Category Archives: Uncategorized

Why Getting Rejected is So Great for Relationships

Posted on 18 November 2009 by | 2 Comments

The software industry is faced with a challenge common to other industries; too many good ideas, and not enough time and money to implement them all.  This simple fact can hinder customer service if handled poorly.  When examining customer feature requests (either new ones or product modifications) there are two classifications: healthy and unhealthy.

Healthy

  • Implement the Customer’s Request – No mystery here, right?  Good and easy ideas reach consensus quickly.  When many customers share a need the marketplace self-validates.
  • Reject or Decline the Idea Quickly – Don’t confuse rejecting an idea with ignoring it.  Rejected ideas deserve greater consideration than implemented ideas.  Your company must provide a strong explanation regarding why an idea would be rejected. This rejection is a conversation with your customer.  “I heard you, I considered the idea, yet we will be pursuing another direction.”  Notice that healthy does not mean, without pain.  Customers whose ideas are declined will not be happy yet those same customers will respect your honesty.  That honesty breeds confidence which in turn enables open dialogue which yields future business opportunities.

Unhealthy

  • Provide Lip Service – Letting ideas meander aimlessly along the river Styx to suffer purgatory in an under review status is a coward’s way to work with customers and it does nothing to forge a lasting relationship.
  • Ignore the Request – When ideas are never considered companies send a strong, though silent, message: “your needs don’t matter.” One of the golden rules of service is listening to customers.  If companies fail this most basic of tests they should expect to lose customers.

The pivot point is that when fulfilling customers’ requests, whether for a type of service, a new product, or a product modification, rejecting customers’ requests (with tact) is an acceptable alternative.  Rejection hurts, but so does being strung along.  And no one wants that in their relationship.

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Posted in Influential Factors - Helpful, Uncategorized, When to Deliver Customer Service

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Too Big to Manage = Too Big to Succeed!

Posted on 13 November 2009 by | 2 Comments

In MIT’s Sloan Management Review Julian Birkinshaw and Suzanne Heywood miss an opportunity at a fun knock-out title, so I’ll take it.  However, the content is an excellent view into how complexity can negatively impact a business’s ability to function effectively.

Let’s follow the trail…

  • If your company is too big to manage, then by default it is unmanaged.
  • If your company is unmanaged, its survival relies on chance (good luck or bad).
  • If your company has bad luck then it fails.
  • Thus, if your company is too big to manage, it is too big to succeed.  (Of course, your company could have good luck.  Good luck with that plan.)

After interviewing executives at 900 companies Birkinshaw and Heywood found complexity caused problems,

“…from weak customer responsiveness and inefficient processes to high levels of confusion and stress among employees.”

As a customer advocate let me hone in on how complexity can hurt customers.

  1. Lost Customers – Organization complexity can mean that customers don’t know who to contact to receive support.  Companies are so complicated that they need to hire gate-keepers.  These gate-keepers are a source of knowledge but only of the organization type.  Their domain expertise is to know who to contact for what.  They are the yellow pages of complex companies.
  2. Expensive Products – Complex products hinder product implementation, thus adoption, thus any chance at realizing ROI (whether ROI is measured in dollars or happiness).  How much positive word of mouth marketing should you expect to garner when the product can’t be used?
  3. Slow Responses – Complexity can reduce the speed in getting answers to simple questions which may open the door to competitors.  When do customers welcome slow service when the competition can provide the same service faster?
  4. Stuck in Neutral – Customers can’t purchase a product they need when they need it.  Complex processes delay or prevent sales from being completed.  How many times has a contract been so convoluted that the customer did not know to what they were agreeing?

The pivot point is that when complexity gets in the way of satisfying customers, big problems are on the horizon… unless you’re fortunate enough to receive a federal bailout.  Then, even if your company is “too big to manage” and indeed, “too big to fail”, it may also be “too big to succeed”, which in the end is just “too bad for customers.”

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Posted in Customer Service, Influential Factors - Harmful, Influential Factors - Helpful, Uncategorized, Why Bother with Customer Service

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Third World or Disney World?

Posted on 5 November 2009 by | Leave a comment

I urge you to read an article titled “At the Base of the Pyramid”.  I disagree with much of it, but I guarantee a thought-provoking article.

For instance:

  • P&G states that “the real hurdle to cross when introducing a new product, in any market, is helping the consumer understand the benefit of doing something in a different way.”
  • Consumers “haven’t been conditioned to think that the products being offered are something one would even buy.” Sounds like consumers need a ringing bell to jump-start their Pavlovian response into purchasing bliss.
  • Marketers “must make the idea of paying money for the products seem natural, and they must induce consumers to fit those goods into their long-held routines.”

What?!

The fact that companies can induce customers into making a purchase is part of what makes capitalism work, but it also plays a part (think fast food) in why 18.9% of adults in the healthiest state (Colorado) are clinically obese.  Can slick marketing increase sales?  Sure, but at what cost?  Instead:

  • Make products valuable to consumers so paying is natural.  Then there will be no need to induce them to purchase.
  • Start with the consumer and deliver a product that meets a need.  That alone should provide the foundation for a business plan.

The pivot point is that we will all be better off if we identify what consumers need, versus what we can get them to pay for.  It doesn’t matter whether the market is the Third World or Disney World.

(Towards the end of the article you’ll notice that the author’s intent is to encourage (and enlist) community support when developing a market.  Part of that development is to:  see which products might be useful, determine which ones would be profitable to ultimately answer the question of which products consumers will value.  Now that makes sense!)

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Posted in Influential Factors - Harmful, Influential Factors - Helpful, Uncategorized

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