Be Good To Your Customers!

By Kenneth Chau, Senior Vice President, Global Enterprise, uCloudlink

Kenneth Chau, Senior Vice President, Global Enterprise, uCloudlink

The economy should be turning better and better now as there are more vacancies in the job market. I have received calls from several head-hunters recently as well. I always keep open doors for these head-hunters. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean I would attend the interviews they referred to me but I always reply to them politely because I respect each salesperson. After all, I have been a salesperson for long and that is why I would respond to the cold calls nicely.

These head-hunters made me recall a story about how one of my colleagues in the past responded to a cold-call head-hunter. We were all sitting in the open area of the office. We could not keep any secret as all people inside the office could hear the phone conversations with customers, so it's very noisy at there. One day, my colleague received a call and we all heard what the colleague said to the head-hunter, "Why don't you do some research before calling me? I'm now doing a good job that pays me three bowls of rice. Do you think that I would give it up by just an offering of a bowl of congee? Can you be professional?" He cut the line then. We were all shocked and gossiped that he only earned 1.5 bowls of congee instead of 3 bowls of rice.

That colleague was a little bit too highfalutin but I somehow agree with what he said at the end—please be professional. As a head-hunter who helps organizations identify professionals in the job market, he should have prepared everything well. For example, he should know the target’s background, roughly about the annual package, the vertical industries the target's focused on, etcetera. He should have this information before calling the target. This case reminds us that we should never speak or act as a fool in front of our lovely customers.

If we design the product from the customers’ perspective and take their benefits into consideration, they will become long-term and loyal customers

Otherwise, the customers would only think that you are "sometime naive". I don't think they would be nice to you and classify you as their friends, right?

Another example is that last month I walked around at the Taoyuan International Airport to buy some souvenirs before getting on the plane back to Hong Kong. What's the most popular souvenir from Taiwan? Everyone knows that it should be pineapple cake. However, apart from this, there are still many others, such as green bean cakes, garlic sausages, duck tongues and so on. It really can use up all your money for all these delicious souvenirs.

I walked and walked and saw a famous cake shop V. When I planned to go inside the shop with my teammate, I found that we had to step up on a stair around the shop to go into it. It looked like it's located on a stage. We used to hand-carry our luggage together with our backpacks. It seemed that there are not many people inside the shop. We thought i t's very inconvenient and also not user-friendly to go up on a stair with the suitcases and eventually we gave it up as we had already bought some souvenirs earlier.

You may think we are too mean and too picky. However, as a customer, I certainly want to go shopping in the most comfortable way. We decided not to go inside the shop because we had to pick up the suitcase to go in which we think it is ridiculously inconvenient.

This example clearly shows that you would be less competitive in the market if you did not think from the customers' point of view. That includes product design, buying pattern, accessibility and customer behaviour. If we design the product from the customers’ perspective and take their benefits into consideration, they will become long-term and loyal customers. If you ask me how the cake shop can make a proper change, a simple suggestion for the cake shop is to bring convenience to the customers if they add some adjustable slant boards near the stage, the business will definitely be improved.

In a nutshell, if you want to succeed in capturing the hearts and minds of your customers, everything must be done carefully. You have to analyse the customer's needs and customers’ preferences and then package your product or solution to exceed your customers’ expectations. You should also let the customers fall in love with your product and make the customer to be unforgettable to your product. No matter if you leave your existing company and go to another company for development, your customers will always follow you and be mad at you. This is always my sincere advice to all of you.