Executive Summary
February 22, 2023
Compliance and Responsiveness
February 22, 2023
Customer focus is a communication trait that everyone claims but few communicate. When someone in a business development role is asked, “Are you customer-focused?” the usual answer is, “Of course!”
What features make one proposal more customer-focused than another proposal? Do different individuals perceive customer focus differently? Do individuals with different cultural backgrounds or positions perceive customer focus differently?
To determine the answer, we asked individuals to rank the customer focus of five documents. The base document was a 2-page executive summary. For each of the five documents, appearance and content were fixed while writing and organization varied. Figure 1 lists the controlled and variable features of the five test documents. All five versions were by the same seller to the same customer for the same products and services.
These guidelines to improving the customer focus of sales documents are relevant and important when applied to executive summaries and sales letters as well as individual proposal sections.
To date, more than 7,000 people from 40 countries and 5 continents have completed this exercise in English, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, and French. The results have been consistent across cultures:
- Seventy percent ranked the same document as most customer-focused.
- The composite ordinal ranking (most customer-focused to least) was consistent from group to group.
- The least customer-focused version was ranked last by 80 percent of the participants.
- About one-half of the participants could cite specific aspects of the writing that explained their ranking.
Customer Focus Research Experiment. To determine which document features most affect the reader’s perception of customer focus, five test documents were created with the same controlled features and different variable features. These findings are the basis for the following customer focus guidelines.
Eight guidelines indicate how to increase the perceived customer focus of a document. Readers rate a document’s customer focus higher when more of the guidelines are followed and when the guidelines are followed more frequently.
