Think you are in control?…. think again

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Chris Warburton

power-plant-344231_1920The other week I wrote about the changing face of contact channels… the ever increasing need to ‘speak customer‘.

There is however a more fundamental change underway… as customers’ ready access to information is having a broader influence, beyond just how we contact a company… we increasingly have a desire to be informed and in control of each decision that affects us… it is a growing view and getting stronger each year.

How did that happen?

To help describe this phenomenon, there is a concept in psychology called the ‘locus of control’.  In this theory people sit on a continuum, somewhere between having a purely internal and external focused centre of control.

Simplistically speaking, someone who is internally focused believes they control the outcomes…. someone externally focused, the outcome is a consequence of factors they don’t control.

A good example we can all relate to, a student getting good marks on their exam.

  • Internal locus…  ‘I did great because of my hard work and ability’
  • External locus… ‘I did great as I was lucky with the questions on the day and had a couple of easy questions’

Same work, same output, just a different view on how they got there.

Traditionally companies and consumers both also fall into this spectrum too.

  • Companies have tended to have internal locus of control…. ‘we have a great product’… ‘we think you should buy it’… ‘this is want you need to do next’… ‘you use it like this’… a more paternalistic approach, they are in control.
  • Consumers on the other hand, have tended to have more external locuses of control… ‘it is a great product’… ‘they have my best interests at heart’…’lets do what they say, they will look after us’… ’there is nothing I can do, it is the process’.

And, this system has worked well up to now.

Matching expectations, a change and now conflict

Typically there has always been a pretty good match of expectations between these groups.  Customers trusted that the company had their best interests at heart and the company was rewarded with long term loyality from these customers.  It is after all one of the reason we have brands and brands we like.

However with an increasing move to online, low cost and self serve functionality, we, as customers, have become ever more used to making decisions on own own.  We value independent advice and with the increasing access to data are sometimes more reliant on other customers for recommendations than those of the company itself.  For customers, the locus of control is gradually changing…  from external to internal…. they want, desire and believe they have more control over outcomes.

Unfortunately, not adapting as a company, can lead to customer dissatisfaction and sometimes even conflict.  Examples of this can be seen across multiple industries; the medical profession, government services, financial services to mention a few.  It can be a quick way to erode brand value and customer trust.

For many companies this change can represent a challenge to traditional, established business processes… these have been designed to closely manage inventory, products, policies, procedures and control the customer experience…. they also tend tend to be fairly linear in approach….. making the change can be hard, but to stay competitive a shift is required.

The good news

Fortunately all is not lost, and just as in ‘speaking customer’, making a simple change in mindset can help us all prepare.

  • Design new processes in terms of customer options… multiple alternatives from which the customer can choose.
  • Provide transparent, clear information these options, choices and costs… customers value ‘independent advice’
  • Educate customers on these choices if needed.  Take time to explain pros/cons to them… it is their decision not yours
  • Once decided enable customers to follow their ‘customised’ process… be transparent on process and progress
  • Feedback and be open to changes… it is okay to make changes

Sounds simple, and in many ways it is, however this does often require a more fundamental change in the business model and process design.  In addition each of these ‘options’ need to be designed, with and eye to profitability for the business, within controls so the processes do not descend into chaos.  It cannot happen overnight.

Speaking is also thinking

A challenge…. certainly.  More work… yes, however it also comes with a rather large slice of good news.  Customers are ever more happy to take control, self serve and help you take cost out of the business.  This is evolution not revolution, we just need to make the mind shift….. start to ‘speak customer‘ and also ’think customer’ as we move forward.

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Speak customer, not contact channel

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Chris Warburton

I caught an interesting news story last week.

The chairman of John Lewis, Sir Charlie Mayfield, was speaking at the National Retail Federation in New York, explaining how he thought ‘the age of multi-channel is over’.  His argument:  Thinking in terms of online and offline channels is dangerous.  This whole concept of ‘the channel’ is retailer speak not customer speak… customers really just don’t care too much about the exact channel they use.  Even ‘omnichannel’ is a term to be avoided.

I agree with his thinking.  This is also true in the customer contact centre world.

Contact Centre Strategies

Channel performance, cost and effectiveness is of course important.  It is the lifeblood of running a successful and profitable business.  We have all have spent many hours talking contact channels, relative effectiveness vs costs, strategies and even launching new ones… video chat anyone… and yes there has been plenty of talk of omnichannel.

Whilst this is all great discussion, it is still internal contact centre speak and there is the danger this dialogue can seep through to impact the customer and change their view of your product.

Paper statement fees, premium rate call numbers, self serve websites, all spring to mind.  Financially sound decisions – for sure.  A difficult customer message to communicate – certainly.  However were each of these developments ones the customers appreciated, understood or just tolerated?  Which did you want and was this expected?

In the current, increasingly socially connected world, comparisons are ever more easily made and missteps quickly magnified.  The importance of ‘speaking customer’ at every point is growing.

Speaking Fluent Customer

So in the hubbub of daily activity it is important to make the time to step back and think about the larger picture.

  • Do we really think about the customer’s process or are we really focused on improving our own?
  • Do we speak the customers language or are we mainly focused on training them to understand ours?

At the end of the day customers really focus on getting their question or problem resolved.  They do not care how much it costs the company or whether it offers incremental cross sell opportunity.  It just needs to be easy, quick and as painless as possible… oh and by the way, everything needs to be seamless and link together..!

Easy to say, difficult to do

To Sir Charlie’s point, this transformation can be subtle and not is not necessarily easy.  Afterall investment in IT, process design and data analytics can all be required.

However of arguably greater importance is the change in mindset of the team itself.  The good news is this is something that can cost very little and something we can all start to change today.

Whilst I would be the first to argue all processes are linked, ‘speaking customer’ does enable default decisions to be based on a customer centric approach.  Any deviations are then conscious, quantified, deliberate decision, where the consequences are known and understood.

A First Step

It is said ‘every journey happens one step at a time’.  But it also doesn’t start until you recognize the need to move and decide to take the first step.

So although we may all say we run ‘customer centric’ and ‘customer experience focused’ teams today, it maybe a good day to step back and quietly ask do you really fluently ‘speak customer’?

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Risk Management:  The importance readiness planning

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Chris Warburton

bridge-455577_1280With the recent closure of the Forth Road bridge, commutes from Fife to Edinburgh by car have just dramatically increased by 30 miles each way, causing significant disruption for local residents.

It is fortunate, in some ways, this has happened in the run up to and over the Christmas period.  Many businesses slow down a little and hopefully many people will be able to work from home more often during the 4 weeks the bridge is out of action.  (although looking at the crack, there are concerns this could be much longer)

However this incident, and other recent examples such as the Talk Talk hack and the floods in Cumbria, really do highlight the need for all businesses to have solid readiness planning.  These events, although unlikely, when they occur have significant impacts on customers, employees, businesses and their brand.  (… does it feel they are becoming more common too?).

The challenge for planners is that unfortunately focusing on the worst that could happen is not very popular in most companies.

Although standard practise for some (NASA being a good example), in most organisations, being a ‘negative nelly’ is not seen as a compliment.  In the drive to cut costs and focus on business growth, these small probability, high impact scenarios are often considered low priority or even overlooked.  However even a small amount of scenario planning can make a huge difference.

  • Planning allows the business to present a solid, coordinated response to the incident and the public.
  • It provides quick guidance for employees, often in what can be a very chaotic environment.
  • It allows you to control the response to the situation rather that the situation controlling you.

Although this may not change timelines or accelerate any fix (it is worth having contingency plans for these too), building a readiness plan is a great first step to help you and your customers operationally deal with the situation.

  • Focus on the situation you are responding too, rather that individual event itself…..  (in this case, bridge closure rather than structural failure).  This will reduce the number of plans you need and there will be some common themes.
  • Include events with low probabilty but high impact…. It is not necessarily have a second bridge in place in case the first one fails (almost the case here in Scotland), but do have a plan, be able to communicate this and the timelines.
  • Also think through other situations that may impact your customers (e.g. Floods).  How can you respond to help them, do you have a role to play in their recovery?
  • Think about short, medium, long term duration impacts….. What would happen if this was 24 hours, 1 week, 1 month or a year. Your response will need to change as the situation evolves.
  • Build a checklist…. Checklists are invaluable in emergency situations.  A pre-thought through checklist is invaluable in providing guidance, structure and coordination to the team.
  • Pre-think through crisis performance measures…. How do you know if the situation in improving?  Can you measure the customer impact?
  • Review on a regular basis, and occasionally run simulations…. these are great to familiarise the team with the plan and what to do.
  • Trust your team…. you no doubt have a great team that already knows the business well and can react to situations. However some initial planning can really help keep things fresh.

In many cases, for many businesses, having full scale redundancy in place is very expensive and just not realistic.  However planning for the situation and having a coordinated response is possible.  It helps protect your brand and reduces the cost of recovery….. an investment worth considering over the long term.

 

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