{"id":1895,"date":"2009-09-14T14:30:32","date_gmt":"2009-09-14T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thirdeyesight.in\/blog\/?p=363"},"modified":"2022-11-08T12:30:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T12:30:15","slug":"the-help-less-customer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myechoproject.com\/TES\/the-help-less-customer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Help-Less Customer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The dark clouds of recession and rain seem to be lifting just a little bit. Governments have been energetically throwing seeds of stimulus and economists are eagerly spotting \u201cgreen shoots\u201d. The festive season is around the corner, with anticipation of higher sales.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So perhaps it is time to cheer. Or perhaps not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the recessionary environment during the last year or so, \u2018cutting back\u2019 rather than \u2018building\u2019 has been the philosophy for most businesses.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The implications of these cut-backs are not always visible in the place you have originally made the cuts. But, unfortunately, they inevitably impact the area which should be the last to be touched: customer experience!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The problem arises not so much from the cut-back. Obviously if the business prospects are looking negative or less positive, the management needs to adjust its expectations and also its expense and investment framework.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">No, the problem lies in the fact that most such initiatives are internally focussed. Whether it is supply chain (\u201clean inventory\u201d), operating strength (\u201cfewer people\u201d), merchandise rationalisation (\u201cnarrower range and fewer brands\u201d), the implications and benefits that are identified are mostly internal to the business. The driving philosophy is that \u201ca penny saved is a penny earned\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">During the navel-gazing we forget the fundamental principle that the purpose of a business is to deliver a set of goods or services to meet the customer\u2019s needs and expectations; if those needs are not served, the business interest is not served either.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Here are a few examples from the recent past:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>A modern retail chain has no stock of bread and basic cooking oil on the second afternoon of a 3-day long weekend. When asked, one of the sales associates says that they got no deliveries due to the holiday the previous day. When you walk across to the traditional kirana store, it is fully stocked-up with fresh merchandise, and apparently has had no delivery problems at all from the same brands either the previous day or that morning itself. Someone at the \u201corganized\u201d retailer seems to have forgotten that \u201clean\u201d shouldn\u2019t mean reduced footfall-conversion.<\/li>\n<li>A telephone service provider receives a complaint for a faulty line. The provider promises to rectify the complaint within 6 hours. After 6 days the line is still down. The call centre executives on multiple follow-up calls sound helpless \u2013 one even says: \u201cMaybe the complaint did not get across to the service engineer.\u201d One of them \u2013 maybe it is only to push the responsibility off to another part of the organization \u2013 hints at the unavailability of enough field staff.<\/li>\n<li>An elderly couple in a well-established large retail store is very clear that they only want to buy 100% cotton products. The enthusiastic sales associate pushes the store\u2019s own heavily advertised brand of T-shirts, assuring the customer that it is cotton. After the first wear and wash the customer sends one of the T-shirts for ironing, only to have it returned with a large burn \u2013 the fabric, apparently of synthetic fibre rather than cotton, has not been able to withstand the ironing. Somewhere, someone has cut corners \u2013 it could have been the buying executive who wanted to meet a price point target, or it could have been the HR manager who thought that product training was a superfluous expense, or both.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These are all companies that have spent millions on store-fronts, real estate, IT systems, brand logos and hip advertising. After all, those are the visible vehicles for the brand and the brand promise.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Unfortunately, because of the internal disconnect between the strategic intent and the operational reality, these millions are now dripping down the drain, one customer relationship at a time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Which brings me to one significant area of concern \u2013 the people who interface with the customer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In western economies, due to the high cost of manpower, consumer-facing businesses are run on the basis of highly system-driven processes, lean staffing and a self-help orientation, whether the customer is interfacing with a call-centre or with a physical retail store. There are also significant cultural and infrastructure differences that make these models work in those economies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In modernising countries such as those in Asia, it is quite understandable that the new consumer-facing companies are trying to emulate western \u201cbest-practice\u201d models. However, often they falter on two accounts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Firstly in these relatively hierarchical societies, customers don\u2019t want to feel \u201chelp-less\u201d. They may not exactly enjoy an intrusive sales associate, but they enjoy even less the feeling that there is no one around who can help when they want it. A number of retailers have failed this \u201cquantity\u201d test in the last few months.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Secondly, it is not just a \u201cwarm body\u201d that is needed to ask a polite question and smile brightly, but someone who is empowered and feels accountable to solve the customer\u2019s specific issue. That is a \u201cquality\u201d issue. Part of it is related to the huge gap between the personal context of most consumer-facing staff and their customers\u2019. The other, significant, issue is the culture of accountability \u2013 that the salesperson or the service executive makes the effort to understand and solve the customer\u2019s problem, rather than only focussing on following the law laid down in the operating manual. These needs can only be addressed through training \u2013 lots of it, and repeated liberally \u2013 and creating a culture that, top to bottom, is focussed on the customer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Analysts have said that recessions are a great time for the good companies to separate themselves from the rest. That is true to an extent.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, I believe that in recessions many companies, bad or good, suffer due to circumstances beyond their control \u2013 it is in the recovery after the recession that is a much tougher filter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When the customer\u2019s mood is beginning to move up, so are his or her expectations. Companies that have not cut muscle along with the fat, companies that have not only focussed on themselves in the downturn but have remembered the customer at all times, are the ones which will manage to retain their customer relationships. And will grow faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Companies that have not only focussed on themselves in the downturn but have remembered the customer at all times, are the ones which will manage to retain their customer relationships. And will grow faster. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[389,212,286,37,46,1],"tags":[516,52,103,284,326,501,65,203],"class_list":["post-1895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-progressive-grocer","category-consumer","category-customer-relationship","category-marketing","category-strategy","category-uncategorized","tag-asia","tag-branding","tag-consumer-products","tag-customer-care","tag-customer-service","tag-recession","tag-retail","tag-retail-productivity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Help-Less Customer - Third Eyesight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index,follow\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/myechoproject.com\/TES\/the-help-less-customer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Help-Less Customer - Third Eyesight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Companies that have not only focussed on themselves in the downturn but have remembered the customer at all times, are the ones which will manage to retain their customer relationships. 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