Satisfying Your Customers

A central purpose of business is to create profits through customer satisfaction

I've always thought that the fundamental purpose behind a business is to make profits by satisfying customers. If you explain to your workforce what you are trying to do, I think that's a wonderful starting point.

When I went to BAA I was quite clear that satisfying customers was an absolutely core thing to do. I started a process of customer satisfaction index, where we were constantly talking to passengers about every process they went through, to see what they were and weren't happy with. This then informed the management about what they were doing well and badly.

One of the things we were doing worst was shopping at the airport. People saw the airport as a rip-off; every summer, newspaper reporters went to our airports and bought things very expensively. The "rip-offs" at the airport made huge headlines. It was the worst and least satisfactory of the things that we did. We put together a retailing program to satisfy the customer, which turned out to be immensely profitable. You're probably now familiar with all the shopping malls that you see not only at BAA airports, but at airports all over the world. It all started from satisfying the customer.

I think a simple view of what you're trying to do in your business--to make profit by satisfying customers--is a message that can be understood by your workforce; they can join in helping you run the company. They know precisely what you're trying to do. Then your staff can help you in that fundamental mission. They understand what they're doing, and they understand why they're there. Once you get the quality right, you can then start to tackle productivity and improve that as well.

ACTION POINT: Develop an indisputable measure of quality that is then backed by processes to improve quality.