Walker Information Blog

As I write this, I am sitting in a plane.  High in the sky.  Over an ocean.  And I’ll be up here for five more hours.  And this plane I’m in… the thing is, it’s big.  Also – it’s heavy.  I don’t know exactly how heavy, but I know one thing for sure:  this plane is way too heavy to be able to stay up in the air. Quite simply, it shouldn’t be here. 

But here’s the other thing:  I’m wrong. (That admission took a lot out of me… let’s agree to never speak of it again.) At any given time, there are hundreds if not thousands of planes flying around.  And people who know more than I do about these things understand the why and the how of this.

And my point is this… for every one thing that we ourselves don’t understand or can’t believe is possible, there is somebody who does understand it.  So when I fly, I need to start from a position of trust:  trust that the experts have gone about this whole plane thing in the right way.  Trust that I will arrive safely at my destination.

The same concept applies to any area in which there are experts.  Including Voice of Customer programs – though here there often seems to be one notable difference: Voice of Customer is an area in which many people fancy themselves to be experts. They want to do it themselves, or poke holes in a methodology, or disbelieve the results because they don’t match up with what they were expecting.  But here again is a situation which requires starting from a position of trust: you need to trust in the expertise of those who know about these things, get beyond your doubts, and spend your energy thinking about how you are going to use the results to improve your relationships, help your customers, and drive business performance.  In other words, trust that the experts are going to get you to your destination.

Several weeks ago, I met with a client who had faced exactly this situation in prior presentations of Voice of Customer feedback.  At the end of last year, when it came time for her to share results, she met with the most influential person in her audience ahead of time and they had a candid discussion: either they could spend a day wasting everybody’s time debating and defending the methodology and merits of the research and recommendations, or they could accept that the program was well-designed and well-implemented by a team of experts, herself included, and spend their day productively, building action plans to address customer needs.  Can you guess what they did?

This post is the beginning of a series I'm titling, "Troy's Macro-Microblog." I use Twitter some but do not post very frequently. I struggle with the 140 character restriction, but I also find the restriction helps me be more concise and focused, something many of you know I struggle with given previous multi-part blog posts! So, I decided to launch a series of blog posts restricted to 140 words. Not sure how long I can keep this up (I just used 90 words introducing the series), but here it goes!

Post #1: Cynic vs. Skeptic in fact-based decision making

A cynic wants to put down any idea that is not theirs or they don’t already believe in.

A skeptic wants to find a solution but will require reasoned support that solution, even if it's theirs. That's a key differentiator: If you don’t hold your own ideas to the same standard of proof that you hold other people’s ideas, then you are a cynic.

Cynic: “That will never work because I don’t think it will work.”

Skeptic: “I think X and Y could cause a problem. Do you agree or disagree? Why?”

Fact-based decision makers have to be skeptics, but it is too easy to become a cynic, and that will destroy a healthy, fact-based problem-solving culture.

I get a kick out of the AT&T ads (examples here and here) showing how the pace of things is so fast that the savvy user of the HTC Vivid with 4G is always informed and ahead of the game.

While the commercials are informative and entertaining, the application makes sense for how customer strategists build better customer relationships.

The most common example that has gotten attention is the way some companies have monitored social media sites to identify customer complaints and quickly address them. In doing so, they salvage a customer relationship and impress consumers with their attention to customer issues.

I prefer to consider uncommon examples, like complex customer relationships in a B-to-B environment. We've seen terrific examples of companies that have closely monitored feedback from surveys that trigger alerts notifying account managers of customers issues that need to be addressed and opportunities to pursue. In one example a company identified more than 5,000 issues that were logged and prioritized for action. What's more, they prompted sales opportunities that delivered more than $200 million in new sales.

This was all done by setting up a system that included the following:

• Good lists - insights are gathered from the right customers
• Good design - to incorporate triggers to identify issues, opportunities
• Good training - account managers understand their role
• Good buy-in - everybody sees the benefit for them and for the company
• Good tools - an online documentation system ensures follow up
• Good measurement - the ROI is measured to validate the payoff

• Show results and data in ways people enjoy and understand.
  
  
• Develop strategies for customers in both developed and developing areas of the world (although these are becoming increasingly more similar).
  
  
• Consistently think of future trends when developing customer strategies.

As a customer strategist, your role is to help your organization listen to customers and develop customer strategies that will help to earn more from customer relationships. (e.g. Strengthen customer loyalty. Retain customers. Attract new customers. Grow market share. Develop new markets. Be innovative.) It’s a big responsibility. As a result, it is important to have the required knowledge, experience, and expertise. 

But, what if you don’t have all of the answers? Our culture often sets the stage for people to feel compelled to give the impression they have all the answers - even when they don't. Despite that cultural phenomenon, I am starting to see signs where vulnerability is valued.

·         In the book Getting Naked, Patrick Lencioni challenges service providers to be, “completely transparent and vulnerable with clients in order to overcome the three fears that ultimately sabotage client allegiance.” 

·         A recent Harvard Business Review - Management Tip of the Day encouraged readers to, “Admit you don’t know all of the answers.” 

·         Steven D. Levitt made the case that it can pay to say, “I don’t know,” on the new Freakonomics Radio Podcast.   Pretending to know the answer to something can be destructive and makes it impossible to learn.

Of course one can’t use this approach all the time. But surely, no one is fooled into thinking we always have all of the answers…

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

• Things about you that everybody knows – your hair color, your eyes, your height, weight, etc. (arena)

• Things that others know about you, but you do not see - annoying habits or shortcomings (blind spot).

• Things you know that others don’t – your habits, your secrets (facade).

• Things you don’t know about yourself and others don’t know – subconscious things that make you do the things you do (unknown).

There is a saying (the only attribution I can find is that it comes from a fortune cookie!) that goes, “Though we cannot change the direction of the wind, we can adjust our sails.” With the uncertainty being thrown at us over the last few years, we have all had to make a lot of adjustments in our sails.

But, what adjustments do we make? What direction is the wind blowing? What direction will it blow?

There is no better compass for businesses than their customers. While simply asking them where you should go clearly sends the wrong message (a message of weakness), asking the right questions will help you find your way.

1.      Ask your customers where their business is headed. Who better to travel with than your customers? Find out what they think is happening in their markets and work together to address those markets.

2.      Ask your customers what challenges they are encountering. As the line from Jerry Maguire goes, “Help me, help you.” You don’t have to be quite that dramatic about it, but you get the idea. Nothing will endear you to your customers more than helping them solve their problems.

3.      Ask your customers what challenges their customers are encountering. Not only is this a good indication of pressures in the market, it will also allow you to add more value for your customer by helping them help their customers to succeed.

4.      Ask your customers where they are spending their innovation dollars. Are there any areas where co-creation might make sense? Working together in a successful initiative can create an unbreakable bond.

The real key is open communication with your customers about topics that will enable you both to adjust your sails and take advantage of the power created by the wind. Working together with your customers for the benefit of their businesses will have a dramatic and positive impact on yours.

Have you ever had a two-by-four moment? By that, I mean an “a-ha” experience. It’s like someone hit you with a two-by-four and all of a sudden you have clarity about the situation. You see things in a brand new way.

Recently an executive of a leading U.S.-based distribution organization had a “two-by-four” moment when he reviewed their Customer Loyalty results. His company is pursuing a growth strategy, with the goal of increasing profitability and sales. In an effort to better understand the market position, the VOC initiative included a measure to gauge share of wallet. On first glance their results are extremely positive. They have the vast majority of their customers’ business.

But, wait a second. There is a small portion of business that is going to the competition. That share of business going to the competition is increasing. Furthermore, when you translate the amount of business that is going to other organizations into lost sales – here it comes – they are missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue.

The two-by-four moment: They left money on the table by not pursuing all potential business with new customers.

·         When acquiring new customers they targeted the core business, obtaining about 90% share on average.

·         Over time, their share of wallet eroded as the customer grew relationships with other providers (e.g. down to 80% SOW within five years).

Are you maximizing relationships with your customers?

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

• My child isn’t doing well in school, but that’s because his teacher isn’t spending enough time with him.
• We would have won the game if the referee didn’t practically give it to the other team.
• Our business didn’t do well this quarter, but that’s because the economy is down.
• We didn’t reach our goal of bringing in new customers, but that’s because the market just doesn’t understand our value.

Do you ever feel that no matter what heights you achieve, your customers are never happy? Do you ever feel that as a customer you are taken for granted? If you are like most everyone, your answer to both questions is, “Yes.” And here is the really crazy thing—those feelings are happening on both sides of the same relationship!

One pretty common human emotion that causes this is the propensity to feel like the “grass is greener on the other side.”

If our customers are thinking that we take them for granted, yet we are continuing to deliver and go above and beyond, what gives? What causes such a disconnect? We may think we are pulling out all the stops to make them so happy they would never think about trying the grass on the other side, but often we are trying the wrong things in the eyes of our customers.

Every restaurant wants to give me a punch card, and I know they are trying to give me a free meal to get me to eat there more often. The problem is, I hate carrying around the punch cards and I never remember to bring them so they become more of a nuisance than a gift. They may think they are going out of their way to do something nice for me. It just isn’t anything meaningful to me.

Reach out to your customers and find out what they need from you. What would show them your efforts to go above and beyond? What could you do that would surprise them (positively!) and keep them loyal to you?

Find out what they are thinking, what they want, what they need, and deliver. You know the grass is not greener on your competitor’s side of the fence. Now prove it to your customers.

I have a sign that sits in front of me on my desk in a place that I can’t help but see it many times each day. It is number 17 of the Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive and it says:

Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.

I can’t get this off my mind today. I met this morning with a friend who is an account manager for a large technology company and he told me about a little trouble he has been having with one of his larger accounts. “Yeah, we dropped the ball on a couple things and they are upset. I’ll give it some time and they will come around.”

Come around? Customers don’t come around. They respond to the value that we offer them through the experience they receive (including our products and services and the way we take care of them). When they have a good experience with us, they increase their share of wallet with us. When the experience is bad, they increase their share of wallet with our competitors that offer a better experience.

So while my friend is practicing Zen-like patience waiting for his customer to come around, his competitors are about to discover that their persistence in providing value is about to pay off.

If patience includes taking customers for granted, settling for the status quo and finding reasons not to take actions to improve the experience your customers receive, it is no virtue. It is a curse.

Customers require constant attention; actually, they deserve constant attention. Those who provide it will prosper. Those who wait for their customers to come around will suffer.