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How well does your organization view your business through the customer’s eyes?

2 min read

Leadership

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 170,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.

Last week, we asked: How well does your organization view your business through the customer’s eyes?

  • Very well — we know exactly how our customers see us: 11.99%
  • Well — we mostly understand our customers’ view: 44.51%
  • Somewhat — sometimes we can see ourselves through their eyes: 24.8%
  • Not well — we have difficulty seeing our business through their eyes: 15.65%
  • Poorly — we never look at ourselves through their eyes: 3.05%

Our view doesn’t matter. As we interact with customers (both internal customers if we’re “support” functions or external customers who buy our products), understanding our business through their eyes can make a huge difference.  Something that seems insignificant to us could mean the world to them and vice versa.  If you want a new perspective on your business and if you want to identify new opportunities to improve, take a day and look at everything you do through your customer’s eyes.  You might just be surprised.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”