What Customers Really Want

Recently, NADL Co-Executive Director Bennett Napier, CAE, asked me to read and consider reviewing What Customers Really Want by Scott McKain, a book that he had read. Trusting Bennett’s insight and judgment made it easy to undertake the project. It also helps when the title draws me closer.  Everyone in business should want to know what customers really want. Curiosity took over immediately because the title implies that we don’t really know what they want.  We only think we know. Flashback to Michael Gerber’s presentation on the E-Myth in New Orleans at a Vision 21 East meeting a few years back and you will recall the analogy.  We only think we understand how to run a business that does this thing, because we are good at doing that thing. I wanted to know more.

McKain starts off by quoting the title of Lance Armstrong’s book It’s Not About The Bike. He says, “It’s not about the bus either.” One of the companies that McKain has acquired is Pyramid, a custom coach travel enterprise. They transport country music and rock stars and their bands around North America in true luxury. When they took over the company, they strove to meet and exceed their highly discerning customers’ expectations with improvements to the make, manufacture and detailing of their coaches. When they paused and surveyed their satisfied and loyal customers about what they really wanted they were surprised to find it was not about the bus! The survey revealed that the most important thing for the stars and their entourage was the driver. Do you really want to lie awake at 3 a.m. worrying if your driver is a safe operator? Clients wanted to know that while they slept in their bunks, someone cared about them and the band enough to transport them safely to the next venue. Pyramid immediately began a driver education program that taught safe driving and personal relationship communication. Their referrals soared and so did profits, as they went from fourth to first in market share!

The book’s chapters are organized based on the concept of disconnection. McKain describes six different ways that business routinely fails to deliver what customers really want. As you read the list below, think about your dental laboratory and which side of the comparison you reside on.  If you are delivering what is on the left, proceed directly to go and collect $200. If not, buy this book and get you team to brainstorm ways get there. You cannot do it alone, but leadership starts at the top. Empower others to help you get where you want to, you’ll be surprised at the talent they possess.

What customers really want                                       What business supplies

   1. A Compelling Experience                                     1. Customer Service
   2. Personal Focus                                                 2. Product Focus
   3. Reciprocal Loyalty                                             3. Endless Prospecting
   4. Differentiating                                                  4. Sameness
   5. Coordination                                                    5. Confusion
   6. Innovation                                                       6. Status Quo

 If you are not sure where to start, get a piece of paper and make two columns. On the right, describe what you do or supply (dentures, partials, crowns, custom implant abutments, surgical stents, reduction guides, case planning, delivery service, etc.).  Then try to reframe the same list in the language of what customers really want. Compelling, personal, reciprocal, differentiating, coordinated and innovated will be challenging adjectives and adverbs to apply. Have fun with this book and remember every step, however small in the right direction gets you closer to where you want to be. Just a 5 percent increase in customer retention rates translates into an average increase in customer vale from 25 percent to 100 percent. Some estimate it cost five times as much to acquire a new customer as it would to prevent the loss of an existing one. Think to about the message that Chris Sager from Pankey delivered in his keynote address in Las Vegas at the 2006 Vision 21 meeting. All customers are not equal. Understand market differentiation, create a vision for your preferred future, commit to the choice and develop strategic initiatives, systems and plans to get you there.

Do you have a question for Mark Murphy? E-mail jdt@nadl.org.