Making an Impact
In this issue:
Experience or Expense?
This is the section where I share with you the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the customer experience, the impact everyone can have on it - in either direction, and the resulting impact on image, reputation, brand, customer relationships, your whole organisation and your bottom line. Does everyone in your organisation understand the importance of the customer experience, and their impact on it?
We have all been customers at some point, and we all give customer experiences to others, whether it's in work or out of it - so our neighbours, friends and relations can all be viewed as our customers too. I have a growing list of experiences which I am looking forward to sharing and in some cases, venting! You'll see that I do rather get on my soapbox about some of these!
Team Working?
Now I'm no football expert or even particularly like football, but I couldn't ignore the World Cup and what happened with the England Team. However, even though I don't know very much at all about the beautiful game, nor the rules and tactics, nor much about the individual England players – except global brand David Beckham of course, who wasn't even playing, I was fascinated by how much of what was going on that was nothing to do with football.
The England team comprises highly successful individuals who perform extremely well within their own team, and when they're on their home turf – literally and metaphorically. However, as we all witnessed, when they had to come together, work, form and perform as a new team, they were not able to do so, and in turn, were not able to deliver the customer experience we and other customers of theirs around the world were expecting.
So why was this and what could they have done differently to change that outcome, that was nothing to do with their skills as footballers?
Role Clarity and Confidence
What was evident, literally from the kick off, was that they didn't look comfortable working together, despite all the practice and rehearsals they had undertaken in preparation. They didn't appear to have gelled very well when they came together, and some looked nervous and even afraid when they all came together to face their opponents. They seemed to lack confidence, were hesitant when they should have been assertive, and almost appeared out of their depth, confused and unable to perform to the best of their ability once they were in this particular team set up.
In contrast, when reflecting on the terrible defeat suffered at the hands of the German side, several commentators, including Franz Beckenbauer, observed that each individual in the German team knew exactly what role they were playing, what they should be doing, looked completely comfortable, confident and fearless.
With any team, the responsibility for gaining that role clarity in order to increase confidence and team working lies with both the managers and the team members.
Flexibility
If a sports team or an organisational team is to be high performing, the individuals in it need to be able to change roles easily and quickly adapt their attitude and their skills to new situations and formations, stand in/ cover for each other if the situation requires it, and be prepared to work to changed plans and requirements at the same time.
The England players didn't seem able to do this and work effectively as a team, because they weren't flexible enough to adapt to the new positions and roles that some of them had to play in this team. Again it was noted by one of the commentators that a couple of players almost forgot what role they were supposed to be playing in the England team and played too far over or down one side, as if they were playing in their club team positions still.
Communication
It was noticeable too that the England team members didn't appear to talk or even signal much to each other during the match. They seemed distant from one another, not connecting or networking with each other well. They appeared ingrained in sorting out their own immediate problems, without also communicating more with each other to ensure that what they were doing was the right move to make.
If there had indeed been more communication, this would have enabled greater team working and co-ordination, resulting in more effective use of time and effort. In turn, the number of defensive gaps that were left open might well have been closed, and some of the goals achieved by the competition might not have resulted.
The same is true of any team in an organisation. If they're not constantly communicating with each other, checking they're on track, in the right position, performing the right task, and looking at how what they're doing is affecting their fellow team members, mistakes will be made and competitors will overtake them.
In contrast, the German team for example, were constantly in touch with each other, talking to each other and looking at what their team members were doing, in order to ensure that the task ran smoothly and went according to plan. As a result, their team working was brilliant, and they achieved the goals they needed to ensure success.
Three Feet from Gold/ Goal - Commitment and Tenacity
There's a great book by Napoleon Hill called 'Think and Grow Rich'. One of the stories he tells in this is about some gold miners in Colorado in the days of the gold rush, who, having laboured for weeks, found a seam of gold, but needed to club together with other people to raise the money to invest in machinery to bring it to the surface. Having managed to buy the equipment and started to mine the ore, they dug out enough to pay for the machinery. The next gold would put them in profit and take them into the big money. However, not long after they started to mine again, having paid off their debts, the ore seam disappeared. The miners stopped, decided there was no more gold to be had, and decided to sell off the machinery and their stake in the mine.
The person who bought them out sought advice from engineers and decided to keep mining. To his delight and ensuing enormous wealth, the seam reappeared just three feet past the point at which the first miners had stopped – they gave up when they were just three feet from gold!
The same happened with the England players. They gave up when they were three, thirteen and thirty feet from goal. When they thought they weren't getting anywhere and the opposition were heading purposefully, passionately and with determination towards the goal, it appeared that some of the England players gave up and allowed their opponents to score, seemingly feeling all was lost so why put in any more effort.
In some instances, they seemed to give up well before it was all over. They saw their opponents running faster than them with the ball, and they stopped running and gave up. If every member had been committed to stopping every ball heading towards their goal, right to the very last second, until there really was no more to do and no opponent left to beat, then maybe some of those goals would not have been scored and the outcome could have been very different.
Pace and Passion
We all know how fired up those highly talented England players can get when they're playing for their own teams. However once they were assembled as the England team, most of that fire, passion and motivation appeared to leave them. Neither their managers nor coaches seemed to be able to motivate them out of it, nor could they motivate themselves out of that fearful, passionless performance. As a result, they did not enjoy the experience, and neither did their audiences.
Their execution of their jobs – the passing, running, footwork and manoeuvres in the main were more laboured, less efficiently executed and as a result, less effective too than they should have been, and than was expected by their customers, critics and themselves. Their pace was directly affected by their lack of passion, and dropped noticeably, which in turn also adversely affected their performance.
Consequently, their own performance experience and the result suffered. Their lack of pace and passion created a poor customer experience for their audiences, whose reviews of them were less than complimentary, and who, rather than clapping and cheering, were booing and jeering.
The Bigger Picture
What was obvious to us from our customer perspective was invisible to them from theirs it seemed. They didn't take that step back to look at what they were doing from a team perspective, rather than from their own position perspective and what was happening within their own small patch. If they had done this, they would have had a better perspective on what was happening and how to put it right, and might have spotted the huge gaps in their defence, as well as their lack of co-ordination in attack.
If any team – in the sporting or corporate world wants to perform well and then indeed progress to being a high performing team, in addition to the particular technical skills the individuals need of course, just six of the other characteristics it must possess are:
1) Absolute clarity and confidence in each of their roles, in each other's roles and in the purpose and direction of the team
2) Wide spread flexibility and the ability to adapt as the plan progresses
3) Exceptional communication skills and channels with constant reference to one another
4) Unwavering commitment and tenacity to ensure they don't give up three feet from gold
5) Unrivalled pace and passion, self-motivation and ability to motivate each other
6) The ability to take a step back, look at the bigger picture and see what is happening across the whole team and not just in their individual tasks
If the England team had worked more on these attributes and not only on their technical skills, the result and the experience may well have been very different for them and their customers.
Not only were they knocked out of the competition, but their customers, who had travelled to South Africa to see them, came away very disappointed, feeling they had not gained value for money from the investment they had made in the experience, nor been rewarded with the performance their loyalty deserved. The reviews and referrals they then gave (and are still giving) of the team were poor, and the likelihood that they would again invest that much time, effort and money into being a customer and loyal fan is by no means certain.
The same is true of customers of any organisation. If a team has not performed well, customers feel they've been cheated of the customer experience they expected, and repeat sales, positive referrals and reputation are not going to result.
Often the first reason why the customer experience of a team/ the customer experience a team is giving is not as good as it could be, is because the team doesn't possess the self-confidence, team working and attributes it needs.
Focusing on the six characteristics above, as well as others that I work through with teams when we're looking at how they can become high performing, or get to the next level if they are already high performing, is absolutely key to the success of any team. Once they have a better understanding of themselves and feel more confident, they are then in a much better position for us to then go on to look at how they can improve the customer experience they are giving, and be more confident and successful in delivering that.
These attributes are also crucial to the team's image, reputation, and importantly too, how they feel about themselves and how others perceive them, react to them and what sort of referrals they give them. All of which will in turn reflect on the whole organisation's image, reputation, performance and referrals.
How much are your individual teams working? Are they truly team-working, or working as a group of individuals within a team? If it's the latter, how much is this affecting customers' (internal and external) experience of those teams, as well as their own team-working experience?
Observation Post
Seen and Not Heard?
Why is it that when some people are speaking on their mobile phone on a train, they feel the need to talk incredibly loudly so that everyone else in the carriage can hear their conversation?
Why do they imagine the rest of us want to be party to their conversation? Indeed some of the conversations are clearly private and/ or confidential and not for sharing. Are those people really so blissfully unaware of their volume and in most cases, the annoying experience they're giving to others through their unwanted sharing of phone conversations? Or do they perhaps not care – which is even worse!
Perhaps thinking about the experience they were giving to other people and not only the one they were having themselves, might have improved the experience for everyone. It might also have saved potential embarrassment for the person they were talking about whose name was loudly shared with fellow passengers!
Making Your Mark
Heading for Gold/ Goal
Thinking about your team, take each of the six attributes above, and decide one way that your team could improve in that attribute to become higher performing.
Try putting that into an action plan and/or use it to underpin the next team project you undertake, and watch the difference it makes.
Consider too a past project – whether it went well or not so well. Taking the six attributes, write down the difference that it would have made to the outcome if those attributes had been implemented more by the team members. No matter how large or small the difference they would have made, it might have been a difference that could have made all the difference to them, and in turn their customers' experience (internal or external) and got them to their gold/ goal.
Speaking Events and Workshops
I speak at a range of different corporate conferences, both all-staff and management, on the customer experience and my strategy of 'Whole Organisation Marketing' - helping all your people, no matter what job they do, deliver your customer experience, live your brand promises, and promote/ celebrate your organisation through everything they do. The emphasis is on improving the whole customer experience, referrals, reputation, your brand, effectiveness, the amount of customers and partners you keep and attract, and your bottom line success.
I also speak at industry and professional body conferences and events. For example, I have spoken for the Institute of Customer Service, European Customer Experience World, the Institute of Sales and Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Housing.
See the showreel on my website from one of these events.
If you would like to know more about these or the other types of events and conferences I speak at, or indeed have one you would like me to speak at, then do get in touch.
If you would like to find out more about the workshops and development sessions I run for organisations, which include ones to develop individuals and teams to improve the customer experience, and to help teams improve their performance and team working, then just give me a ring or drop me a line. You can see a summary of my workshops on my website too.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found it useful and thought provoking. If we haven't spoken or met already, I hope we get to do so in the not too distant future. If we have, then I look forward to chatting to you again.
See you next time.
Mob: 07787 573539
carolyn@carolyndallaway.com
www.carolyndallaway.com
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