A while back, I was towing a car away from an impound yard. The manager of the yard was there, and noticed that I used paper to protect the car's paint from the tow light magnets. He lamented about how he could never get his employees to treat the cars nicely, and as a result, often had to pay for damages to the scratched paint. I didn't voice it at the time, but I've found the reason.
If the car owner is displeased with how I tow, he could cancel his membership, and impact the company's business. If the car owner is displeased with the impounders, it means almost nothing; the contract, and thus business, comes from the police department. And any damage that happens is not a concern of the police.
In other words, through membership or yellow pages, the car owner is the customer. If it's the police that calls it in, the police are the customer, and the car owner is just the guy who pays. That's a very important distinction.
The same thing happens, albeit less blatantly, in the computer industry. The boxed copies of Windows on the shelves represents a tiny fraction of sales. And your one purchase is nothing compared to contracts with OEMs who sell millions of copies, and whose decisions on bundling home basic or home premium mean serious money. You are not Microsoft's customer. The OEMs are. You just happen to be the guy who pays.
There are two companies called Dell computers. One is Dell for business. This is the Dell that corporate CIOs contact, and purchase large, important orders, with several hundred machines and a 4 year service contract. If you've ever talked with someone who's used this Dell, their tech support is stunning, top notch, and they'll show up, at any day or time, to replace a damaged motherboard before the data center hiccups. The CIO's company is Dell's customer.
The other Dell is for consumers. Not even customers, consumers. They make $400 boxes with the cheapest parts they could find. Their tech support is outsourced, with a script that consists mainly of "Reboot, and call us back if it's still broken." The difference? The one who paid $400 is not their customer. He's just the guy who pays.
The real customers for consumer-Dell are AOL, Symantec, and other bloatware companies whose programs that are pre-installed. The contracts there far outweigh the anorexic margins on the $400 box. It's only until people stopped buying Dells, and therefore, the real customers are less likely to pay, that things changed. And now, Dell's stuck with mutually exclusive conflicts of interest, between those wanting wanting their adware on, and those who don't want to have it.
Dell's not alone in this, and I don't mean to single them out, but they serve as an example, because sometimes the difference between the two Dells appear as black and white.
The point is, know who the customer really is, and who is just there to pay. It will tell you everything about loyalties.
