June 2, 2011

Call Centers: Cost Center or Customer Dazzle Tool?

YOU! be on the Side of the Angels
Core Service is Table Stakes
How NOT to Hanve a Competitive Position
It amazes me that most businesses really don’t want to talk to their customers.

They don’t invite them to call. They want to ‘get ‘em on and get them off’ as soon as they can. They make them wait for ridiculous amounts of time before someone answers their call. They insult them by saying things like ‘Please don’t hang up. Your call is important to us. Your call will be answered by the next available agent’. They try to avoid having a human being engage with the caller by employing complicated IVR systems that forces the person through exhausting questioning: ‘If you’re calling about our hours of business press 1’. And on and on and on it goes.

By making the contact experience so difficult and frustrating, one can only conclude that the business in question really doesn’t want to engage in a live conversation with their customers. What they REALLY want is to handle customer calls at the lowest cost. Today business generally treats a Call Center as a cost to be controlled rather than as a vehicle to create maniacal Fans.

Proof Points: most Call Centers are outsourced and the Business Case is bases on costs; performance metrics are based on things like ‘Average Holding Time’ with the objective of minimizing the amount of time a customer is on the call and cost per call drives performance management.

Kind of ironic really. A Call Center is generally not considered as a Core Competency. It’s outsourced and costs are driven to the lowest possible levels. And yet, the Service Experience drives customer loyalty and differentiates an organization from the Herd. Huh?

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 6.2.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 1, 2011

Create Your Strategic Game Plan in Just 2 Days and Execute on the 3rd!

How to build a BE DiFFERENT Strategy for your organization in just Two Days…... and Execute it on the Third!

- Do you have a strategy for your organization that recognizes the dramatic changes that have taken place in the markets you serve?
- Have you successfully carved out a distinctive and unique competitive position to guarantee success?
- Do you think you don’t have the time to spend creating a Plan to guide tour business into an uncertain future?
- Could you use the support of an experienced and skilled Executive Leader to guide your organization to a higher level?

If you have answered “YES” to these questions, talk to Roy about his Strategic Game Plan Method. He is the ONLY Business Advisor that offers this approach to creating Strategy FAST and ECONOMICALLY for any type of organization.
A Game Plan that focuses on Execution rather than pontificating on lofty goals that are rarely achieved.
A Game Plan based on Practices he successfully employed in his 30+ year career.
A Game Plan that will inspire your employees and colleagues.
A Game Plan like no other.
A Game Plan based on Simplicity: if it ain’t simple it probably wont get implemented.
A Game Plan that leverages what YOU know about your business, rather than requiring copious amounts of study and unnecessary analysis (no paralysis by analysis here!)

“Two years ago I asked Roy to help me create a Strategy that would breathe life into my new business idea. He did that an more. His vast experience, achievements and personal engagement skills allowed me to create a practical Strategic Game Plan in less than 2 days! My Plan declares my market uniqueness through The ONLY Statement and I was able to begin executing as soon as my session with Roy was over. Want to carve out your direction? Call Roy. You will be extremely pleased with the results.”—Tina Thompson, CEO MUG Solutions, Vancouver

Here’s what you can expect from Roy’s Strategic Game Plan (SGP) Workshop:
- to learn Roy’s BE DiFFERENT Practices which are used as a guide to building your SGP
- to determine your Growth goals
- to decide the customers you want to allocate your scarce resources to
- to create your unique and distinctive Competitive Positioning Strategy based on the “Know Thy Competitor” Assessment
- to declare your ONLY Statement that separates your from your competition
- to set the critical Objectives necessary to deliver your SGP
- to assign Accountabilities and Time-frames for each Objective: WHO does WHAT by WHEN to complete each Objective
- to have an ENJOYABLE 2-day experience
- AND your entire team will get a Gift personalized copy of Roy’s groundbreaking book, BE DiFFERENT or be dead, now in its Second Edition

In short, after ONLY 2 days, you will have a Strategic Game Plan that can be executed as soon as you leave the Workshop.
AND you will have the confidence that the Plan will work because Roy has successfully used the BE DiFFERENT Practices he espouses and the SGP Process successfully not only in his Career but also with other businesses and not-for-profit organizations.

For a personal consultation on how a Strategic Game Plan can help you and your organization, please connect with Roy.
What do you have to lose?
Cheers,
Roy

Posted 6.1.11 at 06:50 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 26, 2011

Core Service is Table stakes

Magic Question and Answers
Lose the Sale and Gain a Fan
The Magic Question for Your Career
Clean hotel rooms. Courteous staff. IPad that works like they said it would. Financial advice that delivers what was promised. A household move across the country on time, on budget with nothing broken. An airplane that takes off and lands. Baggage that is not lost. Uninterrupted Internet service delivering speed that was promised.

Each of these is a Core Service that represents the fundamental building block of a Business. It’s the basic output or deliverable that defines a business.

But Core Service is Table stakes. You need to deliver it 24X7X365 to play the game. But it won’t necessarily win it for you.

Winning the game comes not from what people get from you, but rather from how people FEEL when they get it. From the experience they get from you. Are they delighted? Are they dazzled? Are they left breathless?

It’s what goes on around your Core Service. Take-offs and Landings wrapped up in an amazing service experience will separate you from the Competitive Herd. Internet Service sealed with a Call Center capability charged with creating happiness for customers will keep ‘em coming back for more.

Bottom Line: deliver your Core Service consistently and then get WOW’S for the Service Experience you create. Table-stakes don’t go far enough to make you a winner.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 5.26.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 2, 2011

Get Rid of This Stuff NOW

BE DiFFERENT YOU Shout the Change
Don’t Give Customers What They Expect
Your Brand: Listen to the Conversation
Here are Ten Non-strategic Activities that are practiced in most organizations. They produce little. They take up a copious amount time and drain the organization of emotional energy. How many of these occupy your time?

1. Committee Work. How many Committees do you have working on stuff? What would happen if you reduced the number by 50% and empowered folks to make a decision and get on with execution? Committees are charged with the responsibility of coming up with recommendations that satisfy everyone. The result is watered-down decisions and forgettable results.
2. Analysis. Analysis can paralyze an organization and is a symptom of being afraid to make a call. Don’t over analyze. Do the amount of study that is consistent with the decision to be made. A $10 Million decision will need more than a $100K one.
3. Seeking the last 5% improvement. Read this as trying to get it Perfect. Crazy quest. Will never happen. Get it just about right and execute flawlessly.
4. Co-ordinating. What VALUE is there in this? When teamwork fails or systems are deficient, we need a coordinator. Rubbish!
5. Consensus building. You can’t satisfy everyone. Make the call.
6. Following rules. WOW! A great way to stultify creativity and innovation. Sure, some rules are necessary. But some are also Dumb. What if you reduced the number of Rules by 50% over the next 30 days? Do you think it would open up the possibilities for people to do NEW THINGS?
7. Punishing failure. Another great way to beat innovation out of a person. If you’re not failing you’re not moving forward. Failing is a necessary component of success. Honor failure and those who deliver it.
8. Giving orders. Managers do it. Change Leaders don’t. Do you really believe people won’t do the right thing? If not, you haven’t prepared them. They haven’t grown. You have failed. Learn from it.
9. Benchmarking. Sure, this may help you improve your performance but copying will never make you ReMARKABLE and DiFFERENT. Consider Best in Class as the highest bar to BE DiFFERENT from. If you stop at Best in Class you are like every other organization in the Herd.
10. Doing what the Job Description says. Don’t do what is right; stick to your job responsibilities. “It’s not my job”. “I’ll pass you over to Customer Care”. Customers love this one don’t they? Screw the formal Job Description. We need people to Spot Opportunities and do whatever it takes to create maniacal raving Fans EVEN if it means going beyond their formal job limits. We do want people to step out don’t we?

This List of Ten is a product of the past. It represents a Control Management Era. Successful organizations today find a way to break away from as much of these as they can as quickly as possible. Do you have the jam to do it?

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 5.2.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)