Chapter 4 – Getting Your House in Order

“I just work here.”

That’s the response I get from front line associates in companies that don’t have their house in order.  These are companies that haven’t recognized how important customers are.  I have recently experienced the “I just work here” comment with my cable TV provider.  I was calling to add an extra service.  While reviewing my account, this poor agent learned from his supervisor that my current service hadn’t been priced right to begin with.  They weren’t charging me enough.

I explained that it didn’t seem to make sense.  They set the price.  Their pricing is sufficiently confusing anyway so it’s virtually impossible for the average customer like me to figure it out.  In fact it’s so confusing their own people can’t interpret it.

This guy had been told by his supervisor to set me straight about the pricing, and increase my base monthly fee even if I didn’t buy the new service.  He was also told to explain to me that I was lucky they weren’t going to charge me retroactively for all the months I was getting away with a deal.

Companies that don’t have their house in order treat customers as adversaries.  They often feel that customers are trying to lie, cheat and steal their way through life by getting a better deal from everyone they do business with.  These companies don’t promote an atmosphere of listening and collaboration.  Instead they promote an atmosphere of suspicion and closed-mindedness.

Does Your Company Allow Customers to be Loyal?

I often ask this question.  Does your company allow customers to be loyal?  Does your culture encourage and support customer collaboration?  Much of this has to do with the extent to which employees in your company are allowed to make decisions to take care of customers.

There are many legendary stories of exceptional customer service.  The retail employee that allowed a customer to return a set of tires even though the retailer didn’t sell tires.  The hotel employee who jumped on a plane to ensure a guest had his laptop computer in time for an important presentation.  These examples demonstrate a common thread in the two companies.  Employees are encouraged and allowed to make decisions to help customers.  Even if the decisions cost the company money.

Let me point out a psychological barrier that many companies face.  This is a barrier that keeps many companies from establishing the kind of environment that allows this level of customer collaboration.  It’s a barrier of fear and mistrust.

Management in some companies fear that allowing employees to make decisions may cost the company too much money.  Fear is linked to mistrust.  Management does not trust employees to make rationale decisions.  In fact, employees typically make extremely rationale decisions.  When they’re allowed to make choices, they agonize over these choices to be sure they make sense.  On balance, employees want to do what’s right.  Given the duty, responsibility and authority to make things right by customers, they will exercise their judgement as if the money were their own.

Culture

Is your company’s culture one that focuses on customers?  Culture is created and sustained by the words and action of its leaders.  Do the leaders in your company talk about customers in an open and honest way?  Do leaders encourage employees to think about customers when they make daily decisions?

You can typically get a sense of an organization’s culture by sitting through a few meetings.  I’ve been in meetings in which people don’t want to debate with a “higher ranking” person in their organization.  People are careful about what they say.  These are signs of an organization that practices management by fear.  People are afraid they’ll get punished for doing or saying the wrong thing.  Choices are carefully considered.  Risks are not taken.  Everything is safe.  Innovation is non-existent.

I’ve been in meetings in which everyone engages, speaks their mind and debates.  Regardless of rank, everyone jumps in and has their say.  This is an organization that genuinely encourages thinking, innovation, ideas and choices.  This is an organization that is likely more tuned-in to its customers as well.  This organization learns from its mistakes.  It innovates.  It’s not afraid to be different.  It has passion.

Managing Customers

Manage customers, not just products and channels.

There are many organizational silos that preclude companies from achieving breakthroughs in marketing.  Bank of Asia was able to innovate and implement a loyalty strategy that touched all its product lines.  It’s not something you see in most banks.  Barnes & Noble was able to bridge the gap between channels to ensure its Readers’ Advantage program spans bricks and mortar stores as well as its on-line business.

I’m not suggesting that companies abandon the idea of establishing accountability for a product line or a channel of distribution.  I’m saying there must be an element of the organization that has responsibility for customers.  There must be responsibility and authority for ensuring that marketing strategies and programs make sense through the eyes of the customer.  This role is the customer advocate.

Marketing and IT

Some of the best ideas ever conceived never happened because of barriers between the marketing department and the information technology (IT) department.  Is this an issue in your company?

Some of it comes down to a language barrier.  Marketing people often get frustrated because they feel they can’t get a straight answer from their IT counterparts.  IT people often get frustrated because they feel their marketing counterparts don’t know what they’re doing, or they don’t understand the complexity of what they’re proposing.

You’ve got to understand the source of this language barrier.  IT can, at times, be a thankless job.  Often blamed, rarely commended.  That’s their tagline.  Something’s broke, they hear about it for sure.  Something’s working perfectly, not a word.  These kinds of situations can create environments in which IT departments don’t want to innovate.  They simply want to do what they must and avoid making mistakes.

Keep in mind this is not because they’re bad people.  They just need to be made a part of the process early on.  Create a cross-functional team and include your IT counterparts in all your discussions about loyalty.  Don’t just bring them in when you need to talk about a specific thing you want them to do.   That kind of behavior makes people feel like vendors, not partners.

Disparate Customer Information

Does your company have loads of customer information trapped in multiple, incompatible and inaccessible systems?  Not unusual.  If you don’t, congratulations.  You’re one of the lucky ones.  If you do, don’t fret.  You’re not alone.  This dilemma is a typical one that companies must overcome to get their house in order.  Unfortunately, the initiative is often over-engineered.  The requirements discussion takes years.  The specifications won’t fit in a single binder.  It never gets off the ground.

The key to success in bringing together multiple, disparate data sources is focus and pragmatism.  Your organization needs to see that it can be done.  Focus on short-term milestones you can deliver on.  These milestones create enthusiasm and momentum in your company and help keep your efforts alive.

Depending on the type of company you’re in, you may already have customer transaction level information.  If you don’t, there’s another barrier to overcome.

Does your technology support the linkage between a customer number and transaction information?  Never mind for the time being how you’ll get the customer to identify himself.  That’s another story.  If he does identify himself, can you capture that ID number and link it with his transactions.  If you can’t now, what will it take to be able to do it?  This is another big marketing/IT collaboration question.

What to do Next

Don’t feel paralyzed if you’re house is not in order.  Getting your house in order is a journey, not a destination.  You’ll always be working on it.

I encourage people to identify the most critical things that need to be addressed before undertaking a loyalty initiative.  It doesn’t mean you need to fix everything.  In fact, it’s better to test some simple, relationship building marketing activities while you correct some of your organizational deficiencies.  Creating and sharing marketing success stories will help you build enthusiasm for more organizational improvements.

Break your problems into manageable chunks and move forward.  Once you’ve considered the extent to which you’re house is in order, it’s time to move on to the Customer Loyalty Audit.