Everyone is your Customer

A few days ago, I was reading a Tom Vander Well's blog post titled "When Customers are Co-Workers" on QAQnA.

The article reminded me of someone I met a few years ago. She worked in the research department of a big global company and after complaining to me once too often that no one valued her work, I offered her advice on customer experience tactics. I was rewarded with the retort, "I don't need any of this, because I don't deal with customers!"

Then it hit me… She didn't understand her work as providing a service to several other departments in her company. No wonder her co-workers didn’t respect her work; she never considered them her customers and her work reflected that.

The blog author suggests that you should think of co-workers as customers, but I will go even farther and say that you should think of everyone as your customer.

Think about it! You are always providing some type of service to someone. Your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your wife, your kids—absolutely everyone—in one way or the other, expect something from you. It doesn't matter if you are more than happy to give them what they want. They often count on it; they frequently demand it and most of all they will resent it if you fail to meet their expectations. But if the service you provide is good enough for them the majority of the time, they will remain with you and will pay you back in your desired currency: friendship, love, trust or respect.

Customer experience tools can be applied to everything in your life. The lesson is pretty simple: If you really care for your customers and make a sincere effort to understand their expectations, they will love you for that and will be loyal to you while you are loyal to them.

Comments

[Sarah]

It is so interesting that you are writing about this as when I started at Vox, I told someone that my work philosophy is that part of my job is to make everyone else’s job easier. Everyone is my client. My co-workers are my clients, as is my boss. The reply was, "but then you are beholden to everyone." Sure. Yes, I have a responsibility to everyone around me to understand their expectations and either meet them, exceed them, or let them know when they can’t be met. That is just common courtesy to me.