CHAPTER 4 THE CUSTOMER-DRIVEN ORGANIZATION
Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customers get out. Peter Drucker The corporate world has long understood the importance of serving their customers. Those companies that have neglected to do so effectively are probably no longer in business. This issue is no less important for the nonprofit development organization, although experience continues to demonstrate that customers don’t seem to get the attention they need or want from many of these organizations. Clearly, the development organization exists to provide a service. Potential and past customers, clients, and constituents call on an organization to have their needs met. They either believe that this service can help them or they want to discover if it can. How can an organization truly serve others if it doesn’t value their needs and desires, if it doesn’t understand them, and if it doesn’t strive to meet those needs and provide excellent value? If meeting customer, client, and or constituent needs is really the focus of the organization, then the belief must be held by all within that organization that the customer truly comes first and everything else must come second. If this is the dominant philosophy and culture, the staff will tend to value their work more and be less bureaucratic. The premise of this book is managing for excellence. “Excellent” customer service basically includes listening to your customer’s needs and desires, educating them about their choices, and then providing them with the resources to make an informed decision. Providing outstanding customer service assumes that the organization values the customers’ needs and ability to make choices. It has been previously established that an organization’s values should be reflected in its mission. One of the core values of the mission of an organization 1