The best thing you can do for your customers is to stop thinking of them as customers.

Think of us as people.

You are helping people. You are serving people. You are a people yourself. A specific people. A person. You are a person. I am a person.

We’re all persons. Each of us have feelings. We can hurt. We get angry. We are sad. We take things out on strange people because we don’t know them.

We are all people. Think about that when you see the tweet mention you or your company. Think about that when an email comes in. It was sent from a person.

It’s easy to forget that we’re all people sitting at our keyboards or smartphones. The words and pictures aren’t generated by computers or monkeys. It all comes from people.

People who can hurt. People who are irrational. People who have bad days.

We’re not replying to eyeballs. We’re not talking to clicks. A page view has never dissed you on Twitter. Every interaction you have is with a real live person. Treat them like people!

We are not users.
We are not customers.
We are not clicks, page views or eyeballs.
We are people.
And deserve to be treated that way.