Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
The other difference is: the employee costs money by freewilly selling his time, the customer brings in money, by freewilly purchasing something. And since the customer pays the wages for all employees, that makes the customer much more important than the employee ever will be. More important to the business that is.
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That is a very short-sighted (and very common) view of things. I recall an interview (some years ago) with one of the founders of a computer memory company - the only one in the US that could compete with the Japanese and Korean firms, and it completely dominated the industry), after they'd sold their company for a couple of billion dollars. And paid half of it out as bonuses to employees (the average bonus was year's pay).
The interviewer asked a question that was based on the idea that the customer is his #1 concern, and he said, "No, the customer is my #3 concern. My #1 concern is my employees. My #2 concern is my vendors. And if I take care of #1 and #2, then #3 is already taken care of."
Nobody could compete with his company, and he (and his partner) ended up buying it back a few years later, for 1/10th what they'd sold it for.
Unfortunately, most companies seem to make the mistake of valuing customers over employees.