Words vs. Numbers

Here is the test. Which would you rather have for customer experience feedback?

A. On a scale of 1 to 5 how would you rate our customer service? Score: 4.7

B. Customer response:" I like your company and you did a great job with our service. Your service representative George took some extra time and fixed my information so it would be easier to purchase again.

Most people would choose B.

How about this one?

A. On a scale of 1 to 5 how would you rate our customer service? ( 5,000 responses) Score: 4.7

B. Customer Response (1): Your representative George did a good job. He was typing while I was talking so I had to repeat myself a couple of times. Your competitor ABC Corporation is now offering a change in their services for a much shorter delivery time. I wish you folks would offer that.

Now which one would you pick? Which one is best for George?

Words as you know are powerful. Most executives want numbers. They "role up" much better than customer comments and words. For your front-line representatives, they want words. Words truly change behavior. Numbers are valuable but there are too many for a front-line representative. If you want behavior change, look for words from your customers.

www.tamerpartners.com

Award Ceremony in San Diego California

This week on Monday the North Texas Toll Authority won the "Presidents Award" from the IBTTA (International Tolling) for their Customer Driven Management program. The Chairman of the Board; Paul Wageman accepted the award on behalf of the NTTA.

The NTTA won an award because 1000's of their customers have chosen to participate in coaching, encouraging and giving advice to NTTA's front-line customer service and sales folks.

When was the last time your company won an award for being truly Customer Driven?

www.tamerpartners.com

PS: San Diego is amazing.

www.tamerpartners.com

Saving Money with Your Customers Help

If you are not focused on finding ways to save money then you must be working for a company on another planet. The economy stinks for most industries and the pressure is on to find ways to save money. Here is a unique concept, let you customers help you out.

Using Customer Driven Management, your customers can help do the work for you that either A. You do not have the time or resources to do it they way you really want it done or B. You do not have the time or resources to do it at all.

Customers not only can help but they want to help as well.

Here are some areas where you can reduce costs in your customer sales and service areas with CDM:

1. Customers can help you coach employees. You can raise the Supervisor to Employee ratios by adding the customers into the coaching process. You end up with more coaching for less cost. How much does a supervisor cost at your organization? If you could go from 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 or maybe 1 to 20 to 1 to 30, how much could you save?

2. Quality Monitoring- Let you customers into the QM process. At worst case you will still have to do compliance monitoring. Your customers can do everything else. How many QM people do you have? What if you only had to QM compliance issues? What could you save?

3. Focus groups and marketing research- Don't pay an organization to conduct expensive focus group work, use your customers. They are passionate, accurate, credible and infinite. How much do you spend in focus groups and customer experience research?

4. Mystery shopping- Use your own customers for mystery shopping. What better way to increase loyalty than to have your customers help you get better. Do you have a mystery shopping line item in your budget?

The North Texas Tollway Authority did all of they and won an award. On June 10, 2010, the NTTA put out the following press release in this link: June 10, 2010

Interested in winning an award and saving money? What value would that bring your company? What value would that bring your career?

Congratulations American Airlines!

Well done! American Airlines did it right. They made a mistake and they corrected it. I have been remiss in following up on my last blog. No excuses. American Airlines did the right thing. If you read my other blog, you can figure out what the problem was.

American Airlines changed their policy, gave me my money back and changed the airline ticket for me. Not only that they did it professionally. They wrote, they called (more than once...) and they stuck with it till it was done the right way.

Well done.

How you treat your customers matters. You know it and I know it. Our challenge is that we all think it but very few follow through and do something about it. The reason usually is we do not have enough time or money to really make any significant change. As a result, we wait, we settle, and we do not get any better.

Help is here.

We are embarking on a new program called the CDM Challenge. We partner with your customers to help you win the challenge. We take your toughest employees and put your customers to work helping them get better. That's right. Your toughest customer service employees, coached and trained by your customers. How do you win? Your employees get better! No additional hiring, no training just your most valuable asset: your customers helping you get better.

Want more information? Go to www.tpcdm.com/uwulhdl2krxc7avb

Customer Disconnect-American Airlines

Recently I had a very unfortunate experience with American Airlines. I purchased a ticket for my daughter and son-in law to fly to Dallas. Cost of ticket $110. I made the mistake of putting the wrong last name on my daughters ticket. Recently married and all, I put the wrong name. Being a Platinum member, I called in to the Platinum call center. After explaining my story I was told it would cost $150 to make a name change. Since the ticket was $119 dollars and I felt I had some "juice" because of my frequent flier status, I asked to speak to a supervisor. The rep put me on hold and came back and said the "supervisor will do it for a $100." Told her that this was not what I wanted and I wanted to speak to the supervisor. She came back with another bargain price of "$50". I told her this was not a used car sale and I wanted to actually speak to the supervisor.

He came online, I gave him my story. Told him I appreciated "getting on the plane first etc." yet this was an opportunity to help me out. It was after all a simple mistake and the same person. He read me the contract that allowed him to charge $150, offered to do it now for $25 and then lectured me on my responsibility to the airline and that I needed to step up to the plate and take responsibility for my actions. I paid the fine with a final thank you for helping me to "understand that I needed to take responsibility for my actions." I also took his name and number.

Needless to say I wrote a nice long letter to the SVP of the Airline and had it delivered to her office. This letter detailed my frustration over the issue, my complaint over being "taught a lesson by the supervisor", my complete lack of understanding of their customer strategy with their top frequent fliers and finally my burning desire to find someway to get some sort of expanded satisfaction for my $25 lesson they taught me in customer responsibility. (Note: I have had delusions of spending my next $10,000 in travel with other airlines, asking at least 200 people to purposely pick another airline for their next flight, see if I could get another Airline to give me elite status, changing my credit card mileage, making a commitment to myself to check Travelocity or someone else first rather than checking American first as I do now.)

Five days later I received an email response (not from the SVP's office) but from customer relations. It was a fast return but not pretty.

The email used three different fonts. It had a description of the contract with the airline, and a listing of the benefits of being a frequent flier. They actually told me the fee was a benefit because they give me many opportunities while buying the ticket to make sure I have no mistakes. The letter also expressed that they were sorry I had expected more from my preferred Platinum status.

Do you think that was the type of letter the SVP wanted to send? I hope not. She could not possibly have read it. As a matter of fact I will bet you all the money in my pocket that this was the last thing they wanted to send to a customer. Problem is that large companies because of their mere size get way too many of these types of complaints and because of the volume it must delegated most likely to a call center that responds. The bigger problem is that in virtually every call center the poorest employee will speak to more customers in one day than a SVP might speak to in a month or a year. The result is customers that get hacked off over $25 not because of the $25 but because they were treated poorly. Here are some of the factors that were missed:

1. I sent the letter to the SVP. Send it back from the SVP's office. SVP customer relations would have been okay.

2. Figure out how to use the same font. Just incredibly unprofessional. It was clear they were cut and pasting answers in. At least fake it better.

3. Show some form of empathy. Actually show ANY form of empathy. If they had said" Listen we understand. We could have charged $150 but we gave you the biggest break we give anyone... or the same thing we offer Executive Platinum...." I would not have liked it but it would have given me some pause.

4. Do not under any circumstances, remind a customer of their responsibility to you. They are not your children. Anger at an unfair situation in a business to consumer environment is nothing compared to furthering that aggravation by having not one but two employees teaching you a lesson.

5. Never negotiate through a lower level employee unless you are a car dealership where the customer expects it. Either empower the front line employee or just transfer the call.

6. Make your response match up to the customers complaints. We have enough people around us each day that do not listen to us. We expect business's that we give money will actually listen to us. They did not answer any of my real questions.

Ironically, I love American Airlines. This transaction flat out stunk. The question is how many other times has it happened? The real question for you is what happens when you have a customer problem? Do you really know what is being sent out to customers? If not, you better figure it out.

Customer Driven Management: Outsourcing

If you want to lower cost in todays sales and service world one of your first options is outsourcing. Whether within the USA or to some other country around the world outsourcing can lower your cost. In fact, lowering your cost is the number one reason to outsource. This is followed closely by a desire to "leave the work to the professionals", focus on our core competencies, global/seasonal support issues and last but not least an expectation for better customer satisfaction and sales/profits. Not every company is willing to outsource. Many choose to retain sales and service as an offering directly from their employees.

Customer Driven Management is the "outsourcing" of your coaching, advice, instruction, feedback and encouragement to your customers. This form of outsourcing is open to companies who have chosen to outsource their operations and to those that have kept services in house.

Let's look at Customer Driven Management is through the lens of outsourcing results. In CDM:

1. We don't outsource to another company; we outsource to our customers.

2. We don't decrease our cost by paying another company less than it costs to do ourselves; we reduce our cost by enabling customer resources to perform functions we pay our employees to do for us today.

3. We do "leave the work to professionals; the professionals are our customers.

4. We do "focus on our core competencies"; we learn and change from the voice of our customers.

5. We do outsource for "global/seasonal issues; we engage customers everywhere and round the clock.

6. We expect better customer satisfaction and higher profits; we are closer and more connected to our customers. CDM impacts first call resolution, customer loyalty, employee turnover and customer experience. All of these areas increase customer satisfaction and impact the bottom line profitability of the organization.

The negatives of outsourcing ( We respect and appreciate professional outsourcing of all types. A well thought out decision to outsource combined with a professional delivery benefits customers and companies. It does have strengths and weaknesses.) are loss of control, risk of alienating pre-agitated customers with delivery of service from outside the company (international or domestic), and loss of connectivity with customers. Done right outsourcing can be spectacular. Done wrong and it is a nightmare. There are also many companies that would never outsource because they feel that the core competency of delivering sales and service is not something they are willing to give up or have reside outside of their company.

With CDM, there are no similar negatives to outsourcing to your customers:

1. Customers provide advice, instruction, feedback and encouragement. Each one of these increases company perspective and most important employee perspective. Customer advice received by an employee is credible and valued.

2. Only customers that seek to provide you with advice participate. There is no risk of agitating customers that do not want to participate.

3. This is the "ultimate" connection with your customers. They connect directly with your employees. Customers that are involved are more loyal and more likely to stay your customers. Customers providing input develop a vested interest in your company and your people.

Outsourcing your coaching to your customers is a win-win-win. Customers, employees and the company all win.

Customer Driven Management

CRM- You see this term everywhere. It stands for Customer Relationship Management. It often means technology, process and measurement. The process of "relating" to Customers. Kind of simple and maybe even woefully inadequate as a definition but for this blog, let's go with it. We "relate" with customers using technology to help be efficient and effective with those precious customer relationships. The technology helps our employees have the right information, tools, and answers for the customers. The customer wins because they get better service, product and support. The company wins because they deliver products and services by maximizing their resources (people, process and goods) and hopefully increasing profits and revenues. The term is well known, the industry has accepted it and most companies are either "doing it" or considering "doing it". As with most technologies some do it very well and others not so well. Some are "all-in" and some are just getting started. This blog segment is intended to introduce a new term. This term is called Customer Driven Management.

CDM changes the relationship between your customers and your companies more specifically between your customers and your employees. The "relationship" as we know it; changes dramatically. The customers drive your employees, coach your employees, encourage your employees, train your employees, help you with their year end reviews and simply help you; help them get better at their job. The company gets passionate, credible, reliable, cost effective and in some cases infinite resources to help them coach and improve their employees. Customers get the opportunity to enhance and improve the very service and support they depend on to meet the needs of the products or services they buy. The relationship as we know it is "driven" to new areas. It enhances CRM by bringing customers closer to your company and your process.

We are not talking about being a "customer driven company". That means we listen to our customers and try to react and respond to their needs and wants. This customer driven management is just that; customers "managing" employees. Customers working directly with our employees to make them better.

The result? Higher profit, higher quality, lower cost, lower turnover, higher customer satisfaction and experience; you get the picture. In the coming blogs we will pursue each one of these above and see how your customers can impact your organization.

Coaching Employees

Tonight the world series begins, Yankees vs. Phillies. I grew up a Yankee fan and I confess I also am an Arod fan as well. I like excellence. I like watching the best in the world and like even more watching the potential "best of all time". Like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning, AROD just might end up being the greatest that ever played.

My baseball diversion was to make note of the fact that in baseball the lead guy is called a manager. In other sports such as basketball and football, they are a coach. In business virtually everyone is called a manager. Very rarely is a leader defined as a coach and if the term is used it is often the front line manager or "lead" that is called a coach. Why the distinction? Who knows? Business needs far more coaches than they do managers. Let me rephrase; they need far more "coaching" than "managing". Leaving baseball behind ( I know the manager "coaches". ), let's focus on the difference between these two terms in a business environment.

1. Coaches make employees better- A coach helps an employee get better and thus helps to increase their performance. At least that is what a good coach does. Coaching is really needed to make one thing happen; change behavior. That is what a great coach does. They help employees change their behavior. That could be an increase in use of skills, attitude, attendance, or simply anything that gets an employee to change a behavior for the better of the employee and betterment of the company. Some coaches do this with high energy, high expectations or simply high involvement. They are active in the process. When employees change behavior in areas that are beneficial to a company you get better productivity, quality and most likely profitability. The more employees impacted by a single coach or a group of coaches that can truly change behavior the better the results. You already know your good coaches. They are easy to pick out and you see the results.

2. Managers "manage"- Yes, this is going to be negative. Managers move resources around. Resources can be people, things, ideas. Unfortunately a bad manager can make a person feel like a thing. Managers by nature do more watching and telling than actual coaching. They often manage problems and reports. As a result they get movement but it is often not sustainable or worse in the wrong direction. When you manage vs. coach you have a tendency to be at the beginning of a process or performance or at the end; you rarely are a participant. As a result most work (sometimes harm) at the front or back of an event or process. Behavior is rarely changed because the manager is not involved with the work product. We are not saying that all leaders need to be actively involved in every step of their employees, simply that if you want behavior change it must be done through coaching and not managing.

Are your supervisors and managers more like the coach above or the manager? If they are like coaches the sky is the limit for you. If you are doing well; keep going. If you need to make changes; no problem. Coaches can change behavior. If on the other hand, they seem more like managers, then if your doing well your managers will be able to tell you. If you are doing poorly, you are at risk because while they can tell you how poorly they are doing, they can rarely help you fix it. Why? Because with employees it is very hard to manage your way to changes in behavior. You need a coach.

Next up: Using your customers as coaches.

Emotional Perspective

Over the past year, I have become actively involved with my family in a business that serves the wedding and events industry www.piazzainthevillage.com. The business services families that have a wedding and reception along with business meetings, training, parties etc. We built a 15,000 square foot facility that has a wedding chapel, courtyard and an events/ballroom center for the wedding reception and business event.

The business is fascinating on many levels. For this corporate perspective, I wanted to focus on the "emotional decision" that a bride and her family goes through. This "emotional decision" happens a lot in business but my guess is that we miss it. We miss the emotional decisions made by employees, customers, board members, vendors and even the ones we make ourselves. We shouldn't miss them anymore.

A bride and her family comes to make a decision on where they are going to have the most important day of their life. The bride has been thinking about it since she was a very little girl. The mom has been thinking about it longer than the bride existed. Sometimes she has thought about it since the very day she chose to make her future daughters wedding day different than her own. The father has either been trying to figure out how he would pay for it (weddings are the second largest savings for a daughter after college), wondered about who the guy would be or how he was going to hold it together walking down the aisle. For now we will just leave out of the equation: the grandparents, siblings, groom, grooms parents, etc.

The decisions to be made are multiple (location, photographer, flowers, date, video, dress, tux, gifts, hotels, honeymoon, etc., etc.)and they need to be made far in advance. What makes these decisions even more complex is how much emotion is tied to them. Everyone is emotional and not always completely rational. Everyone has a different reason and a different perspective. Sometimes the smallest thing sets off behavior or reactions that just were not expected or planned for. With all this pressure and stress they still find a way to make it happen, make it turn out how they had "dreamed" and have their perfect day even with all the emotion.

Brides make it happen with the emotion because they have the following:

1, Brides have vision- They know what they want. They have "seen it" over and over again in their heads.
2. Brides work hard (mothers included here...)- Brides get engaged and they get focused. They have lists, expectations and plans. They are purposed and they get to it.
3. Brides seek out experts and references- Brides look to other brides, professionals and all resources that help them find the right solution. They use other peoples expeience to help them.
4. Brides follow their heart- When all is said and done (yes, they must be able to afford it.) a bride just knows that it is the right fit for her, groom and family. She knows it because she has lived and breathed it for so long; she just knows this is her selection.

Our employees make decisions every day about how they are going to work and support our companies and our customers. Front-line management makes decisions every day on leading their teams and their response to customers and upper management. Everyone at every level is making decisions. The reality is that far more of these decisions are wrought with emotion that we fail to see or we were not able to see. It might be problems at home (divorce, sick kids or parents, etc.), politics at work, health issues, past employment experiences, the economy, fear of layoffs, fear of failure to just name a few.

While we might expect an emotional bride; we are often blindsided by an emotional employee or what seems like a irrational decision. The next time it just does not look "right" to you; take a closer look at the emotion surrounding the decisions or behavior. For many unions do not seem remotely rational. Nor do some of the behaviors or decisions made. Maybe is is simply the "emotion" getting in the way.

Take a "bridal view" as shown above. Get vision, Get focused, Get professional help, Get right with your "gut or heat".

If brides can make their perfect day through the emotion; your business can as well.

Nike was wrong

Times are tough. Does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out. When times are tough we have a tendency to cut corners. We need to cut costs, utilize our employees to their fullest yet we always need to do it "right".

Here is an exerpt from The Four Minute Customer:

Truth 10: Nike Was Wrong: Losers “Just Do It” Winners “Do It Right.”

Who am I to argue with a 100 million dollar advertising campaign? They’re Nike; after all!

In sales and service, there is a tendency to participate or survive rather than pursue excellence and flourish. Doing it right may sound obvious but we often miss it. Many organizations have a “just do it” kind of attitude. This does not mean they are careless, lack focus or are not professional. It means that they are surviving (see earlier chapter) vs. trying to pursue excellence. Doing it right in sales and service means having a clear plan or strategy, installing an operating system, pursuing excellence, measuring the results, making changes and starting the process all over again. The pursuit of excellence sounds like a sports slogan. “Natural” service and sales people who were born to be great can often overtake this part of our business. They see a situation and they react. While it is wonderful to have these people, we must be able to build an organization of people that can respond professionally to customer situations whether sales or service.

How to measure?

1. Is my organization on purpose about achieving excellence not simply results? (In other words, how we do it not just did we succeed?)
2. Do we measure the accomplishments that lead to the results (i.e., the number of cold calls made in a sales environment rather than just the end sales numbers.)
3. Do we have a plan and an operating system for customers and employees? Is it in writing?
4. Are we serious about competing for employees?
5. Do we pursue customer experience and synchronize that with our services and sales offerings?
6. Do we invest in our front-line management team?

You need lots of yes’s in order to be going in the right direction. Any no’s and there is work to be done.

Do it right and you will not only survive but you will prosper as well.