Clients, Not Customers

I insist that our GSI associates refer to the people and companies who favor us with their business as clients. I admit...it's an obsession with me. I am so passionate about the client reference that when someone utters "customer" within earshot of me, the offending speaker generally knows that a well-placed rebuke will shortly follow. I've never sentenced anyone to spend an hour in time-out or put their nose in a circle on the wall; however, most everyone understands that employing "customer" in a conversation at GSI will generate a correction.

My devotion to client is all about respect – respect for the people who have trusted us with their mission-critical processes, respect for the close relationships that we have developed in supporting those processes, and respect for caliber of service delivery our ServerHeroes teams provide 24/7. We are not selling hamburgers or tanks of gas where one source is just about as good as the other. Nor are our associates manning the drive-thru lane or considering "have a nice day" as the ultimate measure of service at check-out. We are important components of our clients' businesses, and in order for GSI to exceed expectations, our associates need to understand and respect the confidence that our clients have placed in us.

Customers produce revenue – clients produce relationships. GSI is so devoted to getting the relationship right that we diligently work to know our clients' businesses, and the business processes that we are supporting. We employ our Service Quality Framework to not just define monitoring, management and escalation requirements, but to summarize the business functions and underlying dependencies that will allow our ServerHeroes to support those critical processes as if we were the clients' employees. We assign dedicated teams to specific clients in order to develop a deep knowledge of the clients' businesses, as well as their IT environments. We respond to requests and issues with haste, knowing that our clients depend upon us to do so around-the-clock. We do all of this because we desire to have long-term relationships built upon mutual respect and trust – it's about more than just the revenue.

So if you don't have a satisfactory relationship with your current service provider, go to their web site and see if you find "customer service" or "customer portal." That might indicate they are more interested in your revenue than your relationship. And then contact GSI and explore what a real service provider relationship can be.