Jennifer Rice points (by way of Heath Row) to the Guru Red Manifesto and in particular to The Customer is not your Friend

The customer is not always right. The relationship between customer and vendor by definition is built on tension. Tension characterized by the customer who wants to minimize price. And the vendor who wants to maximize price. These are conflicting objectives. Customer-centric strategies that focus on delighting the customer ignore the economic realities of delivering this strategy. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU DON’T LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMER OR RESPOND TO CUSTOMER NEEDS. It means the customer voice is one of several voices that need to be reconciled. Any customer strategy first and foremost must begin with the objective of maximizing short-term profit. It is not possible to lead a sales force schooled in delight and collaboration into a market share battle demanding tension and confrontation.

For starters, I agree with Red Guru that the customer is not always right, and customer-centricity becomes either naive or dishonest if it obsesses with customers. All relationships are based on an exchange within boundaries, and if one side sets no boundaries the relationship starts to suck. I think there is always going to be some kind of tension between customers and other stakeholders though I balk at the idea that the relationship is built on that tension; I'd say that good marketing resolves these conflicts in ways that work for all parties.

So when Messrs Guru talk of a market share battle demanding tension and confrontation I would challenge that way of describing the world. First, some great entrepreneurs avoid market share battles by reframing their market; when Body Shop went ethical, they created a new market which they had to themselves for a while. I also notice that tension has been conflated into confrontation. The confrontation word suggests a Mexican stand off, a game in which one side can only win by the other losing. That's not the ideal of conflict resolution which aims for win:wins. By focussing on the money, the RedGurus may well be giving a good pragmatic steer against idealism and fantasy on the part of entrepreneurs; but they may also be missing how people actually create real value in relationships.

So much for the philosophical. Actually, looking back over my own career by a country mile my best customers were, if not my friends very close to being so. I'd like more like that in the future. Some people say that this is wrong, that I shouldn't confuse business with my personal life... but I think that's wrong. The idea of divorcing my working life from the rest of my life seems to me to go with the unpleasant notion of "it's business" generally trotted out to defend shitty behaviour on the part of someone in business.

I might add, as a sidenote, that as I start to see more signs of business being done between fellow bloggers, the idea of friendship with customers becomes increasingly important.

My two cents. Over to Jennifer...