Category Archives: Roadmap

Innovation. What’s Your Take?

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A term that is used repeatedly by companies, yet I am not sure we fully understand what it means, how we can nurture an innovative culture or whether it is a good or bad thing.

I read a blog recently by Pat Lencioni entitled “Is innovation good or bad” and started thinking about this interesting term and how frequently it is used or requested without there being a clear understanding of what it means and why we are doing it.

There are several written definitions of innovation but the one that I feel is the most relevant is: “Innovation is creating value by implementing ideas”

If adding value is the measure, then who is the measurer?  Is this a personal measurement?   I ask these two questions because I feel in today’s world it is so easy for people to say “we are an innovative company” or “you are not an innovative company.”  The same applies to personal beliefs. 

So what are my thoughts on how to deal with this?

  1. Review your customer survey to ensure that the “innovation” section / questions are asked in the right way so that you can specifically understand what this means to the person responding.  I believe that innovation is personal so this is crucial.  Without this you will not know what to do more of, less of or where to spend your money.
  2. Look at the employee innovation feedback and the client feedback to see if there is a correlation. 
  3. Define innovation in your organisation, sector and identify when innovative ideas occur and tell people about it, reward people for innovation.
  4. Implement a robust ‘idea to innovation’ process that aligns to your vision so that ideas become real commercial services or products that add value.

So what does the future look like in relation to innovation?  I hope more clarity, better measurement and personalisation.  To avoid thinking that innovation is about large investments but to focus on the smaller things that truly add value to your customers and employees.

Hello, Do You Know I’m here?

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I was recently enlisted by a friend of my father’s into helping him buy a new car. With 12 years in the automotive industry, and considering myself a bit of a petrol head, I was only too happy to help, and thought that it would be a piece of cake (and a lot of fun helping someone else spend their hard earned money). Having known him for 20 years, I knew that he have a great idea about what he wanted the car to do, he’d have researched the alternatives thoroughly and to be honest I thought my role would be to give him a seal of approval for his choice, or to make sure he wasn’t paying over the odds.

Sure enough he’d done the leg work – visited almost all the garages in his local area, and had brochures, prices lists and options lists coming out of his ears, but he was lost. Somewhere in all the information thrust upon him by the eager salespeople at the dealerships, they’d forgotten to ask him what it was he used the car for. Everything had become too complicated for him – he had been given too much choice. And he wasn’t enjoying his experience.

When I asked, he simply said he needed it to get into town to shop and pick his daughter up from the station. He wanted to do that as cheaply and safely as possible, and with the least chance of breaking down. And if it did – he wanted the dealer to look after him properly.

He didn’t care about sat nav as he knew where he was going (and happens to collect maps), he didn’t need parking sensors as he didn’t trust them, the thought of cruise control scared him half to death, and the 20 speaker stereo system wasn’t really needed for Test Match Special. He had no idea what DAB was. He wasn’t that interested in the intricacies of the finance deals, or the time it takes for a convertible roof to fully open. To make matters worse, having left the dealerships without the information he actually wanted, the days that followed brought with them postal surveys, even more brochures and business cards from the sales staff.

It struck me that perhaps the simplest concept of customer service had been ignored. Listening.

Not one of the sales staff had sat down and taken the time to find out why this gentleman was sat in front of them. What did he actually need? Not what did they think he wanted, but what did he need? They had forgotten who the most important person in that room was, and had potentially alienated him for good.

Over the next few days, he began to notice letter after letter from the various dealerships. Customer Satisfaction Surveys, even more brochures, even more special deals that didn’t interest him.

Now today’s world thrives on information. We all know that and it’s nothing new. It’s not the future – it is the now. But what of those who aren’t quite ready for it? Those who don’t want a mobile or don’t understand why they need the choice of contact by text, e-mail, twitter or Facebook? Should we abandon those who don’t want to take that route?

It seems to me that this highlights the one thing that those sales staff forgot. That the customer gets to choose how, when and where they interact with a business, and it’s up to the business to make sure it’s flexible enough to react.

It won’t be easy staying that flexible. I’m sure we all know the power of social media and modern technology. Opinions are formed, shared and reformed at a rate never before experienced. And that’s great – if you’re doing things right. If you’re not then where do you start?

The answer? Well, if I could answer that in a short blog then I’d be making millions from it – but it strikes me that there is an excellent and incredibly simply starting point.

Listen. Listen to what the customer wants from you. Listen to when they want it. Listen to how they want it. Not rocket science, but definitely effective.

What challenges have you come across (on either end) of service where you’ve either not listened/haven’t been listened to?

Roadmap For Intercultural Customer Service Management

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In today’s business world, almost every management expert knows the phrase “Think globally, act locally.” The more important questions are ‘How exactly do you behave according to that phrase in an international environment?’ ‘How are you acting locally while managing an international team including a number of nations and an even higher number of languages serving different countries, without forgetting the global aspect behind it?’ In business life, another hurdle appears when different individual cultures clash with the corporate culture of the existing team.

Those and other questions came to my mind when we took over the Belgium market. Since then, the team I am operationally responsible for in Germany consists of 55 employees, three brands, two locations, five different nations including six different languages.

So, in order to drive that piece of business into a success, I started to draft a Roadmap for Intercultural Customer Service Management which mainly consists of the following steps:

Cultural Awareness

The basis of intercultural management is awareness. Before creating an international team, you have to be absolutely aware of the fact that there might be different cultural attitudes beside the personality and human nature of each of the team members. Moreover, the target market for which you provide your service might be very specific according to its customer base or other geographical, historical, political or other environmental challenges. Try to know and understand them before you create your strategy for that market.

Cultural Management

Influenced by different cultures, the expectation of different team members of how the team should be managed might vary. American and German team members might evaluate management capabilities on the basis of brilliant results and French team members could lay higher emphasis on the efficient use of resources*. Depending on the mixture of the team, you have to learn the best way of management without forgetting that culture is just one aspect beside the personality and human nature of your team members. However, the possible different expectations of how the team managed also include presentation style or different understanding of visuals.

Culture versus Processes

If you design the right processes for each market, be aware that processes that have been developed as best practice in other markets might not work in another. This is dependent on the different type of customer culture as well as on the culture of the team. If the process doesn’t feel right for your new team and thus it does not work, you have to find the reasons and either develop your team or the original process into a new one to generate success.

Motivation, Reward and Recognition

If you want to motivate the team, but also reward and recognise them for their success, you have to act carefully according to the cultural environment. Overall, there are too many specifics for all countries to mention. However, some key aspects you should recognise are the differences in long-term orientation, power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance between different nations and cultures e.g. you will not motivate somebody with a low individualism by giving them feedback in public, even if it’s good feedback. Moreover, you will not easily suggest a team to take over responsibility and case management for their customers if they have very high uncertainty avoidance.

To put it in a nutshell, there is no clear or strict rule on how to manage an intercultural team in Customer Service. The basis for your progress should be awareness as it helps you to understand and base your management upon that. Using a very strong corporate culture, that is the basis of all we do at Percepta, so we have managed to create an international work environment that combines several European cultures from Germany and has been honoured with each of those services being among the best premium providers within Europe for our customers and clients.

I would love to hear from anyone who can share their own experiences of managing many cultures so please feel free to leave a comment below.

*Garatt-Gnamm, N. et. al., Efficient Managers in Cruzéby et al., Images, Cultures and Communication, SIETAR 1997, p. 118