I
was invited to a meeting where the guy at the front of the room was
trying to improve group performance by talking himself into a froth.
He had invented a ratio and convinced himself that a three percent
improvement would mean something, otherwise they were going out of
business.
When
somebody loses it emotionally, people tend to pay attention, because
we’re not sure what he’s going to do next. It’s a protective
behavior. However over time, no matter how high the emotional level,
people tune out.
I
started thinking back to breakthroughs I have seen that changed a
company or an industry. They weren’t based on questionable ratios
and miniscule improvements. Indeed that kind of noise keeps people
from thinking about important solutions.
Back
in the eighties, I was privileged to take part in the launch of the
first McCaw Cellular One in San Francisco. We didn’t have money, or
customers, or a system, or much understanding about what we would do.
We
did have an exceptional CEO who expected people to do great things.
They believed him, so they did great things.
I
remember a meeting about our worsening customer satisfaction. We had
supply problems, we couldn’t control our signal, and our competitor
enjoyed having us as the much weaker supplier. Grim meeting.
Kathleen
ran customer service, so she had the ugly job of quantifying our
situation. She did a thorough job, and added some interesting
analysis. She didn’t like her job, and no one else wanted it.
Jim
thanked her for presenting the situation and pointed out some of the
better points she had taken the time to quantify. Then he asked the
table what we could do.
There
were a couple of behavioral placeholders, but nothing of substance.
Finally
Kathleen said she had an idea, but was concerned these older men
wouldn’t like it. She stopped.
Jim
told her to press on.
Kathleen
wanted to change the name of her group from customer service to
customer care. The hair on the back of my neck went up. That was the
first time I heard that term.
What
happened after that was miraculous. Kathleen published the cost per
minute of arguing with a customer. We began to promote giving the
customer what they wanted (usually a small billing adjustment) and
thanking the customer for using Cellular One.
The
new Customer Care reps were talking about their better jobs than when
they were Customer Service reps.
The
customers started trying to deserve our appreciation, so they told
spouses and friends. Customer Care was tracking and thanking
referrals.
Our
customer acquisition got better every week. We were doubling new
customers every quarter.
One
day Jim called me into his office and showed me the paper. The
Chronicle wrote that obviously Cellular One was the highest quality
cellular service in the Bay area. The paper stole our tag line! Since
it was now in the paper, it must be true!
Mark
and the engineers were going through their final frenzy to put up our
own cellular network. We were still piping signal through the
competition.
We
were obviously doing other things right.
That
tagline had been percolating since before it was true to remind us
what we we wanted.
Jim
had been a military chopper pilot, so at least one of our stations
was delivered on a mountain top by chopper, with appropriate public
and media coverage.
I
was working overtime taking our dealers to victory celebrations.
But
that one distinction, from customer service to customer care was a
snowball that started an avalanche.
I
thought of Kathleen when the computer scientist from Comcast told me
that the reason I couldn’t get internet one morning was because my
computer was too old. Go buy a new computer. I finally found out that
some server cowboy had erased my address file...but not my billing
file.
Or
when the Verizon salesman called the cops because he didn’t know
how to sell us a new phone. His boss was even more embarrassed after
the cops showed up.
Most
of the time we can’t tell what the best solution is going to be,
but overwhelmingly it hasn’t been studying made up numbers or
inconveniencing customers.
Check
out Tips 4 The Big
Chair
