Customer Success

The idea of “customer success” is widely understood in the halls of business, if not widely acted upon. “Customer success” is an outcome, sought for its contribution to a business’ own success. This sought outcome carries with it the belief that if a business’ customers can be helped to greater success, greater profits, market share, margins, revenues, customer loyalty, retention, reduced churn, etc. will accrue.

Put another way, businesses focussed on “customer success” believe it’s a means, maybe even THE means, to increase their own success.

In this way, we can see that:

• It’s a belief.
• It’s a belief widely understood, even though not widely held or practiced.
• It’s a means – or strategy – to an end (the end in mind being success to the business doing the helping), not an end in itself.
• Other means a.k.a. strategies to business success may appear more compelling.
• Given my previous post “The Fifth Absolute of Quality” which describes “customer success” as being THE purpose of quality, those businesses which reject “customer success” as the means to their own success will likely also reject quality initiatives and programmes.
• “Customer success” is not synonymous with “customer satisfaction” (far from it).
• What customers need for their increased success is a subset of their total needs (other needs may exist unrelated to the “success” of that customer organisation, in particular the needs of the Core Group, and other Folks That Matter™️ within those customer organisations).

To sum up, “customer success” is widely understood, although less widely practiced.

The Organisational Psychotherapy Analogue

I posit that the idea of “Attending to Folks’ Needs” – the declared purpose of Organisational Psychotherapy – is analogous to the idea of “customer success”.

Businesses embracing the idea of “Attending to folks’ needs” believe that doing so is a means to increase their own success.

The difference comes from few indeed seeing the connection between attending to folks’ needs and the success of their business.

Some observations on the idea that “Attending to folks’ needs” will enhance the success of the attending business or organisation:

• It’s a belief.
• It’s an uncommon belief, held by only a few.
• The mechanisms by which attending to folks’ needs deliver business success are understood by few.
• It’s a means – or strategy – to an end (the end in mind being business success for the business attending to folks’ needs), not an end in itself.
• Few have encountered the idea of attending to folks’ needs, fewer have considered it as a means for the success of their business, and fewer yet have adopted it.
• Other means a.k.a. strategies for its own success may appear more compelling for the business.

To sum up, “Attending to folks’ needs” is not widely known nor understood as an idea, so not widely seen as a viable means to business success, and so not often embraced or practiced.

– Bob

Postscript

More eagle-eyed and sharp-witted readers may have noticed that this post contains two, apparently different means to business success:

1. Focus on the success of the business’ customers.
2. Focus on the needs of all the Folks That Matter.

Actually, I see this a a false dichotomy; as 1) is a subset of 2):