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The motorcycle company Harley-Davidson knows its customers and it knows not only how to win them, but how to keep them. As their US website says, “It’s one thing for people to buy your products; it’s another for them to tattoo your company’s name on their arm.” But that’s exactly what Harley-Davidson’s most devoted customers do. The company interacts with its customers at numerous touch-points: by phone, in the showroom, on the road, at bikers’ conventions, in shops that sell biker clothes featuring the Harley-Davidson logo and so on.

However, arguably the best and most comprehensive ‘portal’ into the Harley-Davidson world is the organisation’s website. The insights it offers into how Harley-Davidson sees its customers and strives to interact with them have implications for many other vertical sectors (business-to-business just as much as consumer) that are far removed from the world of motorbikes.

The Harley-Davidson website unashamedly seeks to be far more than just a website that sells motorbikes. Instead, it’s a world. The design and content of the site is all about enticing the surfer into a motorcyclist-friendly utopia that, in a sense, is as compact, coherent and comprehensive as The Lord of the Rings is for a lover of fantasy novels. The whole emphasis of the website is consciously to pay homage to the culture and world of the biker and is so comprehensive, sincere and imaginative that it’s easy even for the non-biker to be convinced it isn’t a fantasy at all.

That's the US website. It's more expansive than, for comparison, the UK site, partly because the US is the company's major market, but also because the US and UK websites seem to be aimed at somewhat different markets. The website's implication is that the dream of riding for hours along vast, straight, open roads doesn't need to remain a dream.

This is more of an American dream than a British one. It's difficult to feel dreamy about being stuck in a traffic jam on a UK motorway in the pouring rain at 7pm on a Friday in February.

But it's a testament to the genius for knowing what makes customers tick. It radiates from every pixel. It seems that any negative comment about, for example, the dangers of motorcycling and the likelihood sometimes of bad weather would just make the detractor seem like a killjoy. The Harley-Davidson website is as resistant to bitchy comment as American motor oil is to English rain.

The truth is the website is entertaining even for people who would never want to get on a motorbike. It also illustrates just how close Harley-Davidson is to its customers: the point is that few other organisations have websites that show just how seamless that relationship is. So many other businesses, even successful ones, are unaware that their websites make it painfully obvious they see their customers as completely distinct from them.

This genuine empathy, genuine closeness and genuine liking for customers are surprisingly rare in business. It’s most in evidence when an organisation has managed to give the impression that its customers belong to a sort of club the organisation operates. Loyalty cards and frequent fl yer ‘clubs’ try to offer this impression, sometimes fairly successfully although very often you can see the blatant marketing motive too close to the surface. Many organisations have specialised customer ‘clubs’; Tesco has its Healthy Living and Wine Clubs, for example. Even children’s books are in on the act: many publishers have cleverly created clubs children can join to get special information about their literary heroes.

Harley-Davidson’s passion for its customers, linked with the quality of its engineering has enabled it to face tough times within the motorcycle industry and to maintain an enviable status and profitability as the last remaining mass market manufacturer of motorcycles in the US, against intense Japanese competition. Harley Davidson's successful financials are as visible as its in-your-face engines: Harley Davidson is among the most successful players in the industry with global revenue in 2006 of close to $6 billion and sales growth of 8.6 per cent.

Plenty of companies generate customer loyalty although not many achieve the level of customer enthusiasm Harley wins. Nor can it all just be down to their website. Maybe a vital point here relates to shared brand values. It’s not just the product itself that attracts people to Harley-Davidson; it’s the fact that they see the product as a reflection of themselves.

What other organisation’s founder’s grandson - William G. Davidson - would spend time at Harley-Davidson conventions sporting a beard, black leathers and jeans in order to discuss the finer points of the bike design with his customers?

Davidson went into the marketplace - bikers’ conventions - and talked to his customers face-to-face, not through the artificial constructs of focus groups and marketing committees. His most devoted customers know everything there is to know about thecurve of the handlebars, the look of the engines and the design of the ignition system. They told Davidson how they wanted the bike, their bike, to look and feel. Davidson likened the process of communicating with his customers as akin to being in the fashion business.

So why doesn’t every product or brand inspire the kind of loyalty Harley-Davidson wins from so many of its customers?

There are doubtless many answers to this. Certainly, some of the reason has to do with the very nature of what Harley-Davidson is selling. Bikers tend to be passionate about their hobby - some see it almost as a profession - and it’s hard to imagine anyone, still less a biker feeling equally passionate about the utility company they use.

The real reason most organisations don’t foster such a level of love from their customers as Harley-Davidson does is that they too easily allow themselves to lose sight of who their customers are and what they truly want.

William G. Davidson spends his weekends with his customers and they love him for that devotion. How often do you really take the trouble to see our company, services and products through the eyes of our customers? How can you hope to stay close to our customers without placing them at the centre of everything you do? In truth, how do you become truly customer-focused?

You can be certain that, when your organisation first started out, being in business was a thrill. Starting your business - winning your first customer - was like a first date with someone you love. Then you won more of them.  You asked them what you could do for them and you were delighted to do it. You had great days running your business. But then you began to have the occasional bad day, too. A competitor threatened to move in to your market. A key supplier let you down. A trusted member of staff walked off with the day's takings. The bank manager wanted to review cash flows. Suddenly,  it wasn't so much fun. You spent too much time on internal business and stopped focusing on customers. On some days, your customers even seemed like a nuisance.

This is the story for too many businesses. It's a sad story, but it can have a happy ending,  because you can remain customer-centric even in the face of all these pressures. At Charteris, we've distilled customer centricity philosophy into three principles:

• Meet customer needs Customer centricity involves more than just lavishing attention on your customers when they are in the shop. Your shop is growing now, and you find you need to take on more staff - you need to ensure these people share your passion for the product, to ensure they share your passion for delighting your customers.  You need to ensure that everything you, your staff and your suppliers provide, through whatever channel, has the customer in mind.
• Know your market You need to understand your market as intimately and as closely as you know anything in your life that you love. And if you don’t love your market now, or are not prepared to learn to love it, why are you doing this job at all? Go find something to love!
• Be agile Yesterday’s sales are history. What are your customers looking for now? You need to ensure you, your staff and your supply base are ready and willing to adapt. In these fast-changing times there are two types of business – those that respond and thrive and those that just survive.
• Keep up with what your customers need NOW. The secret is to be agile, to respond quickly to customer needs and so give your customers reasons to love you now and to keep on loving you. Learn these lessons and put them into practice creatively, sincerely and authentically in your organisation and you’ll kick-start a new momentum and ride off into the sunrise of your business – not the sunset.

This article appeared in Direct Marketing International Magazine in October 2008.

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