Why, you may well ask?

There is one very simple explanation. Most businesses, for some inexplicable reason, have totally missed the point in understanding who their customers truly are.

Their customers are human beings. Not androids or robots, but ordinary people who crave personal care and attention.

Study after study reveals that the number one motivating factor for people is to be appreciated. Being treated as a pin number banished to the footpath, the hernia in ward three, the passenger in 13C, or some demographic statistic on a spreadsheet, is not how people (customers) wish to be treated.

McDonald’s also know that people don’t like to be treated as a voice at the end of an external microphone either. That is why they, unlike most other fast food outlets, have human beings taking your drive-through order face to face.

What has happened with many businesses is that they have been hi-jacked by technology. "Install this ‘you-beaut’ automated telephone system where customers only have to press 1 for department A, 2 for department B, etc. etc." says the technology salesperson, "and think of all the money you will save by replacing all those people."

But did anyone ever stop to ask the customer if that’s the way they wished to be treated. The current barrage of customer complaints would suggest not.

Technology is great for business. Computers are able to provide information in seconds that previously took days to source and other electronic wizardry has removed the mundane from many repetitive tasks. But when investing in new technology, please, please, please, take the time to ask these two vitally important questions.

Q 1. Will this new technology make it easier for our customers to do business with us?

Q 2. If I was a customer of this business, is this the way I wish to be treated?