Years ago, Peter Drucker famously said, “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” In 2010, however, this concept has taken on another level of meaning, because companies can actually create the types of customers that they best connect with. Today, the process should happen this way:

1. You develop a proactive, customer-centered business, which is focused on making its customers better
2. You identify the customers that really connect with this business model and that are most likely to challenge you (in a good way) to higher performance
3. You create and attract more like them (by convincing others to enjoy what you are providing)

Steve Knox, CEO of P&G’s buzz-marketing division, Tremor, quoted in Good for Business, believes “A true relationship requires shared values. We are not seeking a relationship with all our customers, just with those connectors who make sense for our business.” Connectors can be defined by what they do and how they act–not who they are or how much they buy. They are the ones who actively want to become engaged with your organization. Therefore, develop your own customer-centered culture and shared values, show it to customers at every touch-point, and then connect with those customers who appreciate those values and want to grow the relationship.

Really great customers are the ones that are looking to develop closer relationships with their suppliers as partners. Consider the brilliance of Maker’s Mark Bourbon (www.makersmark.com) in creating its Ambassadors Program. It goes far beyond an arms-length sales transaction to engage certain customers as “club members” that receive regular mailings of creative ideas that are fun and just waiting to be shared with friends and family. My wife loves the Ambassadors Program and has received business cards, wrapping paper and even a certificate for a barrel of bourbon that was named for her. (Too bad they couldn’t ship the barrel itself).

Success today and in the future depends not on serving anyone who will buy from you. Rather, it means having empathy with the ideal customer behaviors and attracting more customers like your best customers—those who appreciate your values and see them as extraordinary.

Here’s how to transform your customers: Consistently introduce them to the unexpected. Shower them with new products, services, fun approaches, great information, and creative ideas. They will wind up not only enjoying the ride, but expecting this type of relationship from their other suppliers. Most of these suppliers will not be able to provide this level of experience, but that just makes them look bad and you look better.

Customer-centricity has a benefit that most organizations don’t fully understand and don’t fully utilize. It is understanding, at a deep level, what your ideal customers do, how they behave, and the personality traits that you want to encourage in them. This knowledge gives you the ability to shape your deliverables so that they will develop existing customers and attract new customers who are “cut from the same cloth.” These are the customers who transcend simply buying from you in order to become ones who really connect with you.

Here’s a personal story that happened recently.

Actual scenario: We have been using a company that delivers bottled water to our office for almost five years. A competing delivery service provided us with a free trial and offered to lower our monthly costs. We were ready to change. However, I telephoned our current company, found the name of our account representative (who had never called or visited our offices) and made him aware of the lower offer. He immediately offered a 15% discount–no hesitation. His explanation for lowering the price was that we had been a “good customer” for years. Since the prices were comparable, we stayed with the original supplier.

“What if?” scenario: How do you think we would have felt if the incumbent supplier had proactively called our company with the price reduction? Pleased with the lower cost? Happy with the recognition as a good customer? Shocked to find out that someone was monitoring our account and actively working on our behalf to keep our pricing competitive? Willing to tell the story to others? “Yes” is the answer to all of these questions.

Keeping “good customers” happy and motivated should be part of any customer-centered approach. Instead of silence, there should be a process to regularly review performances for these customers rather than waiting for them to call or, even worse, to leave without calling.  This should not be a judgment call. It should be automatic to treat loyal customers favorably. It’s an old story that many companies still never seem to learn. We know it in hindsight, but we never initiate the offer.

Every organization should have a system that questions itself with “What should our customers be asking us for?” Proactively giving the best to your good customers will reward your organization with benefits that will outweigh any short-term effects. This customer-centered company model will make your business healthier, with stronger organizational values, and will avert disaster in the future because of customer closeness.

Have you had experiences in which suppliers proactively called you with unexpectedly good news? Please share them with us.

Default procedures essentially manage customers’ behaviors by limiting the number of choices given to the customer. Sometimes, this can be positive. A chime in your car reminding you to fasten your seat belt encourages good behavior. A default to a standard shipping method is convenient and probably serves the needs of the majority of customers. However, they can be frustrating for consumers, as when forced-choice alternatives, such as agreeing to software installation screens, can alienate customers.

Or, when there are too many options, decision-making can become paralyzed. As John Sviokla put it in his “Design Your Customers’ Decisions” post on his Harvard Business Review blog, the presence of “excessive options” is a key reason that “an average of 60% of all online shoppers abandon their purchases mid-stream.” Amazon.com is legendary for framing options in a personalized context, such as “Someone like you also bought this other book.” As a result, it believes that its recommendation engine “increases the average purchase by 20%.”

An ideal metaphor for restrictive default procedures is a speed bump. In order to achieve sensible driving in restricted areas, speed bumps force drivers to slow down or encounter unpleasant jarring. Speed bumps were introduced in November 1979 in Brea, CA. If you are like me, you feel that they represent the epitome of frustration because they are not adaptable to individuals. Now, Mexican-based Decano Industries is developing a device which automatically lowers into the ground when drivers go the speed limit or slower. If they drive too fast, the bump stays up. What a proactive, customer-friendly innovation!

Default procedures offer companies the chance to save their customers time, money and maneuvering through complexity. In every process, however, leaders should not lose touch with reality. In Wired to Care Dev Patniak remarks that leaders should “transcend abstractions and imagine themselves in the shoes of the people they serve.” Sviokla puts it this way: “In a world of excess choice, an easy place to differentiate is in the careful design of the decision process itself.” (Sviokla).

There is a trend toward more personalized or “smart” defaults, such as always requesting non-smoking hotel rooms or automatically adapting decisions in online environments based on answers to previous questions. Car makers, for example, can recommend to online shoppers a sportier steering wheel style based on the selection of a high-horsepower engine during an automobile configuration. There are many other great examples in a December 2008 Harvard Business Review article, “Nudge Your Customers Toward Better Choices,” by Goldstein, Johnson, Herrmann and Heitmann. Thinking like a customer is the key to the great care and persistence and experimentation needed to perfect a procedure. If the end result is more customer-centered, it is worth it. It is the logic and authenticity of the customer experience that matters.

Customers’ relationships with suppliers will be exponentially stronger if they feel that those organizations understand them and have streamlined the interactions they are experiencing. Organizations that design customer-centered default procedures will be rewarded with loyalty and trust.