Flagrant Management CYA

I was speaking with a colleague yesterday who was recounting her recent experience at a client site. This colleague, a consultant, had worked on a project with the client to help them identify ways to cut costs dramatically and improve efficiency at the same time. She had ample evidence to support her recommendations, along with the agreement of the VP that initiated the project that her calculations and suppositions were reasonable.

So what's the problem? The problem is that nothing is going to be done with the new information she provided. Why? Because the VP's fellow executives—the ones accountable for that part of the company operations—vehemently deny the existence of any problem, let alone the opportunity to make improvements. In listening to her account of the meetings she had I could only conclude that the real issue here is flagrant management CYA. The inexplicable refusal of the operational leaders to acknowledge the challenges that are right under their noses can have only one motivation. This is a corporate example of the survival instinct in spades. These misguided and self-serving managers care only about their own positions and prosperity and nothing else. Worse yet, the culture that must exist in the company that leads seasoned, mature leaders to be fearful of admitting a mistake is astonishing in light of the well publicized case studies of successful organizations where mistakes are not seen as sins but rather as opportunities.

This kind of stuff just makes me crazy! To have the truth on full display and then to still have it successfully denied is absolute insanity. The selfishness and personal aggrandizement that pervades much of American business (remember Enron?) is quite discouraging. Shareholders of public companies are being ill-served and owners of privately held firms are literally being subjected to highway robbery, all in the name of someone's excessive ego and insecurities.

To borrow a phrase from the "X-Files", the truth is out there. Our challenge is to open our eyes and accept it.

More Thoughts on Customer Service

I’ve thought about this topic a bit more and I have come to the conclusion that the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our staff but in ourselves. We are the managers who put unqualified customer service personnel in front of customers. We are the managers who fail to provide even basic instruction to new hires on how to provide brilliant customer service. We train them in how to ring the register but seldom do we train them in how to smile with their eyes, how to notice little things about a client that would make them feel more comfortable or how to show the customer that they are not taken for granted. I know that the holiday shopping blitzkrieg is upon us and the last thing an overworked retailer wants to hear is that they’re not doing enough! I understand this because I worked in retail and retail-like environments for many years. But being busy is not an excuse for insufficient attention to management detail – enormous companies like the Nordstrom department stores and Wegman’s grocery chain get just as busy yet they maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction, even during the holidays. How is this possible? It is made possible because they invest in their people. It couldn’t be any simpler than that.

I can also hear the echo of business managers telling me there isn’t any money for training or that the Christmas help are just temporary so investing in them seems a waste. Bull. There is very affordable training out there (less than $100 per person) that can help to raise the level of service for every staff member. Christmas help? What this temporary help does will be something you’ll be paying for all year long in the form of lost or disgruntled customers, so safeguarding your business by investing a small amount of money in training them properly is a no brainer.

This paucity of good customer service that we’re living with is really the fault of short-sighted managers. So maybe we should lay off the harried Christmas help and instead seek out their boss to let them know how we feel.

Mad As Hell -- We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore!

What has happened to the concept of service in this economy? Who decided that it is acceptable to take my money but behave as though I didn't exist? Worse yet, when did so many brick and mortar retail businesses come to the conclusion that they can treat me any way they please because I'll be back, regardless, like some damn lemming, to beg them to take my money again?

I'm fed up with the indifferent service I receive in so many retail institutions. Like customer "service" staff in the grocery store who ring my items without acknowledging my presence and then mumble the total to me, all the while carrying on a conversation with the bagger (rare sighting) or the cashier two lanes over. I find myself using the self-checkout line regularly just to avoid having to listen to it (something I vehemently disliked initially because I felt as if the store providing such mediocre service to begin with was simply abandoning any hope of changing the status quo. I only half-jokingly remarked that the next step would be for the customers to unload the semi-trailer at the loading dock.)

It isn't just the grocer who has thumbed their nose at us. The gas station counter clerk, the dry cleaner, the bank, the department store, etc. have all reduced their attention to service detail. Self-serve everything has contributed to this to a degree, but I think it has more to do with the fact that retailers don't think service matters anymore. Whether it is an attitude of entitlement on the part of the merchants, a determination that e-commerce has trained us to not expect in-person service or reductions in staff training to keep the bottom line looking healthy, it seems that tepid customer service is the norm these days.

There are exceptions, I'm relieved to say. Some stores, like Wegmans grocery chain, Nordstrom's department store and high end restaurants like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse regularly receive well-earned praise for their continuing attention to service detail. What is it these retailers know that no one else seems to?

It is time for us to make our dissatisfaction known. I've long been an advocate of simply voting with my feet but I've come to believe that the only sure way to have an impact is to tell the merchants, loudly and clearly, that we're mad as hell and we aren't gonna take it anymore!