C-LIFE Discussion: Customer Delight or Client Value?

Recently, Infosys has made a change in its set of values popularly known as C-LIFE. It has changed its “C” in C-LIFE, from “customer delight” to “client value”. Here is why I think the change is a very apt and timely decision:

I think to understand the difference between ‘customer delight’ and ‘client value’, first of all we should understand the difference between the terms ‘customer’ and ‘client’. Your customer is someone who buys or purchases a product/service from you. The customer may buy it for the first time or buy many times over. A client is someone with whom you have a business relationship, and who is in some way or the other, under protection from you for some work or service. The term ‘client’ is appropriately used for those with whom we have a long term business relationship, while the term ‘customer’ is used for those who buy our product or service without having a long term association with us. The difference becomes clear when we understand that lawyers or advocates always use the term ‘client’ and never ‘customer’ for them they provide their services to. An advertising agency will always use the term ‘client’ for their ‘clients’. Whereas those who buy a TV set or a VCD from a shop, are its customers. When we understand the difference we would immediately appreciate how Infosys has done a good job by including the term ‘client’ rather than ‘customer’ in its set of values ‘C-LIFE’.

Now let us compare the terms ‘delight’ and ‘value’, with their usage in ‘customer delight’ Vs ‘client value’. As we know, any company or service provider wants its customers and clients to feel ‘delighted’ – that is higher than the experiences summed up in terms like ‘satisfaction’ or ‘happiness’. Customers and clients would be delighted if they are provided with an experience which is beyond and exceeding their expectations. A service provider can do that by offering its services at either higher quality than anticipated, or at lower costs than estimated. But as we know, it is very difficult to do so in this competitive world when n-number of competitors are also willing to lower the prices or offer higher services for the same price. ‘Delight’ becomes a mirage and companies have gone bankrupt chasing it endlessly. So the best that a company can do, especially in the field of knowledge based services like Infosys, is to start creating ‘value’ for the clients more than, and in more ways, it was ever expected. What can be better than if we create value for the clients, rather than just fulfilling the SLAs and maintaining the agreed KPIs. Is it not true that if we provide solutions to the clients creating long term value for them, they would be delighted? Therefore, if we Infoscions create value for our clients, it would mean the same as giving our clients a ‘delight’! And hence, the two terms ‘customer delight’ and ‘client value’ become two sides of the same coin! Only, in my opinion, the one side ‘client value’ is the one which we should focus and the other will automatically come to us…

- Rahul