A focus on customers should help any organization improve. Satisfy the customer and success will follow, or so the thinking goes. And it makes sense. Without customers, the best product or service is irrelevant.
This concept is an integral part of many quality management systems. Total Quality Management, for example, emphasizes the importance of this: “A core definition of total quality management (TQM) describes a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.”