May 19 What the Customer Really Wants The customer is always right. —Anonymous Some of the most successful American companies have a reputation for aggressively seeking to find out what it is their customers really want. Sam Walton visited each of his Wal-Mart stores every year and made a point to talk to the salespeople on the floor as well as to the customers. He worked only a half-day each week in the corporate office and spent the rest of the week wandering around his various stores. A former chief operating officer at PepsiCo spent as much as 40 percent of his time on the road in order to find out how business was faring on the front line. At Hewlett-Packard, computer engineers often leave their work on display so that co-workers passing by can play with it and offer their comments. At 3M, all of the corporations research and development people are required to take part in sales calls. A number of companies regularly send their accountants, assembly-line workers, and executives to local department stores to act as sales clerks for a day, selling the products their companies make and finding out what people actually think of those products. There is simply no substitute for direct human interaction. Statistics, reports, computer printouts, and seminars cannot accurately tell the story of what is actually taking place in the marketplace. To gain a real understanding of what people feel and what they want, you have to get out of your office and see it for yourself. Consider This: Are you sitting in a corporate ivory tower, believing that you really know what is going on in the real world? Wake up, and get out there and find out for yourself! A Daily Dose of the American Dream.
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 00:07:45 +0000