Rebellious Thoughts #81 - 🤘 Don’t underestimate your customer

Hey!

Don’t underestimate your customer.

When we think of customers, we tend to think of organisations or people who buy our product or service.

Remember, if you think you are B2B or B2C it’s always B2H or H2H (business to human or human to human)! Hahaha

Customers are always human - when you think you are selling to an organisation, you are actually selling to a human in that organisation - never forget.

We also think that customers are only those who transact financially with us - those who buy a product or service from us. But customers come in all shapes and types of transactions.

If you broaden the concept of customer, you will find that even your kids at points in time are your customers! My pretty wife is my customer! My staff are my customers.

Anytime anyone depends on you to deliver value, you have a customer relationship.

You have something they want and they trust you will deliver it to them.

They are for a tiny moment allowing themselves to be vulnerable - to trust your promise of giving them the value.

I will explore this broad concept of customer further in my book - when I one day finish writing it!! But for now, here is a practical situation:

If you are knowingly delivering a suboptimal experience to your customer, or it happens by accident, the BEST thing you can do is acknowledge it as soon as you become aware.

Do not delay this!

It’s like when Paul Foot (amazing comedian) says something like - “when someone bakes a cake and gives you a piece, do not waste any time commenting on how beautiful it is - if you take a bite and stay silent for long enough for the baker to ask: how is the cake? - It is way too late, it doesn’t matter what you say, you won’t recover”

If a customer points out something, the quicker you acknowledge them, the better the set up for recovery is.

But, what if they are wrong?

Makes no difference, the fact that you acknowledge first means you can then move into solving the issue - if you don’t acknowledge them, any solution will always be suboptimal and you’ll miss the opportunity to delight them with your vulnerability, empathy and humanity. Even if they are wrong, it’s better to first grab the issue and not deny it, they will be doubly impressed when you solve it.

So… don’t underestimate your customers.

Sooner or later, they figure shit out and it’s always better to be on the front foot than on the back foot!

As I mentioned at the start, this applies to YOU, not just your businesses - your customer is anyone you solve a problem for, anyone waiting for you to deliver them value - if you are in HR, everyone in the company is your customer. If you are in finance, tech, sales, marketing - makes no difference. We all have customers. Even your colleagues are your customers - when you say “I’m going to do something” and you don’t do it or don’t do a good job at it and you realise, the quicker you acknowledge it, the better!

Because mistakes are inevitable, recovery is the key.

So disproportionately lean on recovery, it doesn’t mean don’t try to avoid making mistakes - but remember you will always make them, so your recovery tells a better story.

The same phenomena happens when parenting, when you screw up with your kids, the quicker you acknowledge it, the faster you sort it out.

Repeat with me this mantra I wrote to help everyone remember that our businesses exist thanks to our customers, and our lives are like a customer relationship continuum - in all the various different shapes!

Dear customer:
I hear you, I see you, I understand you. I won’t pretend to feel what you feel, but I always try. I try hard and I care. I’m not perfect, but I care. We can all get it wrong, but judge my recovery, not my mistake. I will do all I can to make it up to you.

Needs work, but you get the vibe hahahah!!!

Yew!

Love

Gus

Below is the podcast I recently recorded, just in case you missed it - it’s fun to relax and dive into topics I can’t during keynotes - have a listen, tell me what you think!

If you’re curious about how to actually use AI in real life—not just read about it—check out HumanAI, a newsletter by my good friend Lucas.

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