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Business Growth: Complexity & Mixed Messages in Customer Service

Posted by Evan Smith on Mon, Nov 09, 2009
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Don Mick wrote of a recent automotive service experience...  one with which many might empathize. 

In his post, he writes of being alternately blessed (with affirmations and appreciation of his status as a customer of the auto dealership) and cursed (with negative and diminishing encounters that communicate that--as a customer--he's a bother and an inconvenience)--all within the same customer service transaction.  As a business leader, please consider the following observations:

  1. How challenging is it, for even energetic and well-intentioned leaders to get all of the parts of an organization (and the people working within the organization) on the same page/ engaging with customers in a consistent and synchronous fashion?
  2. How confusing and anxiety-provoking is this experience for the customer, a "whipsaw" effect? I hazard that the absence of consistent and clear communication regarding a customer's status, is in fact an overall strong negative/ "dissatisfier", with regard to how that customer feels about the dealership/ service provider;
  3. How little of this story is really about immediate "competence". Most of Don's story is really about empathy (or the lack thereof), the ripple effects of poor quality (first, in the product; then, in the service-event that attempted to fix the product), and the missing "end-to-end view" of the customer transaction and the "special" customer, by the dealership service team, and by a single dealership "owner."

Simply proclaiming customers as "special" and providing them with "bling" does not make them so.  Even if service providers proclaim it (but don't act consistently with the proclamation) customers sure won't believe it.

Only when an organization actually organizes its work with the customer (and the customer's experience) at the center, as a top priority--and changes "business as usual"--will consistent messages, and unqualifiedly happy customers, emerge from the front doors.

As a business leader/ manager:  What is YOUR "teaching story" of a specific moment of customer engagement--and what did you observe/ learn from it, both about yourself as a customer--and/ or about the perspective of the service provider?

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Comments

Thanks for your comments Evan. Your point about not focusing on competence is interesting. I think, perhaps, that I was afraid I would sound to harsh if I focused too sharply on competence. A little less CRM spin and a little more competence would have been a better customer experience.
Posted @ Tuesday, November 10, 2009 4:06 AM by Don Mick
Evan - you bring up so many important points here; this is a wonderful little story with a great deal of relevant content. The very first point you make about problems of alignment ("...get all of the parts of an organization...on the same page") is one that deserves its own industry segment, in my opinion. That's essentially the macro view of what is at stake here. But your third point about empathy is what really struck me as being the key to this issue. Clearly, the employees' "conventional wisdom" (as you put it, "business as usual") is the determinant of behavior. I've heard it said that "every action begins with a thought." If that's true, then the root cause of the problem seems to come from (or through) the thinking of these employees. But what's the root cause of this thinking? I say it's their belief system, most specifically, their value system. And alignment of these values with that of the organization is a management imperative, plain and simple. But how many managers consciously realize this? And how many of those actually do something about it? Do they know? Do they have a way of measuring it? Doubtful. Until such management consciousness emerges, then we can all count on "business as usual" as the norm. Only when inspired prioritization of empathic customer focus (among others) is driven deliberately and strategically from within the value system of the rank-and-file employee base will the behavior be driven in a value-creating (rather than value-destroying) way. Well, that's my opinion, and I'm stickin' with it ;)
Posted @ Saturday, February 27, 2010 8:21 AM by Charlie Garland
Charlie--thanks for writing. I like the term "inspired prioritization of empathic customer focus". The real management challenge - in a world where organizations have squandered employee goodwill, and the "social contract" no longer includes employees' loyalty, and where few of us are working truly at "our best" - is how to create this focus. I'd like to see more exploration about how we can nurture virtuous and simpatico responses from our staff. We'll all benefit - as partners, as customers, and as leaders.
Posted @ Thursday, March 04, 2010 10:22 PM by Evan Smith
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