Why a Customer-First Culture is Essential for Your Business: Interview with ex-chairman of financial services firm

Often, businesses give lip service to the importance of providing customer-first services, but their practices and rhetoric don’t always line up.

Your own company may even be struggling with this worthy, yet sometimes elusive, endeavor.

In this candid interview, Ian Dighé, former Executive Chairman, Miton Group plc (an equity and multi-asset fund management group), reveals how a commitment to customer-first principles and practices enabled this asset management business to remain competitive among massive titans in the same industry. Dighé doubled profits as chairman at Miton.

Dighé says you are being short-sighted if you have well-researched processes in place that enable you to meet short-term revenue goals, but you don’t maintain newly-formed customer relationships. Why? Because the longevity of your business often depends upon long-term relationships.

What struck me most about Dighé’s words was that he confirmed the age-old adage that being first is being last and being last is being first. In other words, when you put other people’s interests before your own, you gain important, lasting relationships. If you try to take the shortcut and bypass this truth, you may succeed for a while, but in the end, you will lose. We all know this applies to our interpersonal relationships. And this principle of reversal works in business relationships as well.

Dighé states that CEOs should not only put their customers first but also their shareholders and employees. That’s how a business achieves long-term success.

Watch the full interview to gain more insights.

‘Process’ is clearly important, but it will never deliver the answer in how to imagine the survival of a business, and more importantly, the growth of a business. 

— Ian Dighé, former Executive Chairman, Miton Group

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