THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER…..
…..is the voice of God
By J. N. Halm
The first time I came across the phrase: "The Customer Is God" I thought it was unashamedly blasphemous. How could mere mortals be compared to the Supreme Being? As far as I was concerned, it was totally unacceptable. That was in 2002. I was a fresh graduate with a burning desire to know all there was to know about sales and customer care. However, a few years down the line and I am tempted to side with that seemingly sacrilegious statement. If God is at the centre of our very existence in this world and the customer is at the heart of the business, then in the very least, we can agree with that phrase from the corporate Bible. If the customers are an integral part of any business, then we can assign supreme status to the customer.
It is interesting the way the Asian giants have a deep understanding of the concept of deifying the customer. A banner hanging in an office in China reads:
“THE CUSTOMER IS GOD AND THE MARKET DECIDES EVERYTHING.”
No wonder the Chinese are slowly taking over the global business field. They know that customers are the basic foundation of any business. Another company from the Far East has this wonderful company policy: Supreme, the customer; Excellence, the product. It seems these people know what they are about-no wonder they are taking over the world.
If the above premise holds true, then one can confidently go ahead and add that if the customer is God, then the voice of the customer is the voice of God. Readers will instantly realise that the above assertion comes from the very popular “vox populi, vox Dei” ("The voice of the people [is] the voice of God”).
Smart companies all over the world know that to excel in the business universe there is a need to listen to the voice of God, i.e. the customer. Many business experts know that it is an exceedingly valuable tactic to invest in “hearing the voice of God.” Such companies ensure that the customer’s voice saturates the entire organisation. When asked for the secret of business success in a 1990 Fortune magazine article, Chief Executive of Toys ‘R’ Us Charles Lazarus said, “You just listen to the customers, then act on what they tell you.”
One sure way to ensure that your organisation is saturated with the Voice of the Customer is by deliberately soliciting for complaints from customers.
Successful companies go out of their way to ask their customers to complain. They will do anything to hear the voice of the customer. This is something that I find many companies in Ghana not doing. It seems the mentality of Ghanaian companies is totally diametrical to the thinking of our fair friends out there. As a matter of fact, in Ghana companies do not want to hear complaints from customers. It is a taboo to go and lodge a complaint about a defective product or poor service.
Why go out of your way to ask a customer to complain if the customer has, on his or her own accord, not complained? Some may ask. To such a question, I would respond with some research findings that indicate that for a lot of companies, a large share of their customer base are dissatisfied but are just hanging in there. I came to the realisation on this assertion after the series of articles on Bad Customer Service on the Ring Road Central I wrote sometime last month. A lot of the calls I had from readers indicated that they were dissatisfied with the quality of service of the bank I had in mind but still had their accounts there because they had not seen any other bank that offered great service. This meant that if these customers were wooed by a bank that offered better services they would be off the next day.
One research finding indicates that only 4% of dissatisfied customers attempt to complain. For every complaint received, twenty-six more customers were dissatisfied but refuse to complain. For this reason alone, it is vital to the success of companies that they go out of their way to solicit for complaints. Companies in this country must know that it is a NEED to hear the VOICE of the customer.
Why Customers Do Not VOICE Their Opinion
Richard C. Whiteley, cofounder of The Forum Corporation and author of The Customer Driven Company: Moving from Talk to Action writes that there are three reasons why customers do not like complaining. These are

1. Customers are of the opinion that complaining won’t do any good. This is so true. Many times I have asked people who complain to me about a bad service they had received why they refuse to complain. They answer they give is that they do not believe that complaining will help.

2. Customers believe complaining is too difficult. I go with this assertion too. It seems some companies deliberately make it very difficult to complain. The rolls of red tape one has to cut through to see someone they can complain to puts many people off.

3. Customers are uncomfortable about lodging complaints. This is another cause we will find hard to debate. In Ghana, people who attempt to lodge complaints are seen as “too-known”. There are times when people who lodge complaints are even turned on by other customers suffering the same poor service.

Donald Beaver, founder of New Pig Corporation, a US-based company specialised in the manufacture of spill response products including absorbents, spill containment, drain barriers, spill kits and personal protective equipment says, “You should love complaints more than compliments. A complaint is somebody letting you know that you haven’t satisfied them yet. They have gold written all over them.”
Customer-driven companies are driven by the voice of the customer.
Another trait of these great companies is that when the customer speaks, they listen. This is another of the issues I have with companies in this country. Even when customers go out of their way to lodge precious ‘complaints’, such mediocre companies turn a deaf ear. The average Ghanaian business will refuse to LISTEN to the voice of the customer. Suggestions boxes are not opened regularly and contents digested with all the seriousness they deserve. I know of some companies were the keys to the suggestion boxes are even missing.
No one ever listened themselves out of a job. (Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States)
I came across a research finding while preparing for this article. It was a research done for US-based Travelers Insurance. The findings showed that persuading people to complain could be, in fact, the best business move a company could make. 9% of the non-complainers with a complaint involving $100 or more would buy from the company again. On the other hand, when people did complain and their problems resolved quickly, as much as 82% would buy again. This indicates that it is not only in listening but also in doing something about what is being said.

Give the Customer’s VOICE an Easy Avenue
In this day and age of the proliferation of telephone companies, it is surprising that many companies are not giving customers toll-free telephone numbers to interact with. Companies are also not calling customers to solicit for complaints. It is a great company or one on its way to greatness that makes it easy for customers to complain. Such companies know that listening to the customer is one of the cheapest and most rewarding ways of doing business. They know the costs of making calls or having toll-free lines is insignificant when compared with the benefits they receive from satisfied customers.

Companies that listen to the voice of their customers benefit from improved customer satisfaction, increased customer loyalty, and an increase in long-term profitability. For some companies, opening up to the voice of the customer has even led to the creation of new products that later become cash cows for the companies.
An interesting story in this vein is from New Pig Corporation, the US company I made mention of earlier. Some customers of the company complained that the products of the company which were used in absorbing spills on factory floor were getting destroyed when used in mopping acids and other solvents. Although it was expressly stated on the New Pig Corporation that their absorbents were not to be used in mopping acids, New Pig Corporation did not chastise the customers. They listened to the VOICE of God. The result? The company created a new absorbent that could withstand acidic spills which turned out to be one of the company’s premium products. Just by listening to their customers, they were able to produce a great product.

Some experts estimate that it costs fives times as much to replace a typical customer as it does to take actions that would have kept the customer in the first place. Companies that have refused to hear the VOICE of the God, I mean the customer; spend millions on sales and marketing bringing in new customers to replace the ones they are losing. Why not take the easy path? Listen to customers, do what they want and be assured that they will stay with you through thick and thin. I am just one VOICE appealing to businesses in this country to go out of their way to listen to the VOICE of God, and by so doing earn the right to stay alive in the long run. Life in the business world is only guaranteed by the mercy of customers, as life on earth is only guaranteed by the mercy of God.