Don't let Customer Service ruin your customer's experience

There doesn't seem to be a customer service bone in some companies this day. I sent a scathing letter to an airline after five consecutive trips where every trip was either delayed or canceled – Their response was that they didn’t have time to answer my letter because they have received so many complaints lately that they couldn’t respond to them all.
After the initial shock was a sense that the company was no longer interested in customer service. The text of the response was neither apologetic nor palliative. It was matter of fact with no promise to address issues in the future. It was a customer’s dead end.

I have to wonder where does Customer Service at this airline sits with Product Development and Marketing – Is Customer Service even present when the company is addressing service problems. My guess is no. The communication showed no interest in their product, no Product Manager that I know of would sent that letter; and no rational Marketing person would sent such a diminishing communication. Their customer service board must have been asleep at the wheel on this one.

Negotiation - the lost art

I've been reminded of a lecture I attended at the Author's Globe because of a negotiation that I am currently involved with .  At the lecture, one of the exercises was to try to divide 7 marbles between two people. As expected most people tried to get 3 or 4 of the marbles, but there were a few participants that wanted all 7 of the marbles - and were being very vocal and proud about it.

The persons I am negotiating with is like that. They are pricing themselves out of the market, they want every benefit and they do not want to negotiate on anything. I have tried to create a win-win situation, but that means that we need to agree to divide the marbles. I understand that it may be a tactic on their part, but the offer is so out of the market and their attitude so final that I have started to wonder if what they want is for me to leave the negotiating table.

If we do not resolve the issues we will loose the 7 marbles and we will pay extra penalties, both parties will have to put extra marbles out of our pockets. Resolving the issue will create the most economic benefit to both parties, so I don't understand the hold out.

This also creates a bully-type situation, where if you concede too much (say less than 3 marbles) you are never going to be able to negotiate anything with them again - you would become a pushover. In this case unless somebody talks some sense to the other side we may have to end up leaving the negotiation table.

Business life vs. personal life - no difference

There really is no distinction now. Everything you do, can and will end up in your public profile: from that picture when you were drunk at that party to your profile in match.com (try goggling yourself). We all know that employers, business partners can look at our life footprint. Why do me still keep thinking that we have some privacy?

I was talking to an expert on managing your online presence and the conclusion we draw is that we are always "on". The paparazzi have invaded everyone's life. It is not only the high fliers of the world. Every time you go out of your house (physically or virtually) you are leaving a footprint that can haunt you for a long time - there are cameras everywhere.

This came about for two reasons: Tiger Woods' apology - BTW, he shouldn't have apologized to the golf community and media; and, the man who flew his plane into the IRS building. The amount of photos, video, texts, web pages that have been dug up and exposed is frightening. If you were involved in a high profile situation: how would your profile portray you?

You should know your economic environment style

I am always thinking about ways to make a business more efficient and cost effective. When functions, processes and companies are not well organized I can almost see the destruction of economic wealth. Because of this, there are two economic environments that suit me rather well:

1. The downturn. Companies are looking for ways to be more efficient and reduce costs. This plays beautifully into my natural way of thinking.
2. The boom. Increasing capacity by increasing efficiency is the name of the game. Companies recognize that it takes time to put new resources into place - so the more well thought out the processes, the better they can cope with accelerated growth.

What about you? Describe the variables that make your work more interesting (for you). Think about your strengths and apply them to the current environment. This should give you some insight into why your work feels so rewarding sometimes and why in others it just feels blah.

Now, turn the thinking around. Think about your company and what different environments increase your worth to them. Make sure they know your value proposition based on the current economic environment.

Know when to quit...

I've just read a very interesting Wired article about the death of Duke Nuke Forever. A video game project that lasted an incredible 12 years when most games take 3 to 4 years to complete. The end results were that 3D Reals went bankrupt and the game was never released. This is a cautionary tale about keeping objectives real and not letting "the latest thing" drive your project. Other lessons that I would add are:

1. Strategy - you have to have one (and stick to it)
   
2. Know what success looks like.
   
3. If your team can't talk to you, you are doing something wrong.
4. You should know when to pull the plug on a project.
5. See the evolution of your industry and adapt to it - but follow your strategy.

On a personal leadership level I have to ask: Where were Broussard's advisors? What about other stakeholders voices (other employees, mentors, partners)? Do you have anybody that can tell you that you are off track? Would you listen?

Communicating your strategy for best results

You have spent a year formulating your strategy. It is firmly and clearly stated in a Powerpoint. You are done, right? Not by a long shot. Let's ignore for a moment the effort required to implement, and let's focus on the communication effort. You need to clearly communicate to ALL stakeholders the new strategy and how it affects them. The companies that don't know how to do this send out an email (with the powerpoint and a nice introduction) and then forget about it.  Then they wonder why their efforts didn't pan out and nothing really changed.

Two things you have to remember:

1. You and your management team know more than everybody else.
2. The rest of your stakeholders can not read your mind to see what's in it - but they will try.

To maximize results tell your coworkers, subordinates, providers, partners and clients what they should expect from the new strategy and the benefits they will receive. You have to craft the message according to the audience (communications 101) and make sure the message is visible and repeated (that is why advertising works). If required, you should form a transformation and communications office to make sure that happens.

More on the how in a latter post...

Don’t let your organization leaderless unless you want to be jobless

For whatever reason you are distracted from your day to day duties (a merger, an acquisition, a family emergency) and you haven’t been in a position to attend to those duties. This is fine if it is a short hiatus (less than 3 weeks), but anything longer than that you need to make sure that somebody is tending shop. You have to groom your team to work without you for a while or designate one or more people to fill in your role. If you provide no leadership you are creating a vacuum where people are making decisions and launching projects because they sound good.


Let’s be clear, your team has to be able to function without you for short periods – and they should be able to provide their own direction (after all, their resumes do state that they are entrepreneurial, self-starters and self motivated). But the longer your absence, the more decisions start to pile up and change the direction; suddenly you have a new and emerging strategy that you are still accountable for.