Change to make it easy for the customer

In every business, the customer has a job to do. Make it easy for your customer to do their job, and your costs go down and your profits up.

A couple of years ago, I worked to help a client translate feedback from customers into better ways of working. Stripped of consultant jargon, this meant: "Your customers say they don't like it when you do this. Please stop."

If only it was that simple. The things we were helping our client to change existed because the client needed to manage their costs and the trade-off of improving the customer experience while keeping costs down - was not simple.

So we turned things on their heads. Instead of thinking "what can we do to make things better?" we thought,"what can we do to make it easier for our customers to deal with us?" In other words, we considered the job the customer had to do when they wanted to deal with my client.

And you know? It worked. An example: one problem was that customers called our client for help when the information they needed was already available on the client's website. When we checked it out, we found that while the information they needed was a few clicks down the page, customers found the customer service telephone number at the top of the web page. So they naturally called straightaway, rather than taking the thirty seconds or so to look down the page.

Result? The customer got the information they needed - but after a time-consuming phone call taking five or more minutes, rather than in seconds from the website.

So our client made it easier to draw the customer's attention to the necessary information - by moving the telephone number to the bottom of the page.

Result? the number of calls from customers were cut by 50% - while customers got the answers they need in seconds, not minutes. Lower cost, happier customers.

So many companies don't realise that one of the fastest and easiest ways to boost customer satisfaction and sales is make it as easy as possible for your customers to deal with you.

In other words, pay as much time and attention to managing and motivating your customers as you do your people - and you'll be rich.

Mike

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

The first issue of our newsletter has finally hit the streets!

Bloomstorm News - Tips, Tools and Techniques from the Antidote to Change Nonsense is now available. Each free issue gives you practical tips and tools that you can use straightaway to improve your change performance.

In this issue, we explain some specific strategies for maximising the impact and value of your change efforts. You can download a free copy here.

Or, if you would like us to send you the latest free copy every time it comes out, then simply sign up here and we'll make sure you never miss an issue.

Let us know what you think, either in the comments section below, or here.

Enjoy it.

- Mike

Make Yourself Lucky

Luck happens when you do the right things.

The law of unintended consequences states that often the biggest outcomes of our actions are those we did not foresee. One example is NATO's failure to keep the peace in the Balkans ten years ago that led to today's glut of guns used by Europe's criminal underworld. McDonald's foray into salads that unfortunately drew attention to the difference between McDonald's normal fare and 'healthy' food is another. The law of unintended consequences is usually taken to be a bad thing.

When we look at people who think themselves lucky, however, much the same thing seems to be going on. But instead of a negative, it's a positive. Luck happens because people put themselves in situations that maximise the chance of a good outcome - even if they cannot predict what that outcome will be or how it will happen.

As an example, I was at a business networking breakfast yesterday as a guest of the inestimable Mr Graham. This session was very structured, very focused and worked spectacularly well. I was interested in finding potential partners - people implementing change (IT suppliers, for instance) who might need some extra firepower to make the change succeed. And lo and behold, sitting beside me was a leading supplier of software to small-to-medium-sized businesses.

What I wasn't expecting was someone from a prestigious language skills and translation company who also wanted to discuss working together, or my being able to think about new marketing opportunities through conversation with the director of a very high quality communications company.

And because we were talking together, I heard that the IT company and the communications company wanted to find actors as high-quality resources for telesales campaigns - and my sister is an actress and a member of London's oldest co-operative agency for actors, so I put them in touch.

Lucky to meet these people? You bet. But I - and more particularly, they (because they do this every week, and I was just a visitor) - got lucky because we were clear about what we wanted and put ourselves in a situation where this kind of outcome was possible.

The same thing applies to change. Nothing is more corrosive to a change programme than cynicism. Cynics set an implicit expectation of failure. And given that we all know that in business, as in life, you get what you pay attention to, if we expect bad things then bad things we will get. I'm not saying that cynicism creates bad luck, but it makes it much easier.

Wouldn't it be great to have lucky projects instead? Yes? So how would we do that?

First thing - don't debate with the company pessimists, ignore them. Don't talk, act. Get your good folks together (the 'Company Optimists') and be really clear about the things you want to happen. With them, identify events, or circumstances or beliefs that might make these things possible or more likely.

After that it's simple. Do what you can to make these events, circumstances and beliefs happen. You can't be sure that any single thing will guarantee the outcome, but do enough of the right things and the rights things will happen.

If you do this at the start of every project (or better yet, at the start of every week), I guarantee your change project will start being much, much luckier in ways that no-one can predict. And what's more - it'll be a damn sight more enjoyable journey.

- Mike

Fun, Risk And Reward

We all have new opportunities to market ourselves, and the rewards can be tremendous, if we can live with the risks.

Lew Grade was the archetypal show business impresario, larger than life with cigars to match. In the sixties, he had a franchise on Britain's independent television network about which he was famously (and erroneously) quoted as saying was "...a licence to print money."

Nowadays, of course, the franchises struggle to make money because the business model has changed - but if you can produce content, then there is still money to be made in television. And even though they might argue about it, TV production is like any other business - make the most attractive product you can at the lowest cost, and sell it effectively.

So I should not have been surprised when, at a business networking event this afternoon, the person sitting next me was Deborah, a very professional assistant TV producer. Turns out, of course, she was there not to scope out sales opportunities but to get referrals. Her company has a new series in the works.

In each episode, their cameras will follow the daily work of a senior manager in a mid-sized company, observing how s/he works with their people, and getting responses from the people afterwards about the managers' performance. The idea is to highlight areas - behaviour, assumptions, thinking - where the manager needs to improve. Think of it as our old friend 360-degree feedback, but watched by a couple of million people.

S/he then gets some advice and coaching from an expert off-camera to address the problems, and the cameras follow the manager again, to see how / if the manager's performance has improved. An interesting premise for a programme, but strongly dependent on two things - the character of the people selected for each show, and the calibre of the experts providing advice.

Deborah was at the event to ask us if we knew of people who might be good candidates for the show. The ideal candidate is quirky, with a strong personality and is likeable - because for the show to succeed, the audience must be able to identify with the protagonist.

Why on Earth would someone volunteer for this role?

Publicity.

Publicity for the company, and publicity for the person themselves. If they are lucky, this could be a fantastic breakthrough opportunity for the person and their company.

And this crystallised something that I had been suspecting for a while - as the TV companies have found out, traditional marketing models as taught in business schools are seriously in trouble.

Nowadays, for most of us, quality of service is a critical part of how we compete. But service is always personal - at bottom line, we trust a service because we trust the people behind it. So marketing increasingly needs to reveal the people behind the service. In the old days, this used to be almost always by word of mouth. But now we have many more channels to do so: blogs, social websites - and now reality TV.

The cool thing about each of these ways of reaching a potential market is not only do they give potential customers an insight to the values and thinking of their potential supplier of services, but these methods also scale - it takes the same effort to reach one person as it does to reach a million.

I am sure that you, however, have also worked out the downside to these (relatively) new forms of publicity. Because these reflect reality - albeit in a distorted mirror - they also can quickly reveal the character flaws of the individual concerned - and do so to millions of people.

On TV, of course, these risks are magnified. Good reality TV depicts people under pressure in situations with which the audience can identify. We watch because we want to see how these people respond - will they buckle, or will they triumph? For a medium -sized business, the potential rewards are phenomenal - do a good job, and potentially the world could be ringing you up, placing orders. Do a bad job, however, and the only sound on your phone line could be that of drifting tumbleweed...

And no-one wants to be ratnered.

But this is what business is about, isn't it? Big risks for big rewards - and, if you're lucky, have some fun on the way.

And if I have to choose between something safe or something secure, or risky, rewarding and fun, then fun wins, every time.

Not because I'm a hedonist (although I am) but because fun begets enthusiasm, and enthusiasm begets passion - and passion is the most contagious, most saleable, most profitable thing that any business can have.

So we scratched our heads, and came up with some names and I think Deborah got what she came for. I look forward to seeing what she produces - I'm sure her enthusiasm will make it something great.

And why are we in business, if not to do things with passion, to make something great?

- Mike