When you look at the Cost of Behaviour it is surprising that so few business managements seem to understand the massive difference between the “problem” and “the consequences” when it comes to their market, product and service reputation. It is amazing how one little bit of “careless” can multiply itself into a major customer relationship problem, and even to a reputational threat. I have just experienced it.
So many organisations continue to believe that Customer Satisfaction is demonstrated by the absence of complaints, or by the use of glib and biased questionnaires (true, I’ve seen ratings offered from “Satisfactory” to “Excellent”), by the deflection of all questions (good or bad) into so called “Customer Service” departments or, what seems to be the standard NHS approach, by outright denial followed by legal obfuscation and cover up. Of course Renault (Clio bonnet catch) and BMW Mini (engine bay fires) also tried this approach, until eventually, they were found out – what has it cost them in sales? Then there are those that believe that if you shout “We Are the Best” loud enough and long enough, people might believe it; British Airways proved that didn’t work. Then there is the Ryanair approach.
We are positive that there are people in these organisations, almost without exception, who have analysed down to hundredths of a penny, the financial cost of putting the matter right – and not one who has evaluated the sales potential of a solution that makes customers happy – the “bean counter” attitude rules. And, watch this space, as we have predicted in our other blogs, Kraft are busy squeezing Cadbury’s quality down the same pathway to doom.
There are outstanding exceptions. One major parcels service targets its loyal customers, including all relevant employees who come into contact with them or their systems, with “What Can We Do Better” surveys; they invite their customers’, who know them inside out, into their own continuous micro-improvement processes. It is no surprise that they are going from strength to strength even in these difficult times. Currently Bosch Service Engineers are visiting thousands of homes to replace, free of charge, electronic controllers (discovered to have a low probability safety hazard) in dishwashers that can be up to 12 years old and, because of the way in which it is being done, giving customers a totally seamless and excellent service experience – it will sell more Bosch Home Goods.
We repeat that it is the attitudes, behaviours and beliefs of a business leadership and management that determine the performance of the organisation. And one of the quickest and sharpest ways to gain insight into the quality of these attitudes, behaviours and beliefs is to look at how they deal with their customers.
I have just been reminded of something I wrote for a client 20 years ago
Every time you get something WRONG, and your Customer finds out about it before you do,
then you have made your Customer become...Your Quality Manager
1 Your Customer did not volunteer for the job - Your Customer thinks it is your job
2 The facts do not matter - only what Your Customer Thinks
3 Your Customer expects to be "paid" for doing your job
4 Your Customer expects to be treated courteously and promptly
5 Delay damages Credibility - the longer you take to tell him "your truth", the more chance Your Customer will believe someone else's, and the less likely Your Customer will trust you
6 If you delay too long, then no one will believe you whatever the virtue of your case -there is no justice
7 If you do not deliberately engage the Good Will of your Customer - then you have volunteered to be given his Bad Will, or even to be offered Vengeance
8 The "better", or more long standing, the Customer, the greater the chance that getting it wrong will bring more trouble to you rather than less
So:- It is BEST not to get anything Wrong
but....
If you cannot get it Right - at least - Handle it Right with the Customer
OR GIVE UP YOUR CUSTOMERS (and close the business)
BEFORE THEY GIVE YOU UP!
What reminded me of all this?
I have just bought a used car from a franchise dealership of a brand that I trust utterly, even admire. To my surprise it has not been a good experience and it became a bad one. Was it a Big Problem? Not at the start, just some missing but important documents. After an increasingly stressful month of non-performance and responsibility dodging , I was beginning to think that the whole dealership was rotten from top to bottom. I had totally lost confidence in them and, for the first time in over 20 years, the brand. Multiply that a few hundred times and you are set to repeat the whole BMC, Leyland, Rover tragedy.
It took one competent person 24 hours to solve my initial problem, and to start to restore my confidence in the dealership. I suspect that the carelessness of only one person was enough to create, and then fuel, the whole situation and my Bad Experience – attitude, behaviour and beliefs?
However, I have been through all the steps from 1 to 8, so what the dealership’s management do next will determine how I feel about them and the brand.
In our next post we will talk about how to recruit your best, your largest and your cheapest sales force.
The Cost of Behaviour is brought to you by Steve Goodman, Tony Ericson, Terry Murphy and Barbara Craven, the founding partners of Achievement Coaching International where we help businesses to learn different thinking to enable different actions that deliver the different resultsthat Make the Big Differences that Transform Results.
This series looks at the corrosive and far reaching effects for business profitability, and even survival, of failures in behaviour. It challenges all those that believe in “don’t rock the boat”.
You might also be interested in our "Excellence Quartet" of blogs promoting the cause of Excellence as the key to prosperity. We publish regular articles using a recent business/financial topic to highlight different perspectives and conclusions to those obtained by conventional thinking and techniques. You can read the other four blogs at our web site link page.
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