NIC: Know your customers

I taught quality assurance principles to managers at numerous government facilities. I enjoyed teaching some of the most accomplished technical professionals something they had never considered.

I helped personnel to better understand customer service concepts. The full understanding of words such as “customers” and “interdependence” are rarely grasped. There were numerous arguments between professors and experts as to the definition of these terms.

Let’s keep things simple. There is one, and only one, primary customer. I asked those insisting to argue to answer the following question. What happens to an entity if you take away who you think is the customer? Here’s an example.

Who is the customer in a college? This is an imaginary college. Some would say the customer is the local business community, or the state’s employers, or the alumni. Some might say the customer could be the Board of Trustees.

If you take away any of the above suggested customers, you would still have a college. My most important point here is before we take away the Board of Trustees, in this example, maybe the Trustees could listen intently to the voices of the ultimate customer, the students. Maybe the Trustees would consider entering into an interdependent relationship with the students.

If they include college staff and president into this relationship, it’d further enhance whatever reputation and success this imaginary college has achieved. Take away the student — there is no college.

Sam Walton once said, “The customer is the boss.”

JAMES SIMPKIN

Coeur d’Alene