Customer Focus

“It’s common knowledge”

November 30, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

“Check your assumptions” is always good advice.

In a group of mixed-knowledge learners a few months ago – some tech-savvy, some not – one person was trying to teach everyone how to work with a new community portal.

As the group met for the first time in person, the tech-savvy project manager described one step she’d left out in the written instructions she’d sent to everyone.

A few hands quickly rose as she talked.

“Can you send the new instructions to us? I didn’t know how to do that thing you just talked about!” said one person, a highly accomplished serial entrepreneur. Business-savvy, she was, software-savvy, she wasn’t, herself.

The project leader said in some frustration, under her breath, “It’s common knowledge…”

I laughed to myself, understanding both perspectives – those of the learners in this case, and those of the project leader who had tried so hard to make the right call about what information to include in her instructions, and what she could safely leave out.

How many times when communicating something do we leave out the “It’s common knowledge” parts, not realizing exactly where existing knowledge really starts and ends with our audience?

If you’re trying to communicate with a group of learners, especially – no matter what the circumstance – watch and listen closely to their feedback as they try to use the information you’re trying to get across to them.

See if your assumptions are correct about what they already know, and what they need to learn – and where your teaching really needs to begin.

The “common knowledge” parts are ripe for gaps in understanding. They’re places where, if you’re teaching, you might have to back up and cover parts you thought the learners already knew, or had mastered.

Be oh so careful about what you assume “common knowledge” really is.

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Leadership, People at Work

Great change-making

November 13, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

Creative challenges surround us. Often, the way to bring your challenges to a quicker, better end is to learn from a master in another field. In the US and around the world, in so many ways, we need to learn to excel at change-making and innovation.

One of the masters of innovation, change-making and marketing of new ideas and new products is Steve Jobs.

Writer Thomas Friedman suggested in a New York Times article that Jobs, whose innovation brilliance resulted in great success at Apple and Pixar, might have been the right person to lead several industries out of the precarious positions they were in, starting in late 2008.

How does Jobs not only anticipate the need for change, but jump ahead to create entirely new markets? How does he create products again and again that are not only market-changers, but new market-makers?

Generally, here’s the process he seems to follow:

1. Imagine freely.
2. Create a compelling vision.
3. Communicate it simply, viscerally, relentlessly.
4. Expect nothing but the best.
5. Learn from wherever you can about the challenges ahead. Ideas can come from anywhere.
6. Create a model, a beta test of the idea.
7. Give it a test. See what works and what doesn’t.
8. Perfect it.
9. Put it on the market.
10. Let people know about it every way you can.
11. Repeat relentlessly (excellent innovation is, in some ways, its own reward for those who do it well).

How can you learn from, and use his process, as well?

Filed Under: Business Results, Current Affairs, Customer Focus, Leadership, Process Management, Strategic Planning

Looking for meaning in the wrong place

October 25, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

Seth Godin's recent post, Is that it? addresses a core issue we're all forced to face head on now, in uncertain times. Trained as a nation to seek meaning in malls, we now see…it's not there.

Instead, we find:

It's in the great outdoors.

It's in our friends, our families, the loves of our lives, in their eyes and in their smiles.

It's in tapping and growing our talents.

Learning something new.

Giving, not getting.

Pushing through.

Carrying on.

Conquering a fear.

Living a truth.

Discovery.

Adventure.

Where do you find the greatest meaning in your life?

Is there a way that you, through your work, can help others to find greater meaning in their lives?

You might be surprised.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Customer Focus, Musings, People watching

Assumptions, assumptions…

October 25, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

We've seen in recent weeks and months the cost of making and holding on to incorrect assumptions.

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman under Presidents Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Younger admitted this week that he assumed financial institutions, if freed from much government oversight, would make decisions and take actions that were in everyone's best interests, not just their own.

It turns out that, like many things, oversight is best optimized, not just minimized.

And, it turns out, appropriate oversight has quantifiable value, not just cost.

Many benefited from that assumption, for a long, long time.

Now, however, we are all paying a hefty price now for Greenspan's and others' incorrect assumptions about the way the financial world would work if it were unfettered and allowed to charge down the road on its own. We will continue to pay the price for these painful lessons in ways as yet unknown.

And, if we are honest with ourselves, we're each probably holding on to assumptions that are best checked, corrected, or let go in some part of our lives.

Here's what a few others have to say about the cost of clinging too tightly to assumptions best tossed or revised:

What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more.
William of Occam

The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable.
Paul Broca

Assumptions allow the best in life to pass you by.
John Sales

The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there's gold in letting go of them.
John Seely Brown

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.
John W. Gardner

Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.
Marshall McLuhan

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
John Kenneth Galbraith

And finally, there's this pithy thought:

Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
Henry Winkler

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Customer Focus, Knowledge Management, Leadership, People at Work, Process Management, Quotes, Strategic Planning

Secret shop your own business

August 23, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

This is a cautionary tale. Not in the Life Drama sense.

But it is in the sense of preventing or reducing the daily hassles of life. Making it easy for people to do business with you instead of chasing business away.

The problem: I’ve been working my way through a shift in wireless internet providers. It was promised to be easy. It has been anything but.

Most lately, I recall these lessons:

- One change begets another.

- In the process of change, secret shop your own.

See if the changes you’re making are working as you hoped. Or if, instead, you’re driving business away.

I thought the many changes involved in this technology change were done. (Well, almost). But on a walk the other night with Zoe, the livelier of our canine companions, I thought I’d better secret shop by own business, and give my business landline a call.

The result?

Something sounding like an 1800’s phone line. (I know, I know…there were no phone lines in the 1800′s. My point, overall. It was a purposeful but frustrating call).

And so…

One more of many times in this process, I picked up the problem-solving thread and followed it:

1. Was it a problem with AT&T’s provisioning of changes in the phone line?
(There had been problems with that already. The order had to be re-placed after they dropped the ball at the point of order entry the first time around. We danced the dance a second time a week later. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t "fun" the first time around).

2. Or, did my own phone have to change now, too? (For so many reasons, this experience has made getting rid of the landline – already tempting – even more so).

I set up a few experiments, as I always do, to narrow down the possibilities, to try to shorten the cycle of "problem-solve."

After a little information gathering, it looks as if my equipment might need to be upgraded. I’ll give it a try. But if I’m right, it would have been nice to know.

Easy. Customer-focused. Creating a business environment in which the customer is, and continues to be, glad they’re doing business with you. Making it easy for them to stay (rather than looking for your competitors’ website and sales information).

Instead? I’m still schlumping from one problem to the next, trying to get each surprising new problem solved.

Again, then:

Secret shop your own business, and your own changes, whatever they are. See if they’re really working as well as you thought.

Filed Under: Business Results, Customer Focus, Knowledge Management, Process Management

Marketing and operations mismatch at the fast food counter

August 21, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

“I wish people would quit buying shakes!”

“We just sold five more! Two banana, three chocolate!” said the counter clerk to the cook, each doing his best to try to catch up with the orders rapidly building up.

We were waiting at the drive-through window of a fast food restaurant for the banana shakes that were taking FOREVER to make. I was also keeping an eye in the rear view mirror on the line of cars building up, angrily, behind us.

My reaction when I heard his lament?

I laughed. It was a great, graphic example of what happens at many companies when marketing and operations are mismatched.

Marketing had done its job in creating customer desire for a new product that they were diligently, creatively, effectively promoting.

But where someone had failed was in checking to see if operations – in this case, the kitchen and counter staff at individual restaurants – could actually make those shakes as rapidly and well as the advertising and marketing materials could sell them.

The net result?

We enjoyed our shakes during the long, last leg of a weeklong road trip.

But we also learned never to go back, if good, FAST food was what we really wanted (this isn’t our first experience with this company’s s…l…o…w service. The last time was long ago and we thought they might have changed).

The restaurant staff did the best they could, in the circumstances. But there was a big mismatch between what the advertising promised – what we were "taught" as customers to expect – and what they could actually deliver.

And that? Well, that’s not, ultimately, marketing success.

Filed Under: Customer Focus, People at Work, Process Management, Serendipity

You have 2 billion unread messages

July 8, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

You have 2,147,483,628 unread messages
Originally uploaded by jcgr.

A little work to catch up on, I guess.

This was the first of two, and the lesser of two unhelpful experiences with technology on this day.

The other was with my internet service provider (not AT&T in this particular case). It is cancelling its satellite broadband service in the area, much as we’d like to keep the service as it is.

So, to make sure they got the attention of customers before the change, more than three weeks hence, what did they do? Instead of e-mailing, calling yet again (they already had my attention…there was no need to bug me again) on this Monday morning?

They flipped a switch. Cut off the service on the Monday morning after the 4th of July when people are catching up on work that has built up over a three-day weekend.

No warning.

No request.

No apology.

Just cancelled service. On purpose.

The person I talked to told me (astounded) that they meant to. To get customers’ attention.

But what it did, in addition, was to show no respect for customers’ time or their own plans and directions, forcing them to drop everything and problem solve if they thought the problem was on their end, or to grit their teeth and head directly down the labyrinthine path that is the typical phone company customer service call experience.

All in the name of what was best for the company, itself, in the short-run. The long-run? Ahh, the long-run is another matter.

I cannot imagine what drove the person who made the decision to flip the switch to cut off service to thousands of customers, just like that, on a post-holiday Monday morning.

And all of it occurring right when the customers whose attention they wanted were deciding, for the long-run, which service provider is the "least worst." (I hate choosing the "least worst." It’s so much better for so many people and so many reasons to be able to choose from a league of the "best of the best" players.)

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Images, Knowledge Management, Process Management

Voting with your feet

June 28, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

I grew up learning to “vote with my feet,” as my mother described it. When a product or service was not good, she responded with action, not words. She took her business somewhere else.

One year she spent a lot of money on an Easter ham. When she opened the package to prepare the holiday meal, instead of the lean, beautiful ham she expected to find, she found…

A mountain of fat.

I don’t know what she served, instead – I can’t recall that meal, itself. But I do remember what action she took next. It became a family legend.

She didn’t stomp her feet, wring her hands, throw a fit or lose it. Instead, she boxed up that mountain of greasy fat and sent it to the company president. And then she got a response – a replacement ham.

Even so, she voted with her feet and moved her business elsewhere.

When service, once great, starts to slip gradually away, I’ll give the service provider, restaurant or store the benefit of the doubt. I may try to let them know how I think they can return to their previously stellar service.

But if the service continues to get careless, to slip away, we move our business somewhere else, to where we can tell they want it.

If you are a service provider of any type (doctor, dentist, retail store clerk or owner, consultant, designer, hairdresser…anything service-related at all) think about the service you’ve been providing lately. Consider:

- Do you like your work (be honest)? If so, it shows. If not, that shows, too. It makes a big difference in the quality of service you provide. If your answer is “no,” what steps can you take to explore alternative jobs, employers or locations? Can you change jobs and move now to something that fits you better, and makes better use of your interests and strengths?

- Do you care about the customers you have now? Again, it shows, whatever your answer is. If you like working with the ones you have, don’t take them for granted. A good customer is precious. If, on the other hand, you’d rather work with different customers, start to make changes so you start to attract the customers to your business, instead, with whom you work with best.

- Do you know what’s most important to your customers about the products and services you sell? Are you sure you know? You might be surprised, if you’re just guessing now. You may find that your customers are not as satisfied, overall, as you expect or hope.

- If you don’t know, ask. It may not be easy, but it’s very valuable information. I repeat: it’s VERY valuable information. It can help you retain, or refine the most important features of the products and services you provide. And that helps you keep the customers you have, and attract more of the customers you want to and can serve best.

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Knowledge Management, People at Work

Move the wave

June 8, 2008 By Jan Richards Leave a Comment

Never give up, ever give up?

That’s what sages from ages past advise.

However, sometimes quitting is most wise.

Sometimes the sagest decision of all is to stop and choose a better time, or to move and then renew the race, the climb, the attempt at crowd-moving, team-inspiring.

That’s the thought I had as I watched with some admiration, some amusement as one enthusiastic man tried to get a “wave” started, and fully alive in the upper deck of a recent Padres-Cubs game at Petco Park in San Diego.

The image of success this wave-starter surely had in mind? A beautiful, synchronous sweep of thousands of people rising and falling in a powerful rhythm all around the stadium, and then around, again, and again.

Instead, his third attempt at trying to breathe life, energy into this would-be event resulted in a “wave” of just one person: himself.

The lessons, I thought as I watched his valiant efforts, seemed to include:

- Know when to fold the tent.
- Size up the crowd, the conditions, and your own leadership skills. Learn from what worked, and didn’t.
- Refine.
- Try again in a better place, at a better time, or a better clime.
- Find, create or accelerate the conditions that are right for the “wave” to start, grab hold, and then pick up enough steam so it can roll on and on using the natural power and rhythm the experience releases in the crowd (it’s almost like having – or not having – the right conditions to form a cloud. Just enough of the right conditions, at the right time, in the right place leads to a cloud, instead of just dispersed moisture, air, energy).

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Leadership, People watching

Follow the thread of anger

June 1, 2008 By Jan Richards 2 Comments

Avoid angry people says Seth Godin in a recent post, “Angry people are different.” It’s not the only solution he suggests, but a primary one.

The question you must ask: Did you have anything to do with creating that anger? The answer MAY be “YES!”

And don’t just ask yourself…ask the customer.

You may find the anger was easily created at your company in ways such as these (there are others, too):
- Poor product or service design
- Inadequate employee training and follow-up
- Inconsistent or uncaring service
- Poor or “artificial” listening
- Expectations that reality can’t meet now…or yet (Twitter is having some experience with this these days)

Angry customers can leave rapidly, loudly, vowing never to return. But they may leave quietly, as well. Perhap, inattention to the details that count is quietly letting customers, business and profits leak away. My mother always said, “Customers vote with their feet. They can take their money and business somewhere else.”

In the moments-with-self when you realize you or your company may have had PLENTY to do with causing that angry person across the counter, well…in those cases, anger is VERY valuable information.

Anger is a thread, a trail you can follow to its source. And then remove that cause.

Find out what’s going on so you don’t create more angry people in the future – whether you can retrieve this customer relationship and future business with this person or company, or not.

What could that anger be telling you about:
- What you are not doing that you, or your advertising or promotion said you would
- What you or your employees are not listening to
- What you are not asking
- What you are not anticipating
- What you are not preventing
- What you are not noticing