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Your face; our face | company perception is a narrow view


Top promoter score, my ass proclaimed Anal Arnold;  explain to me why Chaotic Chris, who basically looks like an adult version of Pig Pen, consistently gets the highest overall scores where as Kempt Ken gets mediocre scores from his clients.  Admittedly, while Chris looks like he just took a bath in bong water, his customers absolutely love him.  Ken on the other hand, is a bit of an arrogant ass and turns off even the most accepting of customers. 

Legendary Lee had always rambled on about how your company is always only as good as the employee which touches the customer.  Think about the bank teller, many financial institutions are similar; however, most people will go to banks where they like the tellers (your face, our face).  As organizations get larger and workers are spread far and wide, the influence we have on our key "money makers" dwindles.  "That is all good and well" said Arnold, but each individual is different and they own their attitudes.   You are partially correct Arnold responded Lee, we can help pave the road to a good experience for the field worker.  Sincere efforts need to be implemented by many within the organization focusing on:

  • Choice. how choice empowers people to make the right decisions and generates the proper attitude
  • Control, when the technician is in control of their own schedule in the field, magical things can happen. Is the business willing to relinquish this past tradition
  • Convergence, do they have the information when they arrive at site, idiosyncrasies and how to get to equipment. Nothing worse than putting the field worker in a no-win situation

Certainly these are logical, yet in some situations not very practical, stated Arnold.  Consider the all-paper company who really does not have the insights to allow them to push more decisions to the field.  How do they know that the worker is always making decisions for the company and not themselves.  Techno Tim, who had been listening all along, offered a slightly different perspective.  While in agreement; Tim suggested that choice, control and convergence are feasible when technology provides the transparency required to insure everyone is in cadence with one another.  Choice without boundaries can create its' own type of chaos.  Control devoid of performance measurement will likely result in individual priorities over organizational priority.  Convergence of knowledge is next to impossible without some form of digital transformation.

The tool, while important, is not the critical path.  You must re-imagine your organization and put the tools in place to make sure that the individuals touching your clients are always compelled to put their best foot forward.  If you believe that the customer experience takes a back seat to performance, than I encourage you to ask yourself how Apple, which has only incrementally improved their product since the passing of Steve Jobs, still finds themselves in a successful position.

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