Saturday 10 May 2014

Customer Driven

Being in the Peak National Park I realise we have to be more business aware in all we do as referred to in recent posts. It's not good enough to value it for what it is. It's our duty to get the economy moving. There's plenty of good advice around usually from people who want to give you 'Ten Tips for Business Success' or '50 Ways to Ensure Your Business Grows' and many others, all I'm sure approved by our National Park leaders including Jim Dixon of PDNPA and whatever Countryside Alliance, and CLA favoured DEFRA minister is still in post . One of the best bits of jargon refers to the importance of being 'Customer Driven'.
This according to the Business Dictionary means planning strategies motivated by customer demand or expectations. Elsewhere I'm told that my aim should be to 'create an AWESOME customer experience.'


Well the Old Wall Caff does try to satisfy its customers but maybe we're not going far enough. Perhaps we should listen more to what our customers say. I confess we were thinking recently of putting up a notice saying We Don't Do Take-Aways. The fact is the number of customers arriving was threatening to overwhelm our capacity to deliver the product. I then observed that many of them were filling their bills with the product and rather than consuming in a nice relaxed civilised way, were quickly shooting off into the bushes. I had my suspicions of course but was this really the kind of business we had in mind and did we really want to put in the extra work to expand our range of services?

So I read more of the guidance and discovered that in business there's no such thing as standing still. Our business must expand. We WILL be customer driven. We WILL do Take-Aways. What price peace of mind? What price relaxation? Everything has its price. And if there's not a price then there's no value. Am I getting the message?


Our most senior customer certainly approves. He drove into my face this morning fed up with my polite morning conversation. What are you waiting for he said. I would say he's the equivalent of 80 years old. He knows what we should be doing. And we should listen to his words of wisdom.




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