Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy by Shah Jigar

Author:Shah, Jigar [Shah, Jigar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ICOSA
Published: 2013-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

Know Your Customers and Keep Them Happy

Whether we’re selling to consumers or businesses, the phrase, “The customer is always right,” coined by London entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge (founder of Selfridges department store in 1909), has ascended to a commandment successful entrepreneurs respect and by which they live. It doesn’t matter whether we’re selling toothbrushes or diesel trucks, bicycles or solar power systems; the simple credo underscores the importance of listening to customers and understanding and meeting their needs. It applies universally to all industries, products, and services.

As important as the customer/seller relationship is, in infrastructure it’s ultimately more important than it is in the consumer space. Most consumer transactions are transitory and forgotten moments or days after they’re consummated.

In infrastructure, the business relationships are far more complicated because our typical customer is never a single person.

Even when we’re installing a solar energy system in someone’s home, several residents have a say as well as the local government. And at the corporate level, the business relationship extends far beyond the actual buyer and seller. For instance, we may be initially working with the energy manager, who’s very enthusiastic about solar. But he reports to the operations manager, who is not only in charge of energy but is also responsible for operating the business for the next twenty years. And he in turn reports to and works closely with the CFO, who is concerned about making sure the balance sheet looks good because it’s a publicly traded company; he has to be obsessively diligent about meeting quarterly targets.

But it doesn’t end there. The CEO and chief marketing officer have a new initiative to save costs and buy “green” all to enhance their brand. But the proverbial buck doesn’t stop even there; wait until legal and investor relations get involved.

The Complexities of the Business Stage

The business relationship always starts with a conversation with one person, the energy manager, for example. From that point on, as the relationship evolves, more people enter and exit the business stage, and each one’s role is important.

Most importantly, we have to work with all of them. We must answer their questions, meet their requirements, and go out of our way to give them whatever they need to be satisfied with our service.

The reason there are so many people in the business equation is because infrastructure is something that is going to last for a long time. For that reason alone, one person doesn’t make all the decisions. The organization makes the decision. There are significant regulatory limitations, too, because for the most part these solutions and decisions are fairly irreversible.

If one person does make all the decisions, it’s likely an experimental pilot program. A large company searching for an energy-efficient solution may test a solar installation at one store in order to gauge its value, for example. If the pilot program is successful, we can’t assume that we’re a shoo-in for winning contracts for the next two hundred locations. We have to go back to square one and satisfy all the players in the potential relationship.

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