SALİM KADIBEŞEGİL

I would like to start a discussion. Do you think that we have ascribed a deeper meaning to the “customer” concept than we needed to?

In 1990s, we discovered that “the customer is the king”. It was one of the indicators that we abandoned the philosophy “You have to buy whatever we produce“, and moved on to the philosophy “Tell us what you want and we’ll produce it“. That was how we began to face the fact that “quality” was important.

It was a good beginning indeed. We all liked being treated like a “human being“. In fact, the people who pushed the limits of traditional marketing methods served the concepts of “customer satisfaction” and “customer loyalty” as the main dish of a meal. Such concepts as “customer commitment” and “customer happiness” have evolved until today.

When the customer was not the “king“, we as;

• consumers at a marketplace or a grocer’s,
• students at school or university,
• patients at a hospital or the doctor’s,
• depositors in a bank,
• passengers on a plane, a bus or a train,
• tourists travelling domestically,
• visitors staying in a hotel,
• voters in a poll,
• readers of newspapers and magazines could not foresee that we would slowly be robbed of our different identities. According to a point of view, our “hearts” were worth a lot of money and it was enough to define them as “customers”!

This view was not totally wrong. One of the most significant input of the institutions which made brand and company assessments was “the number of customers” and “the life cycle” of the relationship between the brands and their customers. When the phone operators that were backed by technological innovations started to call the shots especially in 1990s, the main criterion for company assessments was the data about the number of customers. (And it still is.)

What did we win or lose once our different identities were turned into “customers”?

Paradox

For instance, are we “patients” or “customers” in the eyes of a doctor who has a POS machine on his desk in his/her clinic? This example is the real reason for the title of this article. Isn’t it a paradox to see a doctor and a POS machine together within the scope of the health services that should be provided by the welfare state?

Think about a scenario whose contents we invest in as a “value”. Doesn’t it suddenly become a phenomenon for which money is more important and value is pushed at the background? Doesn’t this phenomenon make it possible for some business groups which invest heavily in health services to calculate the performance of doctors based on how much their services for these health institutions are worth in USD? Do you think giving “patients” “customer” cards as IDs plays a role in turning the doctors’ performance measurement method into a competition criterion?

Do going to prep school and failing or passing the class turn into an assessment criterion when our customer identities become more important than our student identities at university? Somehow, the essence of private (foundation) universities’ competition mentality does not embrace the fact about how useful their graduates are in their careers! Somehow, the universities, which think attracting students who were successful in the university exams is the key to competition, “turn students into customers”! The money that students pay to foundation universities is more important than their “course grades” that they should actually care about. There is also the matter of scholarships, financial opportunities provided by the university management for students in need, of course. At least students have to fulfill some criteria about their courses to get a scholarship, which is some consolation!

Internal Customer!

Some companies which have turned the satisfaction-focused service approach into their corporate values define their employees as their “internal customers”. That could be evaluated as considerable progress if their employees showed how proud they were of their companies instead of how unhappy they were in the stores and points of sale.

The matter of customers and employees is a multi-dimensional issue. According to managers, the indicators of customers in the total income share and the indicators of employees in the expense share are a picture showing how their business is going. There are always “grey clouds” flying especially over the employees’ share! It is the first place to look at when business does not go well.

We, of course, had an advantage once the customer became the king. It was certified that we were “a value” against producers. We could not be modest and keep quiet anymore! We could speak louder and clearer. Products sold could be taken back. A dummy signboard which has been hung up behind every cash desk for years became real: “The customer has actually become a benefactor”.

We started to see more research on what customers wanted and expected, parameters measuring customer satisfaction, performance improvement areas and many more elements in our lives, and to learn new things from “customers”. We suddenly started seeing innovations about customers such as customer help desks, consumer services and customer complaint departments. We witnessed that those innovations became widespread not only in the private industry but also in the public sector in that period. Customers were important. To satisfy customers, investments which could not be underrated were made with the contribution of corporate requirements and technology.

Value vs USD

We see that the dilemma over “value” and “USD” is managed in favour of “USD” at this point.

Especially technology-based services called “customer services” jeopardise their “reputation”, which is the most important capital for the companies. I don’t know how aware of this companies are.

What kind of satisfaction can be related to a bank which calls you at any time of the day, when you are driving or when you are at a meeting or in a private place, and forces you to take out a loan by introducing its new campaign in the name of customer services?

Or how many of us hang up the phone “satisfied” when we call paid / free help desks which are meant to increase customer satisfaction?

How many of the managing directors of these companies have called their help desks as a “customer” to understand what kind of services they provide?

How well educated or equipped are the employees at the customer relations desks in stores, to whom we consult about a problem, to make us leave the stores satisfied even if we are “wrong“?

Nowadays, we have a fight with “customers”. Some of us walk over somebody eyes flashing and saying “I am a customer, right?” in different situations and environments. Some of us show people the door by looking at them in a way that means “If you are a customer, act like one“.

As customers, we are very good at using our “customer” identity as we please. For example, we have behavioural culture which makes us prefer being a passenger not a customer during plane trips.

However, all this fight is about our hearts! Because it is easier to deal with customers when they do not have any other identities. Why isn’t a standard dress not enough for customers? Who would make an effort for John, Jack or Mary when preparing campaign announcements instead of sending all these announcements to “customers”?

We took the shirt off the customer’s back in the last 30 years and we reached his/her heart, but we forgot to put “feelings” in it. Passengers, patients, depositors, readers, tourists and students had had feelings before they dressed up as “customers”. They had been considered important. They had been respected. They had been one of the effective criteria among decision-making processes. People had used their initiative based on these feelings because customers had been perceived as “benefactors” on the basis of these feelings!