Customer is King!

“So the customer is king!” ending a b-school classroom session case study in India; or for that matter in any other country for that matter.

“Customer needs to be the centre of all activities of a company.” and “Customer is the reason for the existence of a business.” are some of the other quotes often heard or spoken. These thoughts came into my mind again recently…

There is a very old restaurant near my house in Chennai. This place has probably been in existence before my father was born! The floor, windows, tables etc. have ‘antique’ written all over it. Actually, the place is quite small and looks more like a house converted to a restaurant. In the first room of the ‘mess’ as the restaurant calls itself, there used to be a huge picture. The picture ran from floor to ceiling and was kept diagonally; in a manner that occupied a lot of corner space. Space, that otherwise could be used to keep tables for customers. I used to wonder why the picture was not kept along the wall so that one more table could be added in this cramped restaurant. I realized that in such places, change takes a long time to seep in. The food would be of excellent quality but the owners are not the type who would stand and shout on rooftops to attract more people. Such places do not seem to be governed by ‘sales per square foot’ as the be all and end all of success! Things just remain the same in such places… probably a reason for customers coming there.

On my last visit to this restaurant however, I got a surprise. The place had embarked on a revamping exercise! Brand new vitrified tiles had replaced the old cement flooring. The diagonally placed picture was now attached to the wall, making way for one more table. Though the new table had not been put in place yet, it seemed a mere formality now. The picture had been relocated making way for the customer! Sales per square foot, here we come!