RetailSmart

The alternative to great customer service is…

9 February 2010 · Leave a Comment

[Cross-posted form Inside Retailing.]

Let us nail down the incontestable truths first; or at least those facts about customer service that I hold as true:

  • Customer service is easy to understand.
  • Customer service is hard to implement.
  • Customer service is hardest to copy.
  • Customer service is different for everybody.
  • Customer service can make the difference between success and failure.

Why is customer service so hard?

A clue can be found when you compare it to the other dimensions of business which are (almost equally) hard to replicate. Think dynamic brand (like Apple) or innovation (3M).

These aspects are hard to replicate because the activities that are the building blocks of innovation, brand and great customer service are all rooted in organisational CULTURE. And companies who are successful at these aspects are successful usually because the founder or an early leader in the growth stage of the company laid down those foundations of the culture.

It is very hard, if not impossible (under normal circumstances) for an organisation to be changed because the power of a strongly embedded culture is almost always stronger than one individual leader.

The alternative to great customer service is great systems; rules and regulations and procedures that will govern the process of customer interaction.

It is the only alternative, but it is a very poor one. Because we all know that there are always exceptions to every rule because no system can withstand the everyday demands of customers.

So if the only alternative is an unacceptable alternative, what do we do?

The clue is in the bracketed phrase I used above – under normal circumstances. Cultures do change and can be changed, but what it needs is abnormal circumstances. Leaders who are adept at this talk about creating a ‘burning platform’ – an analogy of the type of situation you face when you are on an oil rig that has caught fire.

Hold that mental image for a moment.

If your organisation is going to change then it needs a dramatic set of circumstances to create the awareness and effect the change. If it doesn’t exist naturally, a great leader will fearlessly create one.

It may mean ripping up contracts, moving office, changing suppliers. It may mean clearing out the top management. Firing or promoting people in line with the (new) behaviours you want to establish.

I must be quite brutal here: talking about it won’t cut it, strategy sessions and vision statements and customer service charters won’t cut it.

Was the GFC wasn’t an ideal burning platform opportunity that we ignored? Instead of price-cutting that is more like blood-letting, what would have been the outcome of we simply got closer to our customers to the extent that we became indispensable?

A service-orientated culture (people who truly care) is the rare difference. This decade’s benchmark company is  Zappos – DOWNLOAD the PPT and/or google their story.

If your company was not founded on a culture of great service, then the only option is to become a fearless leader, because the alternative to customer service is simply not an alternative.

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Retail and Technology: Convergence

9 February 2010 · Leave a Comment

This technology by Microsoft has interesting implications for retail, don’t you think? Not sure how far it extends beyon the example shown – but once it starts working for things like fashion garments (i.e not only tech products) then it will be a game changer…

HT: bimtech-retail.com

And here is the change room of the future…not too hard to imagine.

 

HT: Brenda Burch Blog

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What is wrong with this ad from Google?

8 February 2010 · 1 Comment

Google played their ad ‘Parisian Love’ on Superbopwl 2010.

There many things that I don’t like about the ad; but my gripe is:

Google makes its money from ads – and not once do they show how this particular search experience uses the ads. If I was advertising on Google I would be reminded about how people really use search – and question the importance of ’sponsored links’ – their main revenue stream.

 

I have selcted some posts about the ad to appear below -

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The art of consistency

8 February 2010 · Leave a Comment

[Extracted from the January issue of RTLL Newsletter.]

Anyone who has ever run a business will tell you that it is the hardest thing: how do I get my people to be consistent. They really mean: how do I get my people to be more like me – to care as much as I do and to use their brains like I do.

If you work for a larger organisation you will be familiar with policies and procedures, benchmarks and ’systems’ of every shape and colour. Every wannabe-consultant will tell you that McDonalds is successful because their ’systems’ are so legendary good.

In the previous piece I spoke about change. That is the YIN. On the other hand, there is also consistency (YANG).

  • We should stick what we are good at.
  • We should stay focussed.
  • We should commit.
  • Be reliable.
  • Quality.

These are all aspects of consistency. We like it when people are predictable.

Which raises the all-important question:

When do I change and when do pursue consistency?

I believe the answer to this question applies equally to life and business.

When you avoid change simply because it is easier to keep doing what we do – we should change. If we change simply because we are bored, we should remain focussed.

If we want to change to please other people, we should think twice.

But most importantly: it is OK to change a process, but think again before changing your goal.

And when you do – be consistently tough in evaluating if it is for the right reason. And you will know when it isn’t.

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Learning From Zappos

7 February 2010 · 1 Comment

zappos-lessons-building-a-customerfocused-culture-1202364344232915-2

Yes, I know I am late to this. Actually – not late, just belated. I wanted to add this sideshare presentation as a ‘for the record’ presentation here on RetailSmart. Enjoy. Live & Learn.

(The original from slideshare – here.)

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Lessons from Poetry

5 February 2010 · 2 Comments

love is a beautiful face
and life
that same face wounded
after shattering through the pane of glass
separating our dreams from reality

Few people read poetry – presumably because they don’t appreciate it. I have wondered about that. As the occasional poet (and you can see above why it is not more regular) I don’t even read much poetry myself any more.

But there is a tendency for people to revert to poetry – or at least appreciate it more – when the emotions are at their highest.  Maybe that is why we read poems at weddings and wakes. (Songs are poems as music?) Even the pithy quote after victory or defeat is nothing but pure poetry where one sentence can capture so much.

Poetry is exceedingly hard to craft – much harder than an essay, and arguably the hardest of all forms of communication, at least on a scale that would measure intellectual effort per word.

My view is that it is because poems are so lean – every word is a considered word that cannot be substituted or omitted or improved. Poems are the purest form of story telling. Poets do not have the luxury of context or character. And certainly never the luxury of explanation.

What does this have to do with business?

Businesses and brands are about telling stories. Customers relate to the story that a brand represents, and express their identification with that story by purchase loyalty. All things being equal, as long as the brand story is relevant, the customer will continue to buy.

Poetry teaches us that emotions can (and should) be captured simply; by focussing on the essentials of the story: Few words. Powerful imagery. Sharp insight. Eloquence without pretension. Expression without clutter.

People get it. They are wired to get it. Life is too busy anyway for you to present them with an essay. They want the essential truth and they want powerful emotion. And they want you to tell it honestly.

Then they might be bothered to remember.

And let’s face it, if they can’t remember who you are or what you stand for, there isn’t much hope of doing business any time in the future.

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Mobile phone changes shape(?!)

2 February 2010 · Leave a Comment

This amazingly cool technology. The mind boggles at the applications. Looking forward to your take on it.

This was developed by designer Fabian Hemmert – an presented at TEDxBerlin first.

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What makes US tick, makes business tick…

1 February 2010 · Leave a Comment

The Power of Thoughts
Image by exper via Flickr

[Extracted from previous edition of RTLL newsletter.]

There are three things that make humans human. Well, more I suppose, but these three things are what really distinguish us from gorillas.

The ability to consider

Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am – is Descartes’s original insight, and not only is it his ‘proof’ that we exist, but I believe proof that we exist (uniquely) as humans. After all, plants also exist even if they don’t think about it. Humans can consider the external and internal influences and evaluate these. We judge. We compare. We employ our critical faculties to take a position.

Something is not just what it is. It is also good or bad. We can distinguish one from the other. Not just thinking, but critical thinking.

The ability to decide.

Not just react or choose, but actually decide. Choosing the non-obvious.

When a gorilla eats the banana instead of the apple, that is not choice, it is an instinctive reaction, a habit or a preference. Humans do this too. Consumer psychology is explicit about this and in fact we train people how to use this in a sales environment – what we called the primitive brain; where people make shortcut decisions on a sub-conscious level.

But we can also take decisions that are not always in our interest. We save someone’s life. We do good for no return. We don’t have to yield to the urge to procreate randomly, but can choose to stay faithfully married to a single person. These are the things that make us human.

The ability to change

Human beings are unique capable of change. They don’t just evolve, they change.

And change that follows a decision to change is uniquely human. Inherently we can translate our dissatisfaction (non-acceptance) into a series of decisions and actions. Thoughts become decisions become actions. Things happen. But we can choose our reaction to it. And not always the first reaction, but a considered reaction.

If we don’t like what we have, we can change it. If we don’ like who we are we can change it. And if we choose wrong, we can evaluate the outcome and change again.

 Employees and customers (just like us) can …

  • consider (think) -
  • decide -
  • change -

What does this have to do with business?

Maybe the time has come for us to look differently at how we consume things.

• We do not always have to respond to the lowest common denominator.

• We don’t’ have to accept the status quo.

As a marketer it would be a challenge to position your product or service to appeal to a higher motive. (And challenges carry career- and ego risks.) It is even more difficult to communicate those needs because we believe inherently in Maslow’s hierarchy as a pyramid where only a few people can be ‘noble’ and the masses are somehow more primitive. Therefore we believe the market at the bottom of the pyramid is a bigger market.

Marketers must lead the way by positioning and promoting something that is more sustainable. I am not necessarily referring to being ‘green’ – just being more human and less like animals.

Everything isn’t fun. Everything isn’t instant. Not everything is meant to taste good. There is pain and suffering and bad things happen to everyone. And it is meant to be like that.

Too often we appeal to people’s baser instincts and people’s needs that must (somehow) be satisfied immediately. There is an alternative: We can appeal to people’s humanity – not just their sex drive. We can ask employees to sacrifice – which can be a reward in itself. We can ask customers to postpone gratification. We can suggest that they should not buy something.

We are primitive – all of us. But we are also noble – all of us. Because we are human.

These traits and needs are not the preserve of the rich or some fully evolved sub-species. I come from Africa. I can tell you that in the slums and squatter camps you can find generous people, kind people and spiritual people. Just like (if not more so) than in the equivalent of any city’s ‘northern beaches’. We are all human.

Marketing/Business/Work – these are opportunities to practice our humanity. And it starts with choices:

  • What do you choose to do with your life?
  • What is the fabric of your dreams?
  • How do you spend your free time? (Why?)
  • How much do you give and how much do you take?
  • Do you trust?
  • Do you make suggestions because they are right, or because you make more money?
  • Have you really accepted that what you have and who you are is the result of the choices you have made to date?

I am not offering any answers because everyone’s answers will be different. I suppose there are more, but rather than simply scan over the list, why don’t you have a think about what your answers really are? This is the first month of the new year and a new decade after all.

There is a very big market in being human.

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Benchmarks: Pick-a-number

31 January 2010 · Leave a Comment

Vinmonopolet.
Image via Wikipedia

Retail is Detail is the old aphorism. But it has never been truer than now.

I wrote previously about the ‘million dollar’ question and how to identify the real problem as opposed to the symptom. IT really should have been the trillion dollar question. Consider this:

1,000 Stores

X

50,000 SKUs

X

26 Weeks

X

4 Measures (Sales, Inventory, Receipts, On Order)

X

Plan, Actual, Last Year

X

4 Seasons

= 1 trillion numbers

 

That’s a lotta numbers, you’d agree?

I cannot even imagine what a trillion numbers looks like – but there are hidden somewhere on a computer.

The downside of technology is that analysis paralysis is ever easier.

But as the owner/manager of a business (any business, but retail business in this example) the flood of data is overwhelming.

The obvious conclusion: pick the numbers you re going to focus on carefully.

My favourite is GMROI. One number that captures so much. (Check out some benchmarks here.)  

  • What do you use?
  • Why?
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Problems and symptoms: the million dollar question

27 January 2010 · 3 Comments

Did you know that a large chain store could easily have a trillion numbers to look at to help its decision-making? (More about that in next week’s post.) Suffice to say that picking the right number to focus on is important, and of course identifying interpreting the underlying problem is the most important.

One popular method of solving problems is ‘root cause analysis’. This is the science of getting to the root cause of problem.

I am going to generalise here, but I as far as generalisations go, I reckon this is a pretty good one:

Most people confuse symptoms with problems.

How often have you heard people identify the following as problems?

  1. Poor sales volume
  2. Poor product quality
  3. High levels of shrinkage
  4. High staff turnover

I could go on, but you get the picture.

None of these are actually ‘problems’ if you apply the principles of root cause analysis. (For those familiar with my work, this is where the famous chocolate mud cake analogy comes in.)

The ‘problems’ listed above are actually ‘outputs’ – which are by definition the result of something else. This “something else” is probably the root cause of the problem, and these ‘problems’ are nothing but symptoms…

Discover the root cause of a problem by asking yourself ‘WHY’ until the answer you get is ‘because…’.

Do you have poor sales?

  1. Why? A: Insufficient customers…
  2. Why? A: They don’t know where we are…
  3. Why? A: We have never told them…
  4. Why? A: We don’t know how…
  5. Why? A: We haven’t learned how…
  6. Why? A: Because we just haven’t…

This approach reveals that the real reason for the lack of sales is that the organisation lacks marketing skills.

If the answer to the first question was different, then the decision path would look very different and the solution – that addresses the root problem – would be very different.

The funny thing is, when you are looking at organisations (as opposed to production lines), the root problems are very often lack of training. It stands to reason therefore that the single most important thing that you can do to solve the problems – and even prevent problems, is to have a well-trained workforce.

Let me illustrate from our business:

A prospective client was apprehensive about implementing a training program. His concern was that because his staff turnover is so high, it isn’t worth it.

All he had to do was ask himself ‘WHY’ his staff turnover was so high and he would have realised that ‘staff turnover’ wasn’t the real problem.

(We never did the deal. He wanted a guarantee that it would not cost him anything. With the government subsidies in place that may well have been the case, but I prefer not to do business with people who buy training only because it is free.)

The million dollar question(s):

  • What are the real problems in your business?
  • Are you addressing the root cause or putting a band-aid on the symptom? 

Have fun

PS: TWO NEW YEAR GIFTS FOR YOU:

PS1: I have a root cause analysis template in the library here. It is quite detailed and has been designed for a manufacturing environment, but you are welcome to give it a crack.

PS2: You can also get your FREE e-Book on Visual Merchandising by joining up here, or you can buy the premium edition here.

AND, there are some US stats for GMROI benchmarks (department store categories) here if you are interested.

(And if you want to chat about why your staff turnover is so high… you know where to find me )

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