TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS, WELL SOMETIMES!!!

By Jim Patrick

Well, if you have recently called a help line or support center, the wounds might still be really deep due to a poor customer experience! A decade and a half ago, customer service and support was really helpful; but today, the experience is dreadfully painful

Few thought it could possibly become any worse. But, America have I got news for you; help lines have gone from not helpful at all and dreadful to painfully unhelpful and horrid. Now for the record, let me point out this took a real effort to accomplish. The formula was very complex and very calculated in the making. But, here in this blog, right here, right now, I will uncover the secret formula for painfully unhelpful service and support lines. Here we go and do take notes as there will be a test to follow….

First, start will one cash strapped American corporation with a CEO who manages only to the bottom-line. Add half dozen supportive board members who are threatened by a single large or institutional investor.

Now, you take the aforementioned and scrabble thoroughly in a series of polite, but totally hostile board meetings until deadlocked is accomplished.

OEM a product you know next to little about from a starving small group of entrepreneurs and immediately fire those that are the most knowledgeable and high paid. These individuals are easy to spot as they have the patents and are paid at 20% of what is paid for similar resources internally.

It time now to blend carefully the positive, fresh and can do spirit of the acquired company into your stodgy and politically infused culture until the positive and fresh can no longer be found.

You are doing remarkable well so far in your quest to offer horrid and painfully unhelpful services. Be proud of the damage you are already inflecting, but, the corporate goals will be made this year and the bonuses are being readied with care.

It’s now time to set up your support centers.   Add a large dose of Curry, Tabasco or Soy to the mix. Make sure you buy the very least expensive available and add a heaping bucket of wait time ‘on hold ‘with at least 10 levels of choices on your 20 year old IVRS system.

Be sure to staff to only 70% of required capacity so as not to overdue the service part. The goal here is to make the callers go back and read the poorly documented instructions or to just give up in totally fatigue and stress,

Remember that a caller wait time of less than 7 minutes is too little. Keep the costs low no matter what it takes; did I say no matter what it takes.

Ok, you are doing nicely…now bake in a non climate controlled call center daily for 24 hours. We want our agents to be a carefree; excuse me, I meant to say uncaring as possible. Staff 1 supervisor to every 200 agents only if you really have to. No supervisor to be found is better; then no one can talk to a supervisor.

Offer 3 languages; mediocre English; poor English and the most desired; @%&!!&% English.

Now you are ready. You have a worthless and world classless and horrid support and unhelpful center that is guaranteed to be painful to callers.

For the advanced corporate tightwad, consider adding robotic chat line help. This is wonderfully painful on that customer who is beyond ever considering purchasing a service or product ever offered by your company with a half life of not less than 200 years! You should be proud of your accomplishments as you will make your bottom-line numbers for the year.

Now there is an alternative to the ‘painful and horrid’ approach rendered thus far. A new breed of CEO who enjoys happy customer, happy employees and a happy community might consider this alternative recipe.

First, fully understand that the cost to acquire and retain a customer can be very high. But, loyalty and care begets loyalty and care. Kind of sounds like to Golden Rule momma taught us as ‘lil kids’…you know how it goes…

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12, Matthew 22:39, Luke 6:31)

There are whole communities located right here in the good ole US of A that can offer better service that will make the customer experience pain free. Just look to your left, now look to your right…wow, there really are people right here available to serve American customers….

Just one old man’s opinion….

Staying in the Game

 By Jim Patrick

At times of turbulence we tend to pull out all of the old maxims to garner the inspiration to manage the times.   Remember ‘It’s not all about winning; it’s about how you play the game’?  In today’s’ business game this one might not go far enough as it applies to businesses making tactical maneuvers to navigate the seas of turbulence.    A miscalculation today could mean a company may not be in the game for the second decade of the century!  

Except for those living on Mars or in a cave; everyone knows that we are in the midst of very turbulent times.  This ‘situation’ we find ourselves in is not an exclusive club for American companies.  It reaches far beyond our purples mountains majesties and engulfs business around the world.   OK you say, as if I wasn’t scared enough, now you’ve added a global bogie man to the mix.   Stop panicking and looking in the closet for your own version of the bogie man; instead, businesses need to go to their electronic data warehouses for the information to make accurate decisions.

He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!

That global bogie  man might also be affecting your own supply chain; your suppliers; those you share a fox hole in order to survive.  What do you really know about the health of your suppliers, their credit line or even the health and credit lines of their suppliers?

Business intelligence and lots of it is the most important item in the survival arsenal.  Today’s, management needs to put in place business intelligence dashboards to quickly understand what is happening to take the steps to go forward!

Circle the Wagons!

The tools to defend a company’s boarders are there right now.   They can be put in place quickly.  So what is the call to action?

CEOs will need to gather their leadership teams together and quickly determine what information is currently housed in the existing data warehouses. Bringing in the right external resources to help design the systems to get to the data is the key.  No, I am not suggesting high dollar and high platitude consultants.  Instead, find true partners who understand how to quickly architect a solution that can be put in place within weeks. 

This partner should not just be a quick swat team that swoops in and then leaves, but instead needs to be looked at as a long term strategic partner who will continue to evolve the decision support and business intelligence vault.  Look to a sturdy and long term player who will be there until the solution is fully functional and beyond.

‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going!’  

Toughness might not be enough to get thru this crisis.  Smart and tough is the answer.  Toughness to insist that managers determine what data points are needed to make the right decisions.   Smartness to share with suppliers and key customers the intelligence gathered and to ask for access to their data as well.  ‘Survival Cartels’ of companies working collaboratively to tune their forecasts and fuel their ERP systems will determine who is in the game in the next decade and who is not.  The game plan is to quickly build the data bridges that can make the data flow now.

Do something…either lead, follow or get the heck out of the way!

Well, someday we’ll look at that, but right now we are managing the crises; is a guarantee there will not be that proverbial someday in a company’s future.  

Events that effect business happen daily, even hourly!   Determining what the most expedient move using the right intelligence could steer a company out of harms way.  Not having access to the said data or waiting could spell certain disaster.

Continuing to do the samo-samo business tactics doesn’t show sound leadership.   ‘The times are a changing’ for business and change is the order of the day.   Leadership can only make intelligent changes with access to sound data and the means to measure the changes or abandon them quickly and collaboratively with their supply chains.

Now is the time for all good persons to come to the aid of their country!

We are all in this mess together…every man, woman, child, dog or cat…everyone.  True patriotism is oft times measured in terms of political ideals.   In this case, true patriotism is measured in keeping people employed, consuming and enjoying life as it should be.   Not using all the tools available to serve the stockholders, the employees and the GNP is more than ignorance; it is truly not coming to the aid of your country!

Just one ole fat man’s opinion….

The Best is yet to come…the world of exciting business changes are just ahead

by Jim Patrick

Excuse me Mr. Sinatra for paraphrasing your song….

Out of the tree of life, I just picked me some fun
The right time just came along and everything started to hum
Still it's a real good bet, the best is yet to come
The best is yet to come, and won't that be fine
You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine
Wait till the warm-up is underway
Wait till out the challenges have been met
Wait till you see that sunshine day
You ain't seen nothin' yet
The best is yet to come, and won't that be fine

 Yeah, I know that the economy here and abroad is far from healthy.  You see everyone want to see things change and when change gets in to full gear with the support of both the multitudes and the boardrooms; it really takes off and that’s what is about to happen.

 The economies of the traditional Western economies have been focused on cost cutting and operating improvements for almost 2 decades.   The Western business schools have turned out many brilliant leaders who have been well steeped in supply side economics and knowing the best ways to pull another turnip out of the turnip they already pulled blood out of .  They are that good…really!

Boards have been carefully instructed by large institutional investors to improve yields for years.  Many of these investors are pension funds; you know the very folks that have to start paying out to the throngs of baby boomers after they still pay their long living parents.  Who can blame them for wanting the best ROI for their investors?

Now, here the good part; those turnips we discussed have run out and there aren’t any more on the near term horizon.   That means that the only pathway out is to get creative!   You got it, we are about to get a good hard kick in the pants to reinvent our businesses.   That means that the personalities that were called for years ‘loose cannons, dreamers, tech gurus etc’ are back in vogue!

Now here’s a big secret, don’t tell anyone else please as it is our secret, Asia and the emerging world economies already know this as their younger populations accept change must faster!

Technology will be even more important as we go forward.  Better business intelligence, CRM, SAAS and SOA will be the driving catalysis’s.   There might even be a ‘cloud’ or two as we weather the storms of change.  Mobile technologies and social websites will become main stream.

Who’s going to come out on top; well bluntly, the folks that have the best resources first?  Recruiting and outsourcing will be critical to being on top as no one company will have all the resources required.    Yes, the best is yet to come and the winners will be all of us who know how to leverage new technologies the best.     America will be in the lead again…where it belongs!

The best is yet to come, and won't that be fine

Just on ole fat man's opinion....