One of Canada's major banks this past week received a complimentary write-up in the national business newspaper for its renewed dedication to customer service in its extensive distribution network. This raises a number of questions: Were they not customer focused before? Did they let customer service become secondary? What have their competitors been doing? More importantly, why did customers stay where there was a weak service focus? Is the whole industry weak on customer empathy?
Quality service or customer service has been a core strategy for leading edge institutions for three decades in our experiences at WESI. On the other hand there are those that only play lip service to this performance driver or periodically execute service blitzes with no continuous reinforcements. If you look at the top management titles is there someone responsible for customer service or the equivalent? If it is buried one or two levels below, perhaps that is the indication of its importance in that culture.
Our C.O.O., Judy Johnston, has been working with clients for almost five years on an elevated customer service or care level, which she calls "Customer Devotion". This is an institutional, emotional commitment to a customer focused culture from the newest recruit to the CEO. The devotional journey is an integrated set of visible activities, policy focuses and proven processes that never ends but continuously grows with customers' circumstances.
In recent days we have seen a noticeable slippage in retail customer experiences to the point that one wonders if the recessionary psychology is affecting the organizations and their front line staff. Negative and defensive postures appear to be creeping back into personnel's behaviours. Take the time to evaluate where your corporation's culture is in real terms and put the focus back on the customer to increase your performance as did the national bank mentioned above.
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Where Eagles Soar Inc has always encouraged its clients to undertake regular executive/management strategic development retreats designed to build a cohesive team, personal improvements and greater customer impacts and results.The current recession actually magnifies the need for such events which focus on critical catalysts for a customer centric culture.
Some key topics should be as follows:
1) Customer Affinity/Knowledge- everyone needs a reality check periodically to move away from personal perceptions of customers characteristics to learning real segment and individual decision preferences and drivers. Management 'gut feel" has to be replace by knowledge based on research and continuous control pilots.
2) Competitive Readiness- retreats are fantastic venues for experimenting with competitive warfare games based on pre-retreat research and group sharing. Nothing is static and a recession has everyone re-thinking their competitive strengths and vulnerabilities. For example, tactics which have demonstrated a lack of customer sensitivity during these difficult times do open the door to future competitive attacks. WESI actually runs a confidential, competitive readiness index amongst the management team prior to retreats so that everyone can target weak areas and protect their strengths.
3) Value Added Propositions- "marketing hooks" are promoted in the media daily by financial institutions with the resources to do so but in many cases the actual customer experiences at delivery points can be quite different. Segmented value propositions are foundations for sales success. Remember when mass promotion kits were send to all branches so rural units could be displaying posters of red Corvette loans rather than John Deere tractors.
Every retreat can be customer centric and focus on the 3 or 4 key topics for improvement rather than taking a shot gun approach at all performance variables with not enough team time and depth of thought available on the major issues of today and tomorrow. Make the time you invest in customized retreats exciting and refreshing for all involved with greater potential dividends for all customers and prospects.
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The recovery hype is getting louder politically! But, what are the realities for the consumer and our financial services industry? To come out of this recession requires patience, planning and personal progress.
The consumer is the catalyst and many of them are still loosing their jobs, homes and retirement savings. They are not in a buoyant spending mood since they are licking their wounds or worrying about the basics of life. Delinquency rate and loan default increases are still the trend even in the most conservative of financial institutions. In fact, here in Canada, where we have had it better than most, bankruptcy rates keep growing on a monthly bases. It is not the general public that is chasing the stock and commodity markets again as much as it is the institutional investors trying to shore up previous losses, which could be a dangerous, artificial tactic. Where we sit, the majority of consumers have a long way to go before they see personal turnarounds.
In the financial services industry globally, there are still serious weaknesses and many institutions are on regulators' watch lists. It is unlikely that we will see more bailout money being poured into saving large or small FI's since the legacy of the initial rounds of capital injects or toxic asset acquisitions by governments have left a bad taste in the public's mind and unreasonable debt loads for future generations. The strategy around the world has been to bailout the major cancerous corporations with the belief that to not do otherwise would drive us further into recession! Some banks in reality are owned by the public and others received "loans" at rates their best customers will never see. All financial institutions have to show new leadership and focuses on the customer and business strategies that build trust and confidence.
Beware of political rhetoric meant to lift your spirits in an artificial fantasy of recovery. When the final tallies are made, the world, all nations, the financial industry and the average citizens will have greater debt burdens and less wealth plus real risk aversions great than before. We need to deal with the realities from the consumer in, and not the political encouragements that don't build solid foundations of recovery.
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