“The customer is always right,” or so the saying goes. But how can you use that advice when you don’t interact directly with the customer in your business? Or don’t run a business at all? Ahmed Walia, CEO of software company Informatica, says it boils down to who you frame as a customer.
The saying “the customer is always right” is a common phrase, particularly in retail, but could it be advice for life in general?
It all comes down to who you think of as customers.
Ahmed Walia, CEO of software company Informatica, said that learning to focus on customers and who customers are, was a “hard lesson to learn.”
“I learned the hard way, over many experiences, that ultimately what matters is how you help your customers,” Walia told CNBC’s Make It.
He added that obsession with the customer could even triumph over the best technology.
But what might be the biggest part of this lesson is who Walia considers a “customer.”
“In real life, you have to think of your customers as your stakeholders. I, as an individual, have many customers: my board, my employees, my own family,” he explained.
It’s this mindset that Walia said helped him realize that “it’s not always the best technology that wins.”
“What wins is how it helps the customers, how they can get it from you, how easy it is for them to use it, how easy it is for them to continue to expand the usage a bit. That’s ultimately what matters,” he said.
This is just one of Ahmed Walia’s biggest lessons. Watch the video above for more.
