Firing customers to experience increased revenues? What an intriguing thought!

The customer is king. The customer is always right. Let's do it in the way the customer wants it. Lifetime customer relationship, that's our business. These powerful pro-customer statements have been the cornerstone of many business successes in the past and in the present.

Customer-focus remains to be a major beacon in the strategic road map of almost every business organization all over the world. As one colleague of mine in the consulting business had once succinctly stated: "Simplistic and overused as it may seem, customer advocacy continues to be the all-time business differentiator."

There appears to be no end in the hype and premium being given to the supremacy of the customer, to the extent that it has become a rallying medium with exceptionally strong bandwagon effect. The Internet alone is a vast repository of principles, models, and practices in the field of customer care, loyalty, and retention. A continuum of commercial software programs, training modules, on-line articles, books, periodicals, and websites on customer endearment, support, service, and relationship management are published, sold, and distributed in a border-less manner. The parabolic demand for these materials in the last two decades has not waned. Business plans and strategies are summarily judged as short of meaning and content if they are wanting in provisions that should delight the customer.

With this backdrop, is there wisdom in trimming your customer base in order to heighten your revenues? Is there no downside effect in the way the business community has pampered the customer with extraordinary importance?

Yes, there is wisdom in the exercise, but there are downside effects. If everything is given to the customer without reasonable regard to the financial cost of their acquisition, management, and retention, chances are the company would not realize its desired margins. And if players in an industry generally adopt a one-sided pro-customer servicing disposition, bordering on cutthroat competition, it is likely that the industry would suffer depressed margins and eventually lose its attractiveness.

The tendency of the business community to adopt highly generous customer endearment programs has also taught customers to unnecessarily demonstrate an air of indispensability and arrogance. This situation is especially true in industries where the bargaining power of buyers is strong

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