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What matters: Don’t waste your customers time

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 27 2010
competition, Marketing, Strategy
2 Comments

In the past month I spent close to 9 hours with support representatives from a couple of companies with whom I’ve had issues with. One is Sprint and the other is Dell.

While 9 hours in a month doesn’t seem like a lot, believe me it’s a lot. When I was in high school I worked at a call center as a tech support representative for Verizon Wireless, so believe me when I say that spending a lot of time on the phone trying to resolve an issue is incredibly annoying for both the customer and the support representative. Especially when you (the customer) doesn’t get the issue resolved. As a support representative you can either make a customers day or you can become the focus of their anger.

One question I ask representatives all the time, which they have no idea how to answer, is: Why do I have to repeat myself every time I’m transferred from one representative to the other?

Wouldn’t it be easier if the first person you talk to took your information, entered it onto ‘the system’ once and it remained there for everyone to access until your matter is solved? This way the next person who gets to talk to you knows what’s going on before you even open your mouth. No seriously, we’ve got the technology to do it we just need someone to start acting differently and do it. Zappos has figured this out and does it in their own kind of way!

Believe me when I say that people take these calls for granted. As customers we know that whenever we call customer support we’re probably going  to spend a good amount of time on the phone. What if you (the biz) broke this expectation and actually made it less annoying when we call? Customers are annoyed before they even call!

The issue I had with Dell also got me thinking about the element of time. I was without my laptop for 2 weeks and more is coming because another hardware issue came with the fix so I have to send it back.  As I was telling my friend Arnold Beekes about it he suggested that Dell should have provided me with a temporary laptop while mine was being fixed, similar to how car dealerships do when you bring your car in for a check up.

These are the types of things that make a difference in the customer experience but some companies don’t figure it out until it’s too late. What if companies got annoyed when they felt they’ve wasted their customers time? What type of behaviors would emerge? In what ways would their business strategy change? How would their business model change?

Personally the issue of wasting people’s time does not sit well with me, so whenever I feel others (can be company or person) are wasting my time it annoys me. It also works the other way, if I feel that I’m wasting your time it bothers me.

My point is that time is such a precious resource and if you (the biz) mindlessly waste the customers time, you are ignoring a valuable opportunity to exceed their expectations because now more than ever we are more time constrained; we have more activities vying for out attention. If you can make the time customers do spend with you more valuable, you will make a small difference in their lives and that really matters :)

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Innovation posts of the week: Homophily the #1 enemy of innovation

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 26 2010
Must reads of the week
1 Comments
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Insights first, ideas second

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 24 2010
Innovation
4 Comments

I just want to add my thoughts to post earlier today: .

They sure are. There are all sorts of and . Do a google search for ‘how to get new ideas’ and you get , more links than you’ll ever have time to visit in your lifetime with some mostly the same information that is in those two articles I linked to! Ok so what’s a better way to generate ideas?

Insights, they’re the seeds of new groundbreaking ideas.

A more strategic way of generating ideas is to focus on building ideas on top of insights. Don’t get me wrong, thinking stuff up is fun. You let your imagination run wild, think of the impossible and think all kinds of stuff only you can imagine. It’s your own dream world! Mostly all these ideas will be way ahead of their time or not even doable. That’s why we need to combine our imagination with our intellect. Our intellect drives our capability to discover insights and our imagination helps put the pieces together in a new way.

So how do you discover new insights?

Recently I’ve written how and how . To discover new insights we have to become really good at and then making sense of them in this interconnected world. We must if you will and this happens by out of what we observe.

To get you started, a simple way is to observe the world, industries and people. Notice what’s changing, what’s different and ask yourself what does it mean for the world, industry your customers and you. Think about what needs and behaviors might emerge from these changes and how can you exploit them.

Ideas are cheap but insights are hard to come by.

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Innovation. What gives?

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 24 2010
Innovation
3 Comments

innovation what gives

 

Spotted this a few minutes ago: #Innovation is rare. Proof: millions of cookbooks sold and read all with practically the same recipes. What gives?

 

What gives? Human nature.

Innovation is about people and whatever beliefs, habits and attitudes people have are the limiting factors that prevent them from adopting new viewpoints or ideas. Yes, but as : it requires that people have an open mind and that is an incredibly scarce resource.

My amigo Jonathan Amm from probably said it best when he described the work we do as psychology work because those of us who are innovation insurgents are really in the business of opening people’s minds, . As far as all the recipes in books go, I wouldn’t be surprised that 10 years from now we’re still be talking about because human nature is one itch most don’t like to scratch. Most don’t and can’t think for themselves and resort to copycatting, which is essential to human evolution but detrimental to an organizations ability to be innovative.

Another thing to consider is that until only recently has ‘innovation’ moved to other realms other than the traditional product and service innovation. Areas like management innovation which deals with how we organize people around work is very important, this is an area where I personally think organizations can make the biggest impact.

Yes, innovation IS rare but anyone has the potential to do it.

 

“Rules are what artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.” -  Bill Bernbach

The easiest and most engaged way to get new insights

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 20 2010
Innovation
1 Comments

I’m a baller, and I can tell which sneaker is good for playing in and why. One of the worst things about modern basketball sneakers is that they still generate a lot of moisture on your feet that makes for an uncomfortable way to play. You really have to get used to playing with moisture on your feet. This problem hasn’t been fixed until now.

The video above is an overview of the new Nike Hyperfuse, which uses mesh technology (the one used on running shoes) to fix the moisture problem. What I want to draw attention to is that the Innovation Kitchen team from Nike got the insight for using mesh technology to reduce moisture after traveling to parts of China and ‘observing’ that some people where playing hoops in running shoes or sandals.

The Hyperfuse is a big hit with NBA players right now (Most of Team USA wore them during the recent World Championships) because it has everything all the other shoes had before it plus the mesh technology that helps the feet breathe.

Observe. Observe. Observe.

I’ve argued before that there are plenty of ways to get insights, but the easiest and most engaged way to get insights is by observing how people use your product or interact with your service.

You would think that an athletic footwear maker like Nike would’ve thought about using running shoe mesh technology on basketball shoes before. They had to travel to the other side of the world to see people playing basketball in sandals and running shoes, not basketball shoes, to get this insight. This why direct observation is so important and focus groups so limited, it’s better to observe people’s behavior because if you ask them outright what they want the don’t really know.

Another thing to remember is that people tend to say ‘that’s the way it is’ and accept products as they are and get used to them. Do you actually think that if they’re used to things being the way they are that they’re actually going to tell you what they want? I know as a basketball player you do all sorts of things to remove the moisture such as changing your socks often so your feet are as dry as possible, yet since we’ve found an alternative and temporary way to dealing with it we don’t stop and ask why?

Somebody else, an outsider, has to notice it; define the problem and find a solution.

Direct observation is one of the most cost effective ways to get new insights, ignore it at your peril.

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Innovation posts of the week: Evolution and Innovation

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 19 2010
Must reads of the week
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Are you willing to abandon the past to become something else?

Posted by Jorge on
Sep 19 2010
Creativity, Innovation
0 Comments

“Art is what we’re doing when we do our best work.” – Seth Godin

Here’s a different angle on things, creation from a musical artist’s point of view.

If you don’t know anything about Linkin Park don’t worry, just take my word for it that these guys are artists in the true sense of the word. They’re not afraid to mix things up, to push their music in a different direction, to become something else entirely.

That’s where their newest album, One Thousand Suns, comes in. Released this week, the album is completely different than their previous work:

Linkin Park‘s new A Thousand Suns album is a lot of things, most of which have nothing to do with their previous (mega-selling) efforts. By their own admission, the band spent nearly two years attempting to leave their past behind. To that end, it’s not a stretch to say they succeeded. The album, which hit stores Tuesday (September 14), is the band’s most divisive. But there’s one thing seemingly everyone can agree on: From this point forward, Linkin Park will never be the same band again. And though Suns represents the band at a crossroads, that doesn’t mean they abandoned everything that got them to this point. Quite the opposite, in fact. They’ve just taken the old and reworked it through the prism of the new.

In the music industry, moving in a different direction or trying to reinvent yourself is seen as a big risk because an artist is ‘abandoning’ what worked for him/her before. Sound familiar?

Most organizations have an ‘unwillingness’ to go in a different direction, they’ll keep on doing what’s always worked and what works for everyone else. The act of ‘innovating’ is to create something new, to go in a different direction, to see anew. So where’s the gap?

If you watch the intro video to the ‘making of’ their new album below, you’ll notice the following statements:

“Willingness to go with something that’s weird and put yourself behind that.”

“We wanted to work on something that’s different than how we’ve done things historically.”

“As long as the elements are really different, that’s making it interesting.”

I think the key word in there is ‘willingness’ because if you don’t have the desire to be innovative (as many organization clearly don’t), then you have to be willing to try. To take a leap into the unknown, to leave familiar shores behind in search of new ones, to reinvent yourself. Gary Hamel said it best:

“The single biggest reason companies fail is they over invest in what is, as opposed to what might be.” — Gary Hamel

Abandon the past and become something else. This is what great artists do and also what great organizations do.


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