We Can Not Regard Customers As God.

With the increasingly fierce market competition, customer The strategic significance of business managers is getting more and more attention. The modern sense of "customer focus" has also developed from "meeting customer needs" to covering "customer satisfaction". brand Every enterprise, service, advertising, public relations, corporate culture and business process reengineering. Management Active nerves. There is no doubt that the concept of "customer is God" has played a positive role in improving the marketing level of Chinese enterprises. However, if we can not really grasp or even misunderstand the true meaning of the word "customer is God", on the contrary, it is a harmful thing for an enterprise.

God will not be rude.

If the concept of "customer is God" requires employees to respect their customers and provide customers with better services, it is understandable. "God" should have enough respect and courtesy, but respect and politeness are both sides. Customers should also "Gu De". They must not violate the principle of equality and mutual respect at the very least. Unfortunately, it is not appropriate for many enterprises to ask their employees to cater for or even satisfy all the requirements of customers on the ground of "customer is God". Because God is not rude, but customers are often rude.

The Modern Express has reproduced the news that a hotel waiter accidentally encountered a customer's arm when he pushed the door, but the waiter was busy apologizing. But the customer had to forgive and abuse. When a restaurant in Shanghai was operating at night, due to the sudden tripping and power failure, the diners took advantage of the black escape list. A shopping malls in Wuhan made hundreds of "Lei Feng umbrellas" for their customers. In the face of such a "God", how can we stick to the principle that customers are always right? In the face of such a customer, how can we "refer to the first item"? The first idea is: customer is always right; service concept second: if customers are wrong, refer to Article 1.

Another more ridiculous example is that under the guidance of the idea of "customer is God", a female manager of a hotel and catering department in Hunan has summed up a set of service ladies who are "under the belt". The female manager should give her advice and service as much as possible to attract customers by using eyebrows and body language. She should be "close to" and close to customers. Even if she has physical contact, she must be disgusted with what she wants to do and speak. Just imagine, if this is regarded as "customer is God", should all hotels in China should "improve" to meet more needs of "God" and attract more customers?

God can't be snatch.

"Customer is God" has dominated the history of world marketing since the Second World War, but now the seemingly supreme marketing concept seems to collapse. Because every enterprise can not evade the essence of its profit, every enterprise is trying to "rob God" and "conquer God". Michael Porter (MichealE.Porter), a professor of Business School of Harvard University, proposed a famous Potter model for the competitive environment of the enterprise. Potter believes that the enterprise is most concerned with the competitive strength of its industry, and the intensity of competition depends on the five basic competitive forces such as "potential competitors", "present competitors", "production of substitute products", "supplier bargaining power" and "bargaining power of buyers". Obviously, among these five competitive forces, the direct result of "existing competitors", "potential competitors" and "production of substitutes" and enterprise competition is obviously "snatching corporate customers (God)"; and the direct reason behind "buyers bargaining" is that competitors or substitutes can provide similar products with higher quality and lower price.

Therefore, "customer price reduction" is indirectly transformed into competition between enterprises and "existing competitors" and "potential competitors". Once an enterprise is confronted with a customer's pressure, it will not yield to such a price reduction, or give customers a hand to their competitors, thereby "losing customers"; on the surface, most suppliers do not directly snatch corporate customers.

They only rely on the quality and market advantage of their products to improve the profitability and competitiveness of the existing enterprises by increasing the "factor price" and reducing the "unit quality value" of enterprises. For example, the large supplier of textile fabrics is very obvious in terms of bargaining power of the supplier, compared to the small scattered clothing manufacturers. Or, a supplier's product has obvious quality advantages, and the high quality product can not be obtained in the market, or the "conversion cost" of the enterprise is higher than that of the supplier, so the "bargaining power of suppliers" is especially prominent at this time.
In fact, this "supplier bargaining power" has also been transformed into competition with existing competitors, which eventually leads to the looting of corporate customers. Because only "competitors" or "substitutes" are willing to buy "supplier" products at a higher price, such "bargaining power" can also be shown. Similarly, enterprises will not accept "high price" raw materials into production, reduce profits, or get the advantage of "competitors" and rob more customers. In this sense, marketing is war, and customers are the positions to be occupied by enterprises. All enterprise competition focuses on the looting of God (customers). Can God be robbed?

God does not divide.

God is the most equal. However, customers are born inequity and are born with three, six, nine equal points. Mr. perpers and Dr. Rodgers, who are among the top 16 management gurus in the world, classify customers into three categories: the most valuable customers (MostValuableCus-tomer), the most growth customers (MostGrow-ableCustomer) and the negative customers (BelowZeroCustomer). Their view is that enterprises should regard the most valuable customers and the most growth customers as "God", while negative customers should not be regarded as "God", but must be abandoned as quickly as possible. Because negative customers can not bring any value to enterprises, they will only consume enterprise resources. Indeed, according to statistics, 65% of British Airways's profits are created by 35% of customers. The first profit of Columbia first bank in Ohio was created by 10% of the customers, and 80% of the customers made the bank lose money.

"Equal hospitality" is the way of doing business since ancient times. Although the idea of "abandoning nine customers" has not been widely accepted by businesses and customers. However, it is understandable for enterprises to establish strong relationships with those important customers who have created 20% to 30% of the profits for enterprises 75% to 80%, and spend most of their marketing budgets on customers who only create 80% of the company's 20% profits, which is no doubt a waste or low efficiency. This is a fact that can not be debated.

In fact, no matter the one-to-one marketing or customer relationship management technology, the modern marketing idea has dealt with the "God" of different levels in a "customer classified management" way. In 2002, Motorola China set up a big customer department, which provided more thoughtful and meticulous service for the big customers. China Unicom established the CRM center and implemented the customer classification management. China Mobile donated the exquisite "century rainbow" internal magazine for its customers who spend more than 1000 yuan in 800 thousand months. If you are angry because you are "God", imagine that if you take a five yuan takeaway, you need to make sure that it is delivered on time. Do we need to cheer for this spirit of service? {page_break}

God does not like bustling.

God loves to be busy. Sunday is the time when God is happiest, because the believers of God always focus on the church praising God. However, this is not the case with customers. Many times, customers need to be quiet, need some private space, or need a suitable environment. They do not like being disturbed, but do not like superfluous "service". Once, I had dinner with a foreign friend in a restaurant. When I first sat down, I was surrounded by five or six promotional ladies wearing various kinds of flash fabrics and beer.

But they scrambled to introduce beer in order to snatch the favorable terrain, but squeezed my foreign friends almost to fall, and the leather shoes were trampled on by the ladies. Such a "service" only considers its own interests, and no matter how the customers feel, it is really unacceptable and flattering. It's easy and pleasant to eat with friends, but in the face of the five or six "besieger" who never fails to win the sales promotion, we have no fun at all. My friend told me that this kind of beer promotion is simply a kind of harassment, which makes people feel very uneasy. There is no such thing in foreign hotels.

Employees are more important than "God".

We have been shouting slogans for "customers first" and "customers first" for many years. It seems that no one has ever questioned its scientificity. However, there is such an enterprise, it has abandoned the "customer first" principle, advocating "employees first, customers second." This is Southwest Airlines. Keller, President of Southwest Airlines, said: "if you think" customers are always right ", that is the most serious betrayal of business owners to their employees. In fact, customers are often wrong. We do not welcome such customers. We would rather write and advise customers to change flights to other airlines than to insult our employees. "

Admittedly, there is no enterprise without customers. But on the other hand, the employees of enterprises are the direct contacts of customers and the key to deliver value to customers. In order to satisfy the customers and be respected, enterprises must first satisfy their employees and be respected. In order to make the customers receive the sincere and perfect service, the enterprises must first provide their employees with sincere and perfect service. If we want to provide the first-class quality products for the customers, we must first shape the qualities of their employees to the first class. If we have to be a dwarf before our customers, we must abandon our self-esteem. If our employees can not even meet their minimum personal dignity, how can they provide first-class services?

In fact, for an enterprise, employees are also customers, and are "internal" customers of enterprises. From this perspective, the concept of "employee first" not only negates and weakens "customer first", but rather a deeper understanding of "customer first". It accurately enriches and develops the connotation of "customer" and makes it more modern. This is truly people-oriented. In the face of such respect and love, can Southwest Airlines employees be moved?

God does not need interaction.

God never talks with believers, nor does he participate in the life of believers. However, this is not the case with customers. In today's information age, people are increasingly unable to be satisfied with pure commodity trading, and they want to be able to directly engage in dialogue with enterprises and even participate in enterprises. The emergence of the Internet provides unprecedented opportunities and methods for corporate interaction. They give customers the ability to choose information, respond to the company and talk about the company and brand with people all over the world. Microsoft Corp launched a 40000 day phone call when it launched Windows 95. McDonald's held a first prize of $1 million in 1996, and there were more than a dozen websites offering answers in a few days. One of the websites provided answers to 3500-6000 questions. The Hang Seng laptop incident in 97 years requires users to paste their experience with Hengsheng on the Internet because of a lack of effective maintenance of their computers.

As a result, the online and offline media caused a great uproar, resulting in a return of up to 24 million 510 thousand yuan. Although Hengsheng won the lawsuit in the subsequent court ruling, he got a "win the lawsuit and lose his reputation". These examples show that in the era of Internet, any flaw in enterprise marketing may bring disastrous blow to enterprises due to the universality and rapidity of information dissemination. Especially in the early stage of its market launch, due to the technical uncertainty, the high-tech products are faced with the task of customer feedback and continuous improvement of product performance. Therefore, it is particularly important to establish close contact with customers, listen to the aspirations of customers and enhance communication between the two sides.

Studies have shown that there is a direct relationship between the level of a brand and the degree of customer participation. If the level and status of corporate brand in the customer's mind are lower, the desire of customers to participate in enterprises is relatively weak. And if a brand has a higher level and status in the eyes of customers, and even thinks that the brand is related to its immediate interests, the customer will be more willing to participate in all kinds of activities of the enterprise. The closer the relationship between the enterprise and its customers, especially when they regard the brand as a spiritual brand, the degree of participation can reach the highest level. Therefore, this requires that enterprises must change the past one-way indoctrination information dissemination mode, and try to communicate with customers and interact with them, so that customers can participate in it, so as to establish long-term stable customer feelings and friendship, so as to remain invincible.

Instead of treating customers as gods, customers should be friends.