A May 14th article by Jane Heifetz on Harvard Business Publishing is, well cough, cough an expressed disappointment with a customer service experience.

And author Seth Godin has another, Um mm, Comment on a disapointment with some consumer goods packaging.

A common thread between these two posts?

You can call it “lean consumption” or you can just call it what ever you like, but we need to re frame ourselves to look at our product or service through the lens of our customers.

A post I did in February states; Sometimes it becomes easy to lose sight of this - the customer is the one who pays the bills.

That does not mean improving segmentation, or reviewing adjacent markets - that means walking a mile in their shoes.

UPDATE: By Faisal Hoque Biting the Customer Hand That Feeds Us

Recovering from a customer-be-damned spiral requires a new mindset or course, but this means more than cute slogans framed and hanging on the wall. We need a broader perspective: We need to see our business as an extended enterprise, that is, one that doesn’t begin or end at our four walls.