A CUSTOMER OF MY CUSTOMER IS MY CUSTOMER!
By J. N. Halm
Good day, Mr. Halm.
In April this year, I attended the African Banking and Financial Institutions Seminar at the La Palm Golden Beach Hotel.
A participant at this seminar who was using the escalator had her slipper trapped in the machine, there by destroying the whole thing.
I went back there recently and the escalator has still not been fixed.
As the CEO of this organization, what would you do?
Have a good weekend.
Regards
Sampson
The missive above is one of the many we get at ExSellers International on a regular basis. As a sales and customer care training firm, we are always excited to receive such letters from readers but the challenge for us is having the time to address all these queries, comments and suggestions on time. I would however take this opportunity to thank all readers who make time off their busy schedules to write down a thing or two about an experience they had had or something they had read in this column.

I always make it a point to discuss such letters with some associates so as to pick their brains on the issues raised in the letter. I chose to publish the letter from Sampson because, in discussions with some associates, I found that there were issues that we could all learn from. Sampson’s letter brings to the fore a couple of issues that concern the delivery of Exceptional Customer Service, Always! Certain issues arise from analysing this letter and I would use the next couple of articles to tackle these questions.

Among the questions that arose in discussions of the above letter was who qualified as a customer of a business. One gentleman was of the view that the hotel in question had no contractual obligation to the woman whose footwear got destroyed in the escalator. He forcibly made his point and I must admit that he had a good point. I am not a legal practitioner and therefore prefer to skirt the boundaries of law and legality when it comes to matters concerning customer service. The legal matters in the incident narrated by Sampson should be left to those with the right qualifications. I prefer to handle the customer care issues in the letter. Who qualifies as a customer and therefore deserves a business’ attention and care? I am of the view that proper analyses of this question will a go a long way in helping answer Sampson’s main question of what I would do if I were the CEO of the company.

There are many meanings to the word ‘CUSTOMER’ and many writers have given their views on what the word means. I attempted wading into the issue on the definitions of ‘CUSTOMER’ in an article titled “Clienting’ your customers or customising your clients?” published in this column on Monday January 25, 2010.

Customer Definition
Before I go any further, I must state that a reference to ‘customer’ in this article will mostly refer to individuals as opposed to businesses. As and when reference is made to business customers I would state it as such. A very popular definition of a ‘customer’ is the person who pays for goods or services that you provide. I perfectly understand why this definition seems to be the first that people come up. Businesses exist to make money and therefore the direct ‘payment’ aspect of the customer’s “job description” is paramount to the business person. However, this definition, despite its popularity, does not hold in certain settings. It becomes null and void in situations where one seeks assistance from governmental bodies such as the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). In many of these scenarios there is no exchange of money directly. So does that mean the individual seeking the assistance is not to be treated as a ‘customer’?

I am tempted to believe that it is because of the entrenched position of the above definition that individuals seeking assistance from governmental bodies are treated with such disdain by government employees. Because in many situations money does not part from the visitor to the worker, the visitor is treated as an ‘intruder’. One could even stretch the argument with the premise that since it is the taxpayer’s money that is used in paying employees of the government, then we all qualify as “customers” of the MDAs.

It is important that we get a new and better definition of who a ‘customer’ is-a definition that will include in scope those individuals who receive services from corporate bodies without directly paying for it. This is vital because such individuals also deserve to be treated with Exceptional Customer Care, Always!

A definition of a customer that I feel might be of help in this direction is this: The person (or entity) that receives an output (goods, services, etc) from your effort. I believe this is a better definition of who a customer is since it takes care of the issue of exchange of money (or otherwise) in the interaction. In receiving the output, the ‘customer’ may or may not part away with money directly.

Customer Kind
From the latter definition above, I will go further and break down ‘customers’ into various groupings so that by so doing we may be in a better position to answer the question of whether the lady in Sampson’s letter above qualifies as a customer of the hotel in question or not. Such a categorisation will also help us better appreciate and better serve every single individual who walks through the doors of our places of work seeking assistance of any kind.

Customers in Cash
To start with, there are the Direct-Paying Customers. Some writers refer to this group as External Paying Customers. This group refers to the individuals who pay directly for goods or services rendered. They are the lifeblood of any business entity. When we buy ‘waakye’ from Auntie Muni, pay the taxi driver to carry us across town, or buy a copy of the Business and Financial Times from the newsstand we fall into this category. I do not believe the importance of this group can be overestimated. Failure to treat them with utmost respect or an inability to provide them with Exceptional Customer Care, Always! might not augur well for your business. Many businesses that have been heaped in the dumpsters of dead businesses failed to realise the extreme importance of this group of customers.

Customers Indirectly Paying
The second group of customers are the Indirect-Paying Customers. They include individuals who pay for the goods and services from an organisation but payment is done through an intervening entity. It includes all tax-paying Ghanaians who seek the outputs or services of governmental or quasi-governmental bodies. They pay their taxes directly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which in turns sends the money to the government which is eventually used in paying the employees of government. Recently, I took some questionnaires to some offices including the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit of the Ghana Police (DOVVSU), Parliament House and also to the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs. In all of these offices, I did not directly pay for the information I was being given. Thankfully, no one asked me to pay directly but being a taxpayer I believe I am paying for that information, albeit indirectly.

This second group will also include individuals who receive some output from governmental bodies in the form of regulations. One writer refers to these entities as regulated customers. Bodies such as the VAT Service, IRS, Customs Excise and Preventive Services (CEPS), etc. often deal with individuals and businesses in ways that are aimed at bringing these entities in compliance with laid down regulations. It is imperative that the interactions are done with customer service principles in mind. I am well aware that some individuals just find it difficult to abide the laws and regulations in the society but that does not mean that in interacting with them principles of courtesy and respect are thrown out of the window. As stated earlier in this piece, such bodies must ensure that they do not take these people for granted since an aggrieved Indirect-Paying Customer could in one way or the other cause trouble for an organisation.

Many of us are aware of the term Internal Customers. They are our colleagues in the workplace-those who receive output from our efforts but do not pay for it. Internal customers are in the same organisation but rely on an output from us to get their jobs done. The IT person who comes in to help fix a computer-related problem for a front-desk employee should see that front liner as a ‘customer’. There will not be an exchange of money for the work done but there is a need to treat the recipient as a ‘customer’. It is a well-known fact that the way we treat our internal customers can have a tremendous effect on the way we treat our Direct-Paying or Indirect-Paying Customers.

With the above categorisation and with the limited information provided in Sampson’s letter, we can clearly see that the lady in question was an Indirect-Paying Customer of the Hotel. She might not have paid directly to the Hotel but might have paid for the Conference either directly or indirectly to the organisers and that money was used in paying for the conference facilities at the Hotel. She therefore deserved to receive the highest quality of service. However, we cannot judge the actions (or inactions) of the Hotel since we are not told whether the lady reported the incident to the authorities. The Hotel might even have some policies on how to handle issues of that nature.

It is important that businesses get out of their skewed definitions of who their customers are. The over-emphasis on the Direct-Paying Customer can lead to some trouble for the business. It is an established fact that an Indirect-Paying Customer can influence the purchasing decisions and actions of a Direct-Paying Customer. Remember, an Indirect-Paying Customer is a customer of your customer and a Customer of your Customer is your Customer!