When you or people in your organization say things like “our customers are clueless” or “we can sell that to them”, it sends a clear message not only of disrespect, but ignorance about the role customers play in your company’s success. If this is part of your dialogue, it is likely your business does not understand the central role that customers play in your success.

If your perspective is anything other than creating success for your customer, you are likely to fail. After all, it’s easier (and faster) to blame the customer for everything that is going wrong than to take a good, hard look at yourself, your product, your service and your people. If you adopt the negative perspective above, you’ll miss a critical opportunity to take stock of your own flaws and make progress. Worse, if you’re playing the “blame game,” you’ll likely miss the “aha” moment when an unexpected solution suddenly becomes visible.

Speaking of customers in a negative light also sends a message to your employees that it is acceptable to blame customers, instead of addressing the issue and troubleshooting a creative solution to problem. Crafting new solutions not only strengthens your team’s ability to take responsibility and problem solve, but encourages stronger customer relationships—and your own success.

We have to continually challenge ourselves to serve our customers with the knowledge that without them, there is no business. If our customer does not understand, or doesn’t believe they are getting value from our product or service, we must spend every waking moment changing that. When you exist to serve customers, your perspective pays off in spades.

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