Customer focussed, customer centric are just buzz words unless your sales and service people fully understand that their success and their remuneration is dependent on achieving successful outcomes for the customer. This might be supporting the customer’s dream (of being a successful online retailer, when all the statistics show a very high failure rate for these business ventures for example) or helping them achieve a promotion or achieve their own target incentives.

While your customer may talk about a “company” outcome they will always have an individual reward or success that is an imperative of the business venture they are talking about, to you. The failure to understand the ‘personal” in any deal is to underestimate the power of people buying from people. While there are many things we buy that are reduced to a commodity status, even these can be influenced by a personal touch. This might be an email, an sms, a mention on social media, a testimonial or a phone call. Never hesitate to evoke a personal relationship for any deal that is going around.