23. The Law of the Customer

The Laws of Business Success

Under the Laws of Business

The customer always acts to satisfy his or her interests by seeking the very most and best at the lowest possible price.

Customers practice economic calculation in their choices. They seek to maximize their purchases and to minimize their costs, or outlays. Customers always attempt to get the things they want the fastest and easiest way possible, right now, at the lowest possible price.

This is not a problem. This is merely a fact of business life. Customers want the very most for the very least, and they will buy from whoever they feel can best give it to them. And they are always right. To survive and thrive in business, you must deal daily with completely self-centered, capricious, impatient customers who want what they want, when and how they want it, and who will go elsewhere at a moment’s notice. Just like you.

By the way, it is important to distinguish between facts and problems. They are quite different, and confusion over which is which can cause you a lot of stress.

A fact, by definition, just is. It is an inevitable and unavoidable part of life. It is something that you accept and work with and around, like the weather. It is like an immovable object. You don’t argue with it or get upset about a fact.

A problem, on the other hand, is something that you can solve.

A problem is something that is amenable to your intelligence and imagination.

It is very important, in business, that you separate facts from problems and that you don’t become upset or anxious over something about which you can do nothing. One of Burnham’s Laws, from the philosopher James Burnham, deals with this difference between facts and problems. It says, "If there is no alternative, there is no problem."

Before you become concerned about something that has or has not happened, ask yourself, Is this a problem, or is this a fact? Past events, by the way, are all facts. The only effect you can have on them is the way you interpret them and react to them. What matters is what you do now, not what happened or who is to blame or what you could have done differently.

The first corollary of the Law of the Customer is
Customers are both demanding and ruthless; they reward highly those companies that serve thembest and allow those companies that serve them poorly to fail.

Sam Walton once said, "We all have the same boss, the customer, and he can fire us any time he wants by deciding to buy somewhere else."

It isn’t that customers don’t care about your business. It’s just that customers care more about themselves and their own satisfaction than they do about the success or failure of your enterprise. Wherever you see a business fail, you see a business where the owners were either unable or unwilling to adjust their offerings to satisfy enough customers at prices that allowed them to carry on. The customers silently walked away, told their friends about their bad experiences, and never came back.

The second corollary of this law is
Customers always behave rationally in pursuing the path of least resistance to get what they want.

From the point of view of the customer, every action makes perfect sense. All buying behavior is aimed at achieving greater personal satisfaction, toward improving one’s position, toward being better off. If a salesperson or a businessperson suggests that the customers are stupid for not patronizing a particular store or buying its products, it is actually the salesperson or the businessperson who is stupid.

The customer is very smart and usually knows what is in his or her best interests. The customer’s decision is always rational, from the customer’s point of view. The customer is always right, as far as the customer is concerned. When you go into business, you put your entire financial future at the mercy of satisfying your customers every single day. From the moment you open your doors, the customer determines what you will sell, how much of it you will sell, at what price you will sell it, and how much money you will make. It is only by catering to the customer’s whims and desires that you can survive and thrive in business.

The third corollary of the Law of the Customer is
Proper business planning always begins with the customer as the central focus of attention and
discussion.

People within companies have a dangerous tendency to lose touch with the thoughts, feelings, and needs of their customers. They tend to talk only among themselves, and what is worse, they listen only to each other. They lose touch with the reality of their customers.

If you are in business, and if what you do affects your customer, you should mentally erect a statue of the customer and place it in the middle of the table when you discuss any plans regarding your products or services. Always ask yourself, If the customer was sitting here listening to us, what would the customer be thinking? What would the customer say? Would the customer approve or disapprove of what we’re planning to do?

By the way, the subject of the "customer" is very important. Some people within organizations have the mistaken idea that they have no customers because they don’t interact with the people who buy the product or service from the company. This can be a fatal mistake in thinking. It can sabotage your career without your even knowing it.

The fact is that everyone has a customer, and many people have several. Your primary customer is the person who determines how much you are paid and how quickly you are promoted. By this definition, unless you are the owner yourself, your primary customer is your boss. How well you please your boss determines how far and how fast you move ahead.

If you are a manager and you have people working under you, your staff members are also your customers. How you treat them and satisfy them will determine how they satisfy your customers. If you work in accounting or administration, your customers are the people who must use what you produce, whether it be financial statements, computer printouts, or other information. Everyone has a customer. Everyone is in the business of customer satisfaction. Your level of success in business is determined by how well you satisfy your most important customers.

How you can apply this law immediately:

1.Make a list of all your customers, both inside and outside of your business. Write down the names of your boss and coworkers, your outside customers and contacts, everyone with whom you deal, including your staff.

2.Make a plan today to increase your value to the most important of these people in some way. What results would you ideally like to achieve in your relationships with these customers? Resolve to do something every day to increase the level of satisfaction your key customers enjoy when dealing with you and your company.

Source: Brian Tracy, The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, (San Francisco, 2000).