Dangerous Assumptions about Your Customers

One of the fundamental weaknesses I’ve seen in the dozens of organizations I’ve worked with is their assumption that they know what their customers require. I understand why they assume they know. They hear the compliments and complaints. Their customers buy what they are selling. Their patients receive services. Their students learn. Their constituents keep coming back. They interact with these customers, patients, students, or constituents daily. Of course they know what their customers require.

I remember helping a manufacturer early in its Baldrige application process. It was its industry’s worldwide leader and had been for several years. It worked closely with its distributors and had ongoing customer contact. It assumed it knew what each customer group required even though it had never formally determined those requirements or tested them with customers to make sure the lists were right.

When I presented my evaluation of its application to senior leadership, my first point was that it did not have a rock-solid understanding of customer requirements. I thought they were going to tear my throat out until the president interrupted and said he thought I had a point. As a result, the company hired a market research firm to close this gap. Two years later, it received the Baldrige Award.

The Baldrige model is a process model. The starting point for any effective process is knowing what the customers of that process require. That’s true at the macro level — profound knowledge of what your customers require of your organization — and at the…