Who is MY Customer?

Last Wednesday our staff had the opportunity to make a road trip to the Sheraton Gateway in Atlanta and hear a presentation from its General Manager Kerry Ringham. Kerry and his team did a great job of hosting us and letting us see first hand what service looks like. Thanks to Kerry and his team, it was tremendous.

He spoke about several things; Exceptional Service, Everyone is a brand champion and Brand is an experience. But the most interesting to me was what he says that EVERY individual wants. They are as follows:
1) To Belong
2) To Feel Special
3) To Have Control
4) To Reach Their Potential
5) To be Understood

Obviously, his talk was about how they treat and deal with their customers at Sheraton Gateway Atlanta. Of course, we were there to learn and see how we can apply their world class service to our church.

The first thing to do was to decide who our customers are. The easy answer is the people who show up on Sunday mornings. Of course, they are our customers and it is very important that we remember the list above when we do things for them. But we all have customers in other areas of our lives that we need to apply these to as well. Here is a definition to work off of.

A customer, also client, buyer or purchaser is the buyer or user of the paid products of an individual or organization, mostly called the supplier or seller. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services.

The word derives from "custom," meaning "habit"; a customer was someone who frequented a particular shop, who made it a habit to purchase goods of the sort the shop sold there rather than elsewhere, and with whom the shopkeeper had to maintain a relationship to keep his or her "custom," meaning expected purchases in the future.

In the definition above, you see the word "user". Generally we don't see those people as our customers. For example, I have our congregation and community as my customers but I also have our staff as a customer. They use the services that I provide, (ie... payroll, benefits, conflict resolution, direction, praise, etc...). Everyone on our staff has multiple customer areas. Therefor it is important to remember, the 5 things people want, in our dealings with all people not just the congregation and community. Some times we lose this focus when dealing with those closest to us. We must regain that to be a GREAT TEAM.

Check out the definition of Customer Centricity that the Wharton School of Business uses:

Customer centricity refers to the orientation of a company to the needs and behaviors of its customers, rather than internal drivers (such as the quest for short term profit).

I want to be customer centric. I want to meet the needs of my customers. But I must know who they are first. Who are your customers?