The Global 2005 Customer Experience Management Study by Strativity Group (Parsippany New Jersey and London) found out a great deal about why most of us think we can list on one hand the truly customer-friendly companies in our day to day transactions.

From a largely pragmatic point of view, this may be the core finding: The preponderance of executives have no idea what their customers are worth.

• 91.4% of respondents did not know the cost of a new customer

• 90.3% of respondents did not know the cost of a customer complaint

• 90.0% of respondents did not know the cost of total complaint resolution

• 87.1% of respondents did not know their annual customer value

• 73.8% of respondents did not know their annual retention rate

The report includes this analysis:

The lack of understanding of the economics of relationships is a clear indication that companies are still running a product-centric business model and not a customer-centric business model. Transaction-based analysis supersedes relationship-based analysis in the eyes of executives. Without knowing their financial drivers, companies will be unable to justify the transformation required to become a customer-centric organization and the business model they need to build to do so.

– Have you done the customer value math at your company?

– Have you communicated the dollar-value of customers to people at every level in your organization?

– What business activities can you point to that express your commitment to maximizing your customer capital?

Do to others as you would have them do to you. — Luke 6.31 [New International Version]

On a good day we might simply point to The Golden Rule (as J.C. Penney is said to have done a century ago) and tell our people to do business that way.

Failing that, the sheer cost of losing customer capital might serve as a motivator for designing the kind of customer experience that will retain the business that keeps us in business.