In Scaling Up, Verne Harnish outlines a simple but often overlooked truth: most companies are far more diligent about tracking their financial performance than they are about understanding their customers. Rockefeller Habit #6 flips that paradigm, insisting that customer feedback should be gathered, analyzed, and reported with the same rigor as a company’s P&L statement.
At first glance, this habit may sound like a call for better customer service—but it’s much more than that. It’s about making customer insight a core part of your operating system, with feedback treated as vital intelligence, not just a nice-to-have. For high-growth organizations, this habit is essential to staying ahead of changing customer needs and market dynamics.
Why It Matters
In many organizations, financial data is updated daily or weekly. There are dashboards, reports, and reviews that keep leadership constantly informed about revenue, expenses, and margins. But how often is customer satisfaction measured and reported with the same urgency? And when it is, how actionable is that data?
According to Harnish, companies that prioritize this habit ensure that customer insights flow to decision-makers just as fast and just as clearly as financial results. That means regular surveys, prompt net promoter score (NPS) reporting, and open channels for customer concerns to reach the front lines and the boardroom.
How to Implement Habit #6
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Build Consistency in Collection
Just as your finance team knows when month-end reports are due, your team should know when customer feedback is reviewed. Set a rhythm—weekly, monthly, or quarterly—and stick to it. -
Create a Customer or Client Data Dashboard
Track key customer/client metrics in real time: NPS, satisfaction scores, retention rates, and even complaint trends. Make this dashboard visible to your leadership team and as accessible as your financials. -
Involve Multiple Departments
Customer & client feedback shouldn’t live in the sales or service silo. Marketing, operations, and even finance can benefit from understanding what customers are saying. Cross-functional feedback analysis leads to better decision-making and tighter alignment across departments. -
Close the Loop
Capturing feedback isn’t enough—customers want to know their voices are heard. Share feedback results internally, but also communicate externally when action is taken based on what customers say.
The Bottom Line
Organizations that implement Rockefeller Habit #6 transform customer feedback from a reactive function into a proactive growth tool. By analyzing feedback with the same frequency and precision as financial metrics, teams can spot trends early, improve retention, and stay more closely aligned with customer expectations.
As Harnish says, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” Treating it with the weight and consistency of financial data is one of the smartest investments a company can make.
