Chief Customer Officer - scientist or artist?

You may need to be more of a management artist than management scientist to get somewhere as Customer Chief Officer in your business and make things Fast+Simple. At least judging by reactions of many CCOs this week.

At our Executive Breakfast seminar we had some fabulous discussions about what practical people are doing to "stop doing dumb things to customers and people". Hosted with Darren Cornish of Norwich Union, we had a great time with liked minded people who passionately believe this a mission worth fighting for! Though I'm not sure about the Canon&Ball analogy, Darren... rock on Tommy

“Proving the $ value of what you believe in, steering the ship by numbers, swamping the operations with metrics which are not actionable – none of it necessarily changes anything as far as the customer is concerned” said Peter Massey, Managing Director of Budd. Whoops, thats me quoted in a press release. I could also say that some people just dont care enough about the detail of what happens to customers - they accept poor delivery and poor service, poor management. They substitute training with numbers, personal attention with reports. They just don't spend enough time at the coal face, or getting the right information to them every day. Chief customer officers are different. They share a mad passion for all these things - they are not prepared to sit back and do nothing, to say nothing. As my colleague Jonathan says "what's the opposite of honesty?" No its not dishonesty, its silence!"

Some of the practical learnings shared this week were:

• There’s too much emphasis on putting in complicated metrics and measurement, compared to the effort going into “moving the dial” and actually getting things done that change the working and customer experiences people have. The science of managing interactions seems to have taken over from using human skills of motivation and common sense
• Resistance to change across the organisation shouldn't be seen just as not "getting it". Often people have been poorly equipped, by their experience so far, to deal with a customer focused world. They need support and coaching - in the boardroom, particularly the middle ranks, not just the front line
• Stop wasting customers’ time with surveys and concentrate on getting their up to the minute, actionable feedback to the people who deliver sales and service at the front line. By the time most feedback gets collected and analysed, it has aged. It lacks meaning to the people who could do anything about it. To people whose behaviour must change as part of their coaching.
• Yes complaints get fixed, but removing systemic problems and changing people's behaviours is really the focus if you want to "move the dial".
• Business cases never convince non-believers in management, so stop doing them. It's by winning hearts and minds of senior people that things change. If they dont believe prima facie cases then how will a logical business case do that. Its a smoke screen. It still wont get believed, said many people.
• “Bringing the customer experience message to the marketeers and financiers is a challenge; it’s about empathy and understanding how the customer thinks – not just about hard measures”, commented one participant.
• “We need more techniques that will help to win the hearts and minds of senior managers. Delivering a good customer experience is not just about numbers in the end”, concluded another participant.
• “If I could only do one thing again, it would be to concentrate on feedback that changes behaviour. This is where we move the dial, where we change the experience”
• We dont think enough about the positive emotional states of the customer and what we have to do to create them
• “Getting the board to accept that their customers’ experience is as important to the company as understanding the financials is key to driving action across the company”, said another champion.

Our 2007 annual Fast+Simple research is going to look further into this last point and the evidence for investments into customer initiatives. If you want to take part talk to marion.howard-healy@budd.uk.com

We agreed we need more cross industry sharing at senior level and so we've formed a group, like our US and Australian CCO groups, to meet again in May. By invitation only, so contact us if you think you are a CCO, whatever type of artist you are!

Do you go "back to the floor"?

Ever since being forced to sew 72 pairs of shorts in the first weeks that I joined the working population, I've advocated the practice of management going back to the floor. In a call centre that means taking calls, not just listening to them.

As per our earlier blog, the Budd team did its bit on Red Nose night at Kent CC. An amazing £150,000 went through just this one centre in one evening.

Apart from talking to some lovely people (apart from teh guy who rang to complain about Terry Wogan getting paid...derrrrr but he doesnt do Red Nose day), we also reminded ourselves of some things long forgotten, from this great back to the floor element.

So if any great call centres out there want us to go back to their floor, we're up for some harder challenges.... get in touch peter.massey@budd.uk.com . Here's Jonathan Wilson's comments below:

1. Having no calls is worse than having lots of calls

2. I am not a good typist and excellent typing skills really do help to save time and to enable differentiating service based on acute listening. We should encourage much higher standards of typing as a minimum for call centres.

3. I was interested to note how much time you can have to chat to people while you are putting data in or waiting for a response and how you can have good dialogues without delaying things.

4. I did find it quite tense making which made my neck and shoulders sore, which made me think how important it is to help people (i.e. me!) to learn about posture and relaxation techniques. The wireless key boards were helpful. I would have liked the screens at a different height (lower and tilted further up), I think. I would have liked wireless headphones too to allow more movement. None of this is complaining, I stress! I am just interested how important the ergonomics are in contact centres - even more than in offices, because the extra interaction of orally and aurally connecting has an even greater effect than I realised.

5. I also found my voice straining after a while which led to a difficulty talking clearly after a while even without wine!, I felt. The water helps.…

6. It took a lot of attention to hear/understand what people were saying, especially if it was at all noisy in the centre and/or if there was background noise at the caller's end

7. I thought the input screens were well designed. with a fairly logical flow and I was pleased that you didn't have to follow the input sequence in order so you could put the name in first if you wanted to. I suppose they were too busy, but I would have liked immediate feedback that the donation had been processed satisfactorily instead of just queued. I may have screwed up every one without knowing.

8. I even liked the screen script prompting, which I did not expect to.

9. People tend to look for evidence that confirms what they already believe, and I was encouraged to see that the mouse is a delay and hindrance when you have practice

10. I suppose to summarise, I regained serious respect for the agents' work and skill and I doubly convinced of the value of all managers spending several consecutive hours a month or quarter, taking and processing calls as an agent (i.e. no special treatment). I am sure this would lead to better conditions for agents, slicker processes and much better overall service levels.

The universe according to Woody Allen

"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought - particularly for people who can never remember where they left things."
Woody Allen

Call us on Red Nose Day !

www.rednoseday.com/donation/ is the place to go if you want to donate money. Of course you'll be able to ring the appeal number too on Friday and get through to the many call centres handling donations.

You may even get one of us - we're rostered at 9pm til 11.30pm over at Kent County Council's centre. After suitable training of course....

If your centre is missing out on the fun you can register at the site to get involved next time. Come on, you know you want to!

BEER TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE - One for St Patrick's Day

As St. Paddy's Day approaches, the information below is vital:

SYMPTOM / CAUSE / CORRECTIVE ACTION
Feet cold and wet /Glass Being held at incorrect angle. / Rotate glass so that open end points toward ceiling

Feet warm and wet / Improper Bladder Control / Stand next to nearest dog, complain about lack of house training

Beer unusually pale and tasteless / a. Glass empty. b. You're holding a Coors Lite / Get someone to buy you another beer

Opposite wall covered with fluorescent lights / You have fallen over backward. / Have yourself leashed to bar

Mouth contains cigarette butts, back of head covered with ashes / You have fallen forward / See above

Beer tasteless, front of your shirt is wet / a. Mouth not open b. Glass applied to wrong part of face / Retire to restroom, practice in mirror

Floor Blurred / You are looking through bottom of empty glass / Get someone to buy you another beer

Floor moving / You are being carried out / Find out if you are being taken to another bar

Room seems unusually dark / Bar has closed / Confirm home address with bartender. If staff is gone, grab a six-pack to go and hit the nearest fire escape door. Run

Taxi suddenly takes on colorful aspect and textures / Beer consumption has exceeded personal limitations / Cover mouth, open window, stick head outside

Everyone looks up to you and smiles / You are dancing on the table / Fall on someone cushy-looking

People are standing around urinals, talking or putting on makeup / You're in the ladies' room / Do not use urinal! Excuse yourself, exit and try the next door down the hall. Try to get phone numbers (optional)

Your singing sounds distorted / The beer is too weak / Have more beer until your voice improves

Don't remember the words to the song / Beer is just right / Play air guitar

10 success criteria for major transformation and turnarounds

I'm the thick of the conference season and awards judging now so I get to see a lot of stuff in a short space of time. In particular lots about major transformation programmes in order to build great staff and customer experiences. So whilst chairing the National Customer Services Awards presentations yesterday I made a few notes from the past month.

The common success factors in building great customer and people businesses
1) Leadership built on uncompromising values (take a look at first direct's or Google Inc's in our libraryat www.budd.uk.com). They give absolute clarity and simplicity in their challenge and vision such that anyone can understand. To build absolute clarity and buy in that it is worth spending substantially to drive a customer based strategy.

2) Ask the customers – nearly always the first step in creating awareness of dissatisfaction, and what to fix first and with what importance. It usually requires experiential learning as well so internal people “get it”.

3) Ask the frontline staff – they usually know what ought to be done to achieve the challenge – this is at the heart of change working well . The leader doesn’t ask what changes to make, but sets out clearly where they’re going and consults extensively on how people think they can get the business there. He/she explains why some ideaas aren’t feasible, and why some things are chosen. He/she uses this to set up continuous processes for this kind of consultation and listening in order to “change the change” later

4) Support the change with the right resources and training– so each person feels equipped to do the new things. Frontline management and middle management usually need more training and coaching than frontline staff. They need to know how to coach rather than critique

5) Make sure each person has time to do the job the new way, taking account of the fact that “its not something else on top of what you do, it’s the new way you do it”. Adequate resource planning means people can do a great job

6) Support the change by measuring different things differently. Measure individuals on things they can affect, not the things they cant

7) The timescales are much sharper than would be first seen as reasonable – after the plan has been formulated, not before. It takes a long time to consult and communicate and that shouldnt be cut short if the change is to be sustainable

8) Massive amounts of formal and informal communication – the comms plan is as big as the project plan

9) Proper planning & review – not next step planning. Consumption planning – ie planning at the rate of change a person can absorb. Communications planning. Project planning and stakeholder support comes thro in every conference as a key factor. Project managers don’t have the necessary change skills and need training in many cases

10) Back to leaders and managers – stamina of vision. Each decisions made all along the way stick to the values and vision. Any deviation introduces cynicism.

Jonathan Wilson who heads up our human factors practice ( "you build it, I'll get them to use it") has some great methodologies for change so get in touch if you'd like to discuss the change you're embarking on

When the best system is no system

What a pleasure when everything works. Having woken up to sunrise over Monaco and shirt sleeve weather at dawn, it really feels like spring has arrived – even in London. When transport works its such a pleasure to travel. Taxi on time, no traffic, no queues at the airport, allowed to take my case on the plane (well done BA) and out of Heathrow before you can say boo. Maybe I could make that 10.30 meeting after all.

But what’s this? – a 100m queue for taxis at Paddington. Whoops. But then like magic, I was whisked to the front to “taxi share”. Alas you have to wait til they can fill the taxi with people going where you’re going, or not as the case maybe. The taxi stand being occupied with one cab, whilst all this goes on. Poor people in the queue just never seemed to move forward, despite 3 of 6 taxi stops being for them and 3 for taxi share. Luckily I was first stop of 5 in my taxi. God help the poor guys in my cab going to the City after I was dropped in Victoria. With traffic moving at the speed of a speeding bullet, not, that was a major time delay for some very expensive money men. But quicker than waiting 100m. And cheaper with a fixed fare of £6 in my case, and £30 per taxi driver for one journey across London so he wins too.

An improvement or not from before? If you measure in financial terms, yes. In terms of the number of taxis driving out of Paddington – well yes and no. There are fewer taxis only because very few leave the place whilst they get filled with 5 passengers. Are there fewer cabs on the road? No, they all have to go somewhere, but maybe over time. Not in time terms. Nor in branding, setting up London as a chaotic place to enter. Mumbai just has rows of taxis and you get in one and off you go. Come to think of it so does Paddington, tucked round the corner trying to get into the station.

It’s a great example of the “Viz” consultants (Viz is an anarchic mag for those of you who havent seen it) going in and trying to improve, only to complicate and make worse (don’t get me started on the Viz consultants working on the medical profession and how it recruits !)

Was there something else they could have done? Yes nothing. In fact less than nothing. They could have removed the whole process.

There are no shortage of taxis sitting outside Paddington trying to get in. There are a finite two lanes to drive into the station. But there is at least 200m (x2) of kerb on the edge of those lanes once into the station. So what if there was “no” system. No queuing, no set 6 pick up points bottle necking the two lanes, no one directing traffic etc etc. Taxis allowed to pick up at any point along the kerb. People allowed to flag a cab at any point along the 200m. Would there be a queue? Let’s assume we treat it like a formula 1 pit lane and only allow stopping in one lane, the other being used to drive in and out. With 200m of kerb to use, I doubt it.

As we say, the best service is no (need for) service. Maybe this is a case of 'The best system is no (Viz designed) system'.