblocking this element left the page without scrolling capabilities, but disabling all scripts from ninjodo.com loaded a completely usable page that loaded quickly. Finally, the writing felt rambling, and the story (also found on the wall of a Jimmy John's near you) didn't seem much related to the thesis.

JimmyAustin 10y ago
I read a book over the holidays (The Attackers Advantage by Ram Charan) that made a similar point for how businesses can handle structural uncertainty in the market. The analogy that he used was Blackberry failing to anticipate the threat the iPhone was to their business. They focused on creating a solution that was perfect for an IT department who were purchasing the phones, not realising that their customers customers (the executives) wanted other features (media support, etc), and would force their IT department to adapt. If Blackberry had paid attention to what the executives wanted, they might still be around.
simplehuman 10y ago
> Don't worry too much about making your customer happy - worry about keeping their customer happy. How does this logic work for a consumer product?
- techer 10y ago
  The sale is just the beginning of the relationship.
- stephengillie 10y ago
  The consumer's spouse, children, and boss number among their customers.
DrScump 10y ago
Don't worry too much about making your customer happy - worry about keeping their customer happy. Or to generalize: make your customer successful and help them look good in their market.

JimmyAustin 10y ago

I read a book over the holidays (The Attackers Advantage by Ram Charan) that made a similar point for how businesses can handle structural uncertainty in the market. The analogy that he used was Blackberry failing to anticipate the threat the iPhone was to their business. They focused on creating a solution that was perfect for an IT department who were purchasing the phones, not realising that their customers customers (the executives) wanted other features (media support, etc), and would force their IT department to adapt. If Blackberry had paid attention to what the executives wanted, they might still be around.

simplehuman 10y ago

> Don't worry too much about making your customer happy - worry about keeping their customer happy. How does this logic work for a consumer product?

techer 10y ago
The sale is just the beginning of the relationship.
stephengillie 10y ago
The consumer's spouse, children, and boss number among their customers.

DrScump 10y ago

Don't worry too much about making your customer happy - worry about keeping their customer happy. Or to generalize: make your customer successful and help them look good in their market.