Be Different or be dead

June 23, 2011

Why leaders must trust the frontline to do their thing

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Why leaders must trust the frontline to do their thing.

Do you trust your frontline people to do the very best for your organization?

One example results in your employee sometimes having to break an internal rule to take care of a customer; ’saying yes’ when it goes against the standard way the organization deals with a customer.

The second example ends the vitriolic dialogue with the customer this way:  “I’m sorry it’s not our policy”.

The first instance trusts the frontliner to do what is right, trusting they have enough common sense not to sell the farm.

The second instance believes frontline people are really not all that smart and need to be directed by specific procedures that require them to behave in a specific way.

My experience is that frontliners have forgotten more about balancing the wants of the customer with the needs of the company than leaders realize

But they are junior employees and are relegated to enforcing dumb rules and policies that sometimes get in the way of serving customers in an amazing way. The organization seems to believe that they need to be governed by rules and have no common sense.

Seriously?

Leaders must realize that those that constantly engage with your customers are the most important group of employees you have.

They can and should be trusted.

Let them do their thing.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.23.11 at 10:59 am by Roy Osing
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June 20, 2011

Why successful businesses have a ‘say yes’ to customers strategy

Source: Unsplash

Why successful businesses have a ‘say yes’ to customers strategy.

YES invites opportunity; NO closes the door on it.

YES creates value; NO destroys it. YES is human. NO is impersonal.

The business builder looks for ways to exchange value with others; to find opportunities to respond to what others desire. To serve others in a way that will create long term relationships that prosper both the organization and the individual. You can’t do it when you are saying NO.

Sound reasonable?

My observation, however, is that most organizations try to control customers by a internal rules and policies that stand in the way of them from getting what they want. “You can’t do…” or “Our policy doesn’t allow…” or “The rules say…” or “that’s simply not possible…” erect barriers that destroy relationships with people.

They prevent relationship building.

They create an impersonal and unfeeling organization. They drive people to their competitors. They contribute to the competitive herd of sameness, mediocrity and invisibility.

And they turn the culture of an organization to being internally focused with a follow-the-rules mentality; devoid of originality and creativity - cogs in a machine.

Imagine a world where organizations are motivated to say YES to their customers. To try to do whatever it takes to satisfy their innermost wants and desires.

In this world “How can I help“is the singular focus of all people in the organization.

Problem solvers are viewed as critical to the strategy of the organization. Policies are designed to SERVE customers not control them. Internal processes are engineered from the customer’s point of view with the objective of being easy to do business with.

How often do we ask the frontline what they need to say YES to the customer? What stands in their way? What internal dumb rules force them to say NO?

A critical component of your overall strategy should be a how to get to YES.

If you show that you are prepared to serve your most valuable asset they will reward you with their continued business..

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.20.11 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
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June 9, 2011

The simple reasons why call centers don’t give good customer service

Source: Unsplash

The simple reasons why call centers don’t give good customer service.

Every organization that is big enough has a call center to handle primarily incoming calls from their customers.

There must be some redeeming value in having one if everyone has one, right? There is: it’s generally viewed as the most efficient operating solution for processing volumes of calls coming into an organization.

The dark side to call centers

But having led large customer service teams in a variety of business environments I have experienced a dark side to call centers.

In many cases I find that call centers represent the antithesis of miraculous service.

When an organization declares they intend to provide amazing service to their customers and then chooses an operating model with a call centre — particularly in a foreign country — as its nucleus, they are not only being disingenuous, they are fooling themselves (and probably driving their customers crazy) and assuming substantial competitive risk.

These are the aspects of call centers, particularly those that are outsourced, I find quite revolting.

They exist to manage cost

They choose to implement a call centre environment not to serve customers better, but to process volumes of calls at the lowest cost possible.

The question is rarely asked “Is this the best way to both serve our customers in an exemplary way while at the same time optimizing our cost position?”

It’s all about cost. That’s why most organizations outsource them around the world where labour costs are low. Current outsourcing destinations include India, Philippines, Thailand, China and Indonesia with many more planning to enter the fray.

This outsourcing trend has attracted a plethora of experts who define what it takes to have a successful call centre.

They are managed to improve productivity

Effectiveness of a call center is generally based on micro productivity measures such as:

▪️average holding time — the elapsed time it takes a call center rep to handle a customer query. Management tries to drive this number down in order to process as many calls as they can with the resources available.

The outcome of each call is rarely measured. Was the customer satisfied with the service they received? Did they enjoy the experience with the rep?

▪️average speed of answer — the average length of time it takes to answer an incoming call. When I ran call center operations in the telecom world, my target was to answer 80% of all calls within 6 seconds and our resource levels were set to achieve this result.

This was probably the best internal target we had that represented an attempt to deliver good customer service.
Can you imagine in today’s world reaching a call center rep of any organization within 2 or 3 rings of your phone? Rarely ever happens, with common wait times in the minutes rather than seconds.

Productivity and service miracles don’t easily coexist in most organizations; this measure needs attention if any organization wants to get out of the revolting category.

They don’t drive customer loyalty

Whether a call center serves incoming calls or is used to originate sales-type calls, the heavy traffic volumes involved generally work against the relationship building activity that leads to a loyal customer.

A call comes in > the rep answers (eventually) > the rep deals with the customer’s request > the rep terminates the call > the next call is fed to the rep.
And the cycle is repeated over and over again with a supervisor scrutinizing how long the rep is on each call.

The call center is essentially a production shop with no overt objective of creating an experience for the customer that could lead to brand loyalty.

Customer satisfaction may be measured along with productivity objectives, but a satisfied customer does not make a loyal one.

Satisfaction means that expectations were met; loyalty demands more — minds must be blown, expectations exceeded and marvellous experiences created if the loyalty dial is to be moved.

And this takes time. A WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA’M! process does nothing to encourage warm feelings and a desire to do more business with the brand involved.

They take control of your brand

The moment power is given to an outsourced call centre to engage with your customers, control is relinquished and your organization’s brand is put at risk.

Many organizations don’t even put in place a performance management contract with the 3rd party outsourcer to measure how customers perceive the service they receive from call center reps, so changes to brand position are unknown and can’t be responded to.

And with high turnover of employees, consistency in whatever customer treatment is given is almost impossible — at least I don’t experience it.

When your customer connects with the call center you have chosen to empower with your most valued asset, and the experience they have does not go well, it’s on YOU.
The call center rep is YOUR employee. The service outcome is YOUR responsibility.

YOU pay the price in the market.

Their words create the precious moment

Whether a customer has a miraculous service moment or not depends on communications with the call center rep. Miracles happen when the engagement is spirited, entertaining and responsive. When there is an easiness to the conversation that leaves the caller happy and fulfilled.

And for me, very often it is extremely difficult to fight through the accent of a foreign call center rep to have a meaningful and enjoyable conversation.
I simply can’t understand many (not all) of them, and that’s a BIG problem for the outsourcer.

If even the basic communications expectations of the call can be met, there is little chance that a service miracle will ever occur and in fact the opposite is the result with the caller being annoyed or angry with the encounter.

It’s not that the foreign reps are uneducated or don’t have some skills in the English language.
But it’s one thing to pass English 101 and have an understanding of sentence structure and grammar, and quite another to engage with someone else in a way that flows and is productive to the other party.

Are these reps tested by role playing to evaluate their conversational proficiency? Not from where I’m sitting.

Wait times are shameful

Outsources really don’t care about how long we wait on the phone to reach a rep; if they did, they wouldn’t tolerate wait times that often reach ridiculous levels — for me personally, I am blown away if I actually get a rep in 5 minutes and am not surprised to wait 45 minutes or longer. Business mediocrity in action.

It’s ironic that wait times take no priority at all; organizations are content to provide messages they feel assuage their shameful service: “Your call is important to us”; “We are experiencing unusual traffic volumes at the moment” unfortunately greet us more often than not when we call for help.

But wait! There is a silver lining to long wait times. Put your iPhone on speaker, slip it in your back pocket and get on with the job jar your wife has skillfully filled for you.

The reps have an impossible task

I totally get that even a highly competent and caring call center rep has a tough time being on 100% up time.
By the time a customer gets to them, they are often met with frustration, anger and sometimes abuse, with literally zero chance of turning a bad encounter into a pleasant experience.
The reps simply wants to get away from the pain they are engulfed in.

And the rep of course doesn’t own the problem — leadership does.

It’s a pipe dream and shameful leadership behaviour to create an impossible working environment and expect employees to perform impeccably. What planet are they on?

It’s quite simple, really.
If you want low costs, technology can do only so much and you will be saddled with the result. Under-resourcing is typically the result of cost cutting in the face of relentless demand and who pays the price? CUSTOMERS DO!

Call centers generally don’t focus on building intimate customer relationships and outsourcing them makes matters worse.

There are exceptions, however, but these rare organizations make the decision to establish their call center as an integral loyalty building instrument not as an efficient call processing center.

So if you decide to use call center technology to engage with your customers, please don’t preach your intent to deliver amazing service.

It’s intellectually dishonest and it fools no one.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 6.9.11 at 10:40 am by Roy Osing
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May 26, 2011

Why great core service is not enough to make loyal customers

Source: Unsplash

Why great core service is not enough to make loyal customers.

Customer service that is unmatched by the competition is a function of what you provide and how you provide it. Does it work as promised? And did people feel good when they were engaged to get it?

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 seamlessly 24X7X365 to play the game

But it won’t necessarily win it for you.

When core service is delivered as promised, customers rate you ‘ok’ and nothing more. Providing seamless core service doesn’t build customer loyalty, but it is the essential building block to do so. Without consistent core service, customer loyalty isn’t possible; but with it, it’s not enough.

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 the context within which your core service is delivered. How do people feel between the takeoff and landing? Do they feel special or do they feel “abused” by the onboard staff?

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 long term winner.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 5.26.11 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
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