Happy New Year - What Will It Bring?

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, I predict that as we continue to crawl out of this recession through 2011, we will see a return to the fundamentals in the corporate world.




What I mean is by this is a return to values based management; a rebirth of corporate and social responsibility; a renewed focus on sustainable growth versus quick profits; a resurrection of the bias for employee development over cost cutting; and perhaps most exciting of all, a resurgence of customer care and great service!

Do I think this will happen in companies across the board? Of course not! That would be naive and wishful thinking. But it will happen for those with leaders bright enough to learn from the lesson of the past, brave enough to bring back what was good and strong enough to always take the high road as they move forward.

That's my prediction. What's yours?

All the very best in 2011!


To comment, or read the comments on this blog click on 'comments' beside the little envelope below. To read previous articles (this is #40), see the Blog Archive (lower right) and to become a Wavemaker Blogs follower, click on 'Follow' (just above Archive).

If you would like to be notified whenever a new Wavemaker blog topic is posted, just drop us an email at wmconsulting@live.com with "Blog Me" in the subject bar. We promise never to provide your contact details to anyone else and you can unsubscribe from this service at any time.

If you would like to know more about how Wavemaker Consulting can help your company improve the customer experience you provide, visit our Website, or email us at wmconsulting@live.com

Yours or Mine?

Say I was to put a $20 bill (or a £20 note for my UK friends) on the table and offer the highest bidder the chance to win it on the flip of a coin. How much would you be willing to wager on the chance?

Views on gambling aside, logic would suggest a reasonable answer would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 dollars as that evens the odds of you taking my 20 while keeping yours at 50/50.

But say all you had was $20 to carry you to your next paycheck and you needed that money to buy milk for the kids. Would you still make the bet?

Conversely, say you want to buy theater tickets that cost $40, but only have $25 in your pocket. The show runs tonight only and there is no other way for you to get the extra $15. Might you consider bidding a little higher for a chance at not missing the show?

My point is this: It’s not really the price or cost of things that drives consumer behavior, but rather the value they place on those things. Yet driven no doubt by the economic downturn, it would seem both companies and consumers alike are totally obsessed with cost cutting and have completely lost sight of the total value proposition.

While I appreciate that eliminating unnecessary spending often makes sense, becoming obsessed with cost cutting, be that on the provider or consumer side, can only lead to a reduction in quality, and therefore the value of goods and services available.

Inevitably, this decline in value will further stall our economic recovery, increased pressure on our fragile environment and in the end, actually drive up real costs. In other words, it will cause a world of long term pain and little if any short term gain.

By my way of thinking, the sooner we curb our obsession with cutting costs and get back to focusing on value, the more of it we will create and the better off we’ll all be.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one!

For more on this topic, see my colleague, Ade McCormack's blog on Money Verses Value then return to this site by clicking on the back button.

To comment, or read the comments on this blog click on 'comments' beside the little envelope below. To read previous articles (this is #29), see the Blog Archive (lower right) and to become a Wavemaker Blogs follower, click on 'Follow' (just above Archive).

If you would like to be notified whenever a new Wavemaker blog topic is posted, just drop us an email at wmconsulting@live.com with "Blog Me" in the subject bar. We promise never to provide your contact details to anyone else and you can unsubscribe from this service at any time.

If you would like to know more about how Wavemaker Consulting can help your company improve the customer experience you provide, visit our Website, or email us at wmconsulting@live.com

Turn Around

Do you know what the problem is with most big companies?

They've somehow got the whole reporting thing totally 'bass ackwards!'

Think about it. In big businesses everyone except the CEO reports not to the stakeholder who matters most - the one who pays the way and has ultimate say over whether or not the company stays in business, but rather to some other employee in the same company... who in turn reports to yet another. Even the CEO, by reporting to the board/shareholders, has got it terribly wrong!

Most would agree this structure is fraught with problems, but the biggest by far is that everyone is looking in the wrong direction - face to the boss, back to the customer!

Now imagine for a moment a company where everyone reported directly to the customer. Impossible you say? Well in small businesses it happens all the time.

Take my business as an example. At Wavemaker, I report only to my customers. They and they alone provide me with direction and feedback, write my performance appraisals and determine my pay level. Furthermore, they do all this for not a penny of payment, let alone expectations of executive stock options or bonuses; and I dare say, they are a damn sight better at it than any corporate executive I've ever come across!

I'll admit, it is probably easier to organize this way if you are a sole proprietor, or in a small partnership, but who says that bigger companies couldn't do the same thing? Taking on more associates and fewer employees would seem to be a step in right direction, as would making sure everyone had some serious skin in the game (a meaningful investment in the company and compensation tied directly to results).

Taken far enough, my bet is productivity would soar and there would no longer be the need for all of those cumbersome and expensive employee evaluation, compensation, engagement and retention programs, let alone for all the managers and supervisors required to administer them.

And, in answer to the question "but what would we do with all of those good folk?" while numerous possibilities come to mind, maybe we should start by having them all turn around... and face the customer.

To comment, or read the comments on this blog click on 'comments' beside the little envelope below. To read previous articles (this is #20), see the Blog Archive (lower right) and to become a Wavemaker Blogs follower, click on 'Follow' (just above Archive).

If you would like to be notified whenever a new Wavemaker blog topic is posted, just drop us an email at wmconsulting@live.com with "Blog Me" in the subject bar. We promise never to provide your contact details to anyone else and you can unsubscribe from this service at any time.

If you would like to know more about how Wavemaker Consulting can help your company improve the customer experience you provide, visit our Website, or email us at wmconsulting@live.com

A Magic Formula For Thriving In Tough Times

I'm sure you all recognize this famous couple, but how much do you know about their history? Well let me tell you about it…



It all began in 1923 when an ambitious young man named Walt Disney arrived in Hollywood California with a big dream, a few sketches and $40 in his pocket. Soon thereafter, Walt convinced his brother Roy to join him and together they formed The Disney Brothers Studio using $200 Roy had saved, $500 borrowed from an uncle, and $2,500 contributed by their parents who mortgaged their house to come up with the funds! In no time, they hired a small staff and got down to the business.

For the first few years, Walt and Roy paid the rent and their staff by selling their early cartoons which were the original versions of “Alice in Wonderland” to M.J. Winkler, a New York film distributor. It wasn’t until early 1928 that Mickey Mouse, Disney’s best known creation was born.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

When the demand for the Alice series waned, Walt created a new character for Winkler named ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’. Oswald’s popularity grew, and in the spring of 1928, Walt decided to go to New York to negotiate a higher price for the contract.

Unbeknownst to Walt, Charlie Mintz , Winkler’s husband, had recently engineered a hostile takeover of Walt’s operation, enticing most of his staff away with the promise of better money. What Walt also did not know was that according to the terms of the original contract, Charlie Mintz and Universal Pictures actually owned all legal rights to Oswald as well as the Alice series. Thinking he had the upper hand, Mintz demanded that Walt Disney give up his business and go to work for him. Walt refused and stormed out of his office to return to California with virtually nothing.

It was during the four day train ride home from that fateful meeting in New York that Mickey Mouse was born. Walt originally wanted to call the little guy Mortimer, but fortunately, Walt’s wife convinced him that Mickey would sound less formal. Likely prompted by that conversation, the creation of Minnie was soon to follow.

Walt completed Mickey’s first cartoon, "Plane Crazy." in record time, but likely intimidated by the Universal Pictures disputes, no distributor would buy it. Not one to quit, Walt produced a second silent Mickey cartoon, called "Gallopin' Gaucho" which was also a very tough sell.

If nothing but persistent, late in 1928, Walt Disney began work on his third Mickey Mouse cartoon, this time a talkie, entitled, "Steamboat Willie." The young man (now 26) invested everything he had left into the film. This time the investment paid off and Mickey and his leading lady Minnie became stars, and orders for more cartoons came flooding in.

All that said, Walt’s troubles were far from over. It was 1929 and looming on the horizon was the Great Depression. Fortunately by this time, Walt, Mickey and Minnie were no strangers to adversity. They not only knew how to manage it, but even how to turn it to their advantage. Laughter sold well during the dirty thirties… and well beyond!

So what was Mickey, Minnie and Walt's magic formula for thriving in tough times. It's simple really. For over 80 years they made people (customers) happy! And they still do.

To comment on this blog click on 'comments' below. To read previous articles, see the Blog Archive (lower right) and to become a Wavemaker Blogs follower, click on 'Follow' (just above Archive).

NEW: If you would like to be notified whenever a new Wavemaker blog topic is posted, just drop us an email at wmconsulting@live.com with "Blog Me" in the subject bar. We promise never to provide your contact details to anyone else and you can unsubscribe from this service at any time.

If you would like to know more about how Wavemaker Consulting can help your company improve the customer experience you provide, visit our Website, or email us at wmconsulting@live.com

The Silent Disappearing Act

The following was submitted as a comment by Justin Baillie (a fellow crusader of the service quality cause) in response to one of my earlier articles entitled ' The Company You Keep.' Given Justin's words spoke to more than just the core theme of that effort, I decided that rather than post it as a comment, I'd put it up as a whole new article. Thanks Justin!

I am probably the worst kind of dissatisfied customer. When something goes wrong, I just walk away. You'll not hear another thing about it from me (did I hear you breathe a sigh of relief?), I'll never again do business with you and, being human, I'll tell all of my family and friends not to either.

You have just lost a customer and you don’t even have a clue why. And you can’t win me back, because I’m gone. Like magic, I just disappeared and all your companies expensive MI will show is attrition, with no attributable or tangible explanation.

If management is clever, when they see a lot of attrition, they may try to find the cause. But don't worry; that takes a lot of time and how will they know it's linked to the poor customer service you provided?

Let's be realistic. Customers come and go, and we all generally spend a lot more time trying to get new ones than focusing on the existing, or exiting ones.

And besides, so what if I have left, what’s the big deal, who cares?

But, just in case you are interested, here's the ironic bit: the reason I am walking away is trivial and you could so easily have done the right thing in the first place, or put it right after the fact, if only you'd picked up on my rather obvious signs of displeasure.

Now I'm thinking that you and your organization don’t really care about service, or my business. Fair enough, you are a big corporate, you make millions, so why should you care about my few hundred or maybe few thousand dollars of revenue? I bet your motto is “There are plenty of other fish in the sea.” Right?

Fortunately for me, that works both ways. What you offer is available in many different places, maybe even for less money. I’ll just take my business elsewhere; thank you very much.

Justin

To comment on this blog click on 'comments' below. To read previous articles, see the Blog Archive (lower right) and to become a Wavemaker Blogs follower, click on 'Follow' (just above Archive).

NEW: If you would like to be notified whenever a new Wavemaker blog topic is posted, just drop us an email at wmconsulting@live.com with "Blog Me" in the subject bar. We promise never to provide your contact details to anyone else and you can unsubscribe from this service at any time.

If you would like to know more about how Wavemaker Consulting can help your company improve the customer experience you provide, visit our Website, or email us at wmconsulting@live.com

In Good Times and Bad

To be productive, there are only two things you can do in business:

1-add value

2-save costs

Now then - which are you doing right now?

The above words of wisdom were sent to me by a good friend and X boss. While I love the simplicity and see no need to mess with them, I would like to suggest there is something to be said for the order in which they are presented, especially given the times.

While all for running a tight ship, I am more than a little concerned for those companies focusing first and foremost on cutting costs, but giving little or no thought to adding value.

Particularly disconcerting is the all to common practice of cutting programs aimed at improving the skills and knowledge of long standing employees, or worse yet cutting the people themselves.

I suspect most, if not all of these these companies are going to find themselves behind the eight ball when the markets turns, if not before. And, when it comes to time to staff back up, the cost of regaining, or retraining the skills and knowledge lost may be more than many can bare.

So if your response to the question posed above is simply "I'm cutting costs" and you haven't already developed and implemented a plan for adding value, you might want to rethink your approach.

What is the best, and likely the least expensive way to add value, regardless of the times?

We would suggest the answer lies in retaining and further developing your best people so your company can deliver a superior customer experience that differentiates you from your competitors, both today and in the future - a logical strategy for both good times and bad!

To comment on this blog click on 'comments' below. To read previous articles, see the Blog Archive (lower right) and to become a Wavemaker Blogs follower, click on 'Follow' (just above Archive).

If you would like to know more about how Wavemaker Consulting can help your company improve the customer experience you provide, visit our Website, or email us at wmconsulting@live.com