The customer has moved from passenger to pilot

I was catching a flight from Sydney to Melbourne and saw an ad that had the title - The customer has moved from being a passenger to pilot.
How accurate is this tag line. Our clients are now dictating to us the services they want, when they want it and how they want to receive it.
The mantra Customer is King has one premise in mind and that is no matter what we design - product, systems, processes etc we have one key focus in mind and that is the customer.

Your brand no matter how strong will not create loyalty or develop great customer relations. Your people do this.

Your clients today are doing all their research on you, the company, what others are saying about you on face book or google and then basing their decision on who they will meet that will best meet their needs at the time. These needs will include price, emotion, reason for buying or selling.

The customer is also extremely knowledgeable and they want to be treated as "kings".

How much effort are you putting into your customer service processes and experiences. When ever a client chooses to interact with your business it needs to be an experience, your people need to understand what the experience looks like and nail it every single time.

Here is a quick audit check for you:

• what is the face you and your team present to your customer?
• do your people know what this face is and believe in it?
• one size does not fit all, you have different types of customers, does your experience cater for this?
• do you and your people actually know what your customer wants before they ask for it; and the only way to find this out is to stay in touch and have an awesome database and contact plan in place?
• when the clients transacts with you is the experience a memorable one and how do you know if it is?
• how are you measuring customer service in your business?
• have you actually asked your customers what they want?
• have you told your customers the results and changes of those surveys you constantly send out?

As a customer when I interact with any brand in my mind they exist in that moment in time to only create value for me and I expect the best.

Value however is different for everyone and it constantly changes. Therefore for those of us in client facing industries we need to be constantly finding new ways to price our goods, be innovative, tap into the emotion of the transaction. Remember the balance of power is in our customers hands.

We need to change the way we think, from charging a fee to sell a home to merging your product and service together that provides the customer with not just value but an experience they simply cannot walk away from. Something that goes beyond a simple sales transaction.