What do customers value?

The question, What do customers value?—what satisfies their needs, wants, and aspirations—is so complicated that it can only be answered by customers themselves.

And the first rule is that there are no irrational customers.

Almost without exception, customers behave rationally in terms of their own realities and their own situation. Their "logic bubble"

Leadership should not even try to guess at the answers but should always go to the customers in a systematic quest for those answers.

I practice this.

Each year I personally telephone a random sample of fifty or sixty students who graduated ten years earlier.

I ask, "Looking back, what did we contribute in this school?

What is still important to you?

What should we do better?

What should we stop doing?"

And believe me, the knowledge I have gained has had a profound influence.

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What does the customer value? may be the most important question.

Yet it is the one least often asked.

Nonprofit leaders tend to answer it for themselves.

"It's the quality of our programs.

It's the way we improve the community."

People are so convinced they are doing the right things and so committed to their cause that they come to see the institution as an end in itself.

But that's a bureaucracy.

Instead of asking, "Does it deliver value to our customers?" they ask, "Does it fit our rules?"

And that not only inhibits performance but also destroys vision and dedication.

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization