You’re Not Henry Ford (or Steve Jobs)

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford

I love when I’m talking to an executive about listening to their customers and they bust out with this Henry Ford quote. Many executives misapply this quote and believe that it means you can be successful without listening to your customers. Henry Ford loved his customers and understood they were the people that had to be pleased with what you produce.

“It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages” – Henry Ford

These same executives like to quote Steve Jobs as a leader who doesn’t listen to his customers. Steve’s quote below helps explain what these two great leaders were thinking when they talked about not doing acting solely on input from your customers.

You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology…I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room…As we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with ‘What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?’…I think that’s the right path to take. – Steve Jobs

The problem that Steve Jobs and Henry Ford uncovered was that customers “don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” The customers know what benefits they want, but most can’t make the leap to understand what kind of product might meet those needs.

Creating that product to meet customer needs is where Jobs and Ford excelled. Jobs believed that “really great products come from melding two points of view – the technology point of view and the customer point of view. You need both.”

These greats both understood that you must listen to customers first, then take those customer insights and “meld” it with the technical talents that your firm has to create amazing products. Both of these men (and the organizations they ran) had the ability to create products that absolutely amazed their customers. I am still amazed at the products that Apple produces.

Today, Apple uses the Net Promoter Score on a daily basis across hundreds of stores to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Every day customers are asked how likely they are to recommend Apple. Store managers “close the loop” with customers who give less than good reviews or ask to be contacted. Managers use this information to drive conversations with staff and improvements to their processes.

How does your organization listen to customers, measure their engagement and close the loop?

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Image courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/12905355@N05/8139472662/.

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