#7-10-02-06: Customer Service is?
Customer Service!
Big Deal or Not?
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, October 2, 2006
Good evening!
Customer service is a big deal… to customers. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal to businesses… at least some businesses. When I’ve been involved with customer service it’s seemed pretty easy to me and yet, apparently not to some. It’s considered such a confusing topic that this month’s issue of Fast Company devoted most of a whole issue to it.
I picked up a copy of the September 2006 issue of Fast Company off the newsstand, the one with Lewis Black on the cover looking like a surprised and disgruntled customer with smoke coming out of his ears. The first thing I read was the “Letter From The Editor”, Mark N. Vamos.
Mark begins by stating that, “Giving your customers great service…is easy.” He then proceeds to say that it really is difficult because what all (or most) customers want is to talk to the proprietor of the company to get their problems solved. He goes on to say, “I think most of us have an unspoken expectation of that relationship (i.e., between customer and company) that’s rooted in an idealized image of early-20th-century small town commerce. When we do business, we want to feel as if we’re looking the proprietor in the eye over a wooden counter. We want the owner of the hardware store to know us. We want the owner of the bookstore to remember that we liked the last book by that Sinclair Lewis fellow and to set aside the new one for us.”
Well, I don’t know how Mr. Vamos makes purchases but that is not at all what I want nor is it what I expect. I don’t care about the proprietor. I don’t want anybody guessing what book I want. I’m certain the days of living down the street from the hardware store where everyone knows my name are long gone or certainly seem so. When I call a customer service department and the person on the other end of the line calls me by name, I know they’ve already pulled up my information in their database. So let’s not get overly sentimental about the “old days”. The only time I expect someone to know my name is if I’ve had repeated contact with them in a short enough span of time that I appreciate that they haven’t forgotten my name or other pertinent information. Most of the time all I want is someone to talk to, rather than a machine, and I want that person to be the first and last person I talk to in order to get what I want done. That’s it.
The reason Nordstrom’s does so well is not because the customer has access to the proprietor or because they call me by name.
It’s because the sales person on the floor can and does ACT LIKE the CEO.
But they are not the proprietor nor do I expect them to be. It’s because the sales person on the floor takes care of my issue. They are the first and last person I have to talk to in order to get what I want done. Get it?
Customer service is easy. I’ve provided a lot of good customer service and it was not rocket science. I know rocket science and customer service isn’t it. To get to good customer service all you have to do is ask two questions, “What does my customer want?” and “How does my customer want to be treated in getting it or in not getting it?” That’s it. The reason customer service is so difficult to find in the world is that companies don’t ask those two questions. They ask a different question instead and that is,
“What minimal contact do we have to provide to deal with the customer after the sale is complete?”
Whether company personnel ask that question out loud or it’s implied in their discussions, you know that’s the question they are answering when they implement their customer service policies. Just notice what customer service processes they have implemented.
Most companies treat customer service as an expense instead of an investment.
When I was a product manager at a printer company, there were many instances in which I talked to customers and provided support to my customers. My overriding questions were always, “What is of interest to my customer?” “What has my customer told me they are interested in?” “What can I do to make my customer’s life easy regarding my product?” “How do my customers want to be treated?”
So if you’re a technical professional, how do you provide great customer service? Let’s say you’re an IT professional whose job it is to integrate hardware and software for clients. Your clients may be internal users or they may be external customers. How do you provide customer service that is exemplary?
The answer comes in several parts so remember that there isn’t a silver bullet here. It takes a focus on several components.
The first component relates to your perception of your role. You must first think “systemically”. That is, you must think beyond your own area of the organization, beyond your own immediate world. You must begin to understand how other components of your product, the customer’s needs, and your company’s support components fit together to form a “support system”. Because it is your ability to influence of this “support system” that will allow you to provide great customer service.
The second part is your perception of the customer. If you consider the customer a source of problems or if you consider the sale complete when the customer has purchased your product, you’re in trouble. The customer is an on-going source of business and you must think of them that way.
Third, you must establish informal relationships within the context of your larger organization. If your company is large enough to establish these relationships formally that’s fine but don’t rely on them solely. What allows you to act like the CEO in the customer’s eyes is your ability to have the informal relationships that allow you to behave in a semi-independent way. You just can’t do this well unless you have established informal relationships in your organization that support your independence and your independent decision-making.
Finally, the fourth part is communication. Communication must be open and flexible. You must be comfortable being in a fish bowl. Whatever you need in order to provide great customer service, you have to be able to ask for it (within your own organization).
Notice great customer service is not about the implementation of technology. Mark was right in his implication that we want that human touch. In the final analysis, good customer service is really very easy to provide, in most situations. However, what we often see in the business world today is that customer service is a “must have expense” that most companies attempt to automate so it can be provided at the lowest possible cost. Big mistake. The only way to a build business that keeps your current customers and attracts new ones is to build relationships. Good customer service is one cornerstone of those good relationships.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 10/02 at 08:47 PM Management • Technical Management • Inter-Personal People Skills • (0) Comments • Permalink
#6-09-28-06: Find A Mentor
Find Your Mentor and Coach
Find Your Sam or Samantha
Posted by Steven Cerri on Thursday, September 28, 2006
Good morning!
In this blog I want to tell you about Sam. Sam Garcia. I don’t even know if Sam is still alive and so this might be a way for me to thank him and to acknowledge his existence in some small way.
I graduated from college in 1969 with a B.S. in aeronautical engineering. After starting out in the ground support equipment department of the Apollo manned space program at Rockwell International in Downey, California I was moved to the advanced space systems department in Seal Beach, California. I didn’t like ground support equipment work much but I really enjoyed the advanced systems work. I met some very good engineers (in both groups) who took this young kid under their wings and guided me along.
I was always a little more aggressive than my years or knowledge would probably support and soon I was picked to work on a new project that was part of the then, theoretical work leading to the development of what is now the space shuttle. The project I was placed on was called the Space Tug. The Space Tug was an on-orbit propulsion vehicle that was to go up in the shuttle cargo bay, with the satellite payload, and was to be used to place the payload into its final orbit.
My job was to perform flight performance analysis of the tug, which means that it was my job to calculate what sizes of payload the tug could place in various orbits. The program manager, the person in charge of all the analysis, design, and development of the Space Tug program was Sam Garcia.
Now when I first met Sam he didn’t strike me as anything other than an older guy who had knowledge and some power and responsibility at Rockwell. He was short and stocky, bald, with a deep, raspy voice, a quick smile, and an attitude that made you think that he would always find the funny or ironic component to any situation. And he had a slight “Spaniard’s” accent.
At first whenever I heard Sam talk to the program team, I noticed that he sounded like he was just talking to us. That’s all, just talking to us. I was the youngest guy in the group. At the time I was about 22 years old and the average age of the team, other than me, was probably 45 to 50 years old with Sam at about 50 years old. It wasn’t long before Sam and I became good friends. He once said that he saw a lot of himself in me when he was my age.
In any case, Sam began to talk to me about management and leadership, and it wasn’t the typical stuff about project management, schedules, and budgets. Our talk was about people. Who had what strengths; who had what weaknesses. How to make decisions about who to have do what and who to take to customer briefings. I got to go to all the customer briefings, something that was unheard of for someone my age and with my limited experience, but Sam trusted me and gave me opportunities.
One of the aspects of Sam’s life that he thought was important to who he was had to do with what he did after graduating from high school and before going to college. I don’t now recall much about what he said about his childhood or his father or mother or family, but I remember that Sam said that upon graduation from high school he boarded a merchant ship and traveled the world for two years. A young man of 18 years old, traveling the world. That experience gave him a different perspective than those of us who had gone from high school to college to work.
After this two-year period, Sam decided to go to college and got a degree in engineering. He now had a family, a daughter, and a good career at Rockwell. And he was teaching me how to deal with people.
After three years at Rockwell, and two of those years working with Sam, I decided it was time to go back to school to get a M.S. in geophysics. My reasoning was that if I didn’t branch out I would end up like so many 50 year-old engineers I saw around me; 50 years old and doing the same work that a young kid out of college was doing (i.e., the young kid was me.) I didn’t want that and so I thought the best approach was to branch out.
I asked Sam for his advice. My question was, “Do you think that my move to branch out into geophysics is a good move?” Sam’s response was indicative of how I think a good manager deals with direct reports, whether about personal matters like college or about work matters like presentations or analysis. His answer was also a reflection of a man who traveled the world at eighteen not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. His answer was, “I can’t answer that for you. This is something you have to decide. If you don’t do it or you do it because of something I say then you will never know if it was the right decision or not.”
There was another time I recall when Sam’s approach to me was very different. I had been performing an analysis on the Space Tug’s performance. I had developed a series of charts indicating how the tug would perform with different payload weights in different orbits.
As I left work one day, half-way through the parking lot on the way to my car, in a flash, I had the realization that one of my equations could be wrong. I might have divided by a constant instead of multiplying by it.
I worried about it all night and the next morning ran into my office to verify the equation. Sure enough, it looked like I had made a mistake. I ran to Sam to tell him that the numbers on my chart were wrong. I told him I’d fix the numbers and get back to him. I felt proud that I had found the mistake this early in the program and that I could admit my mistake as well. He was supportive.
I spent the rest of that day pouring over the numbers only to determine that my original data were correct. No need to worry I thought. I’ll tell Sam I made a mistake about my mistake, my original numbers were correct.
When I told Sam of my error in thinking that there was an error, he looked at me like he could have handed me my head. With very little emotion in his voice or on his face as he spoke, which made his statement all the more stern, he only said these words, “Don’t ever do that again.” As I walked out of his office I knew I had screwed up.
One of the aspects I didn’t realize until years later about Sam’s management style was his ability to vary that style depending upon the circumstances. He could be calm and helpful; he could be playful and joking; he could be ruthless and demanding; and he could be a friend. As my own career advanced and as I began to develop my own way of moving through my technological business world I, unconsciously at first and then by choice, began to understand the usefulness of being able to adopt a wide variety of management styles. Sam was able to move smoothly through a wide variety of different situations with a wide variety of people. I ultimately saw that ability to be a key to management success.
Sam was my first coach and mentor. He talked to me about life and work and people, explaining to me what was important both at work and out, and how to know what was important and how to know what was not. What was important about Sam’s coaching was that he told me “what he was thinking”. He let me see into his mind, into his thought processes. That was so much more important to my learning than just “telling” me what to do. I got to see the “why” as well as the “what”.
I left Rockwell to go back to school and received a M.S. in geophysics. Several years later I ended up back at Rockwell at Seal Beach, and Sam wasn’t there. He had been transferred to another division of Rockwell, and I never saw him again. And yet what he taught me is still with me, so much so that I’m compelled to write a blog about his impact on my career and my life.
To all you technical professionals out there I urge you to find yourself a mentor, a coach. Someone who can teach you early (or late) in your careers what to focus on and what not to focus on, what is important and what isn’t. You don’t have to agree with your mentor or coach but they will help you by starting the process of asking the right questions and giving you their opinions from which you can begin. If their really good they won’t tell you, they’ll give you a view into their processes. Find your own Sam or Samantha. Seek out the wisdom in your technical profession. Look for the people who are not only successful but seem to have the respect of a wide variety of people in your organization. Not the people who just have their “like-minded” friends. But those people who receive the respect and support of a wide variety of personalities throughout the organization, throughout the community.
I don’t know where Sam is now, or even if he is on the planet. I’m sure there were others he gave guidance to throughout his career. For me, I still remember Sam as someone who had an important impact on my technical career and on my personal life. Thanks Sam.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 09/27 at 09:50 PM Coaching • (0) Comments • Permalink
#5-09-25-06: To Be A Manager
So You Want To Be A Manager
How Does A Technical Person Get Promoted To Manager?
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, September 25, 2006
Hello everyone!
If you’re currently a technical professional and you’re thinking about going into management, it’s important that you be aware that your transition to management isn’t going to be an overnight process. You’re not going to go to bed one night as a technical professional and wake up the next morning as a technical manager. But you knew that, right? What you probably didn’t know is that it can be a very slow OR a relatively fast process. And it most certainly won’t be orderly because your boss or your company probably won’t prepare you well for the transition.
I’ve seen a lot of technical people get selected for management and so I’m going to tell you one of the likely scenarios you might experience.
First and foremost, most managers, and here I’m speaking of your manager; most managers don’t really understand management as a discipline. (I know, it sounds like a ridiculous statement, but all I can do is ask you to consider how competent you believe the managers are that you’ve met? Most of you will say, “not very”.) This is because most managers think that management is a no-brainer, or at the very least, it’s not a very rigorous discipline. Therefore, if you do your engineering work well, and you seem readily capable of talking to people, your manager will think that because you can do your technical work well you can manage other people doing the same or similar work.
That’s right. Most technical professionals who do a very good job at their technical work are “assumed” to be competent to manage a team of people doing the same or similar work. You manager is thinking something like this: “Well John (or Betty) is a really good engineer. He really seems to know his stuff when it comes to the technology. And he seems to be a nice enough person. He seems to communicate well enough with other people. Most people like him. He doesn’t seem to raise his voice or get into verbal disputes. He can probably manage one or two people doing similar work to what he has been doing. I’ll just give him a simple management task with a few people to manage and see how he works out.”
That’s it. That’s how you get selected for management. There is usually no more preparation than that. As you will probably notice from this scenario, you’ve been selected for a relatively small project. That’s reasonable. You’re not going to be selected to be a full-time manager without significant experience. However, the key here is that you will often be selected for your first management position without being given sufficient training. You’ll be seen as a good technical person. You’ll be seen as someone without significant inter-social faults. You’ll be asked (usually) if you want to be a manager and most of the time the response is “sure”. And that will be it.
Now once in a while a good technical person is selected to manage a small project and they are given some training in preparation for this new responsibility. The training will often come in the form of one or more of the following classes: corporate human resources/personnel policies; project management; budgeting and scheduling; good listening skills. While these classes regarding the “doing” of management at your company are useful, they are not what you need as a new manager. Primarily what you need as a new manager is a way to understand how to make the transition from individual contributor, the “doer” part to the motivator, the “doer doing less and motivating others to do”.
As an individual contributor you got your rewards from the doing. As a manager, you will get part or all of your rewards from what others are doing. This is the shift you want to make. This is what you want to learn about. This is what will make or break your transition.
I want to point out one more major dilemma in this early stage transition, and that is you will have “one foot” in the management world and “one foot” in the individual contributor world. That is, you won’t be a full-time manager and you won’t be a full-time individual contributor either. This is a very difficult situation to be in but unfortunately, we all have to go through it. There seems to be no other way to get from technical professional to manager. At some point in the early days of our transition process, we all have to be part-time manager and part-time technical professional. You will have to “change hats” frequently from manager to individual contributor and back and forth and this will definitely get confusing and it will be a challenge… I can guarantee it. But frankly, there isn’t any other way. You won’t have sufficient experience to be a full-time manager so you’ll have to make it a part-time gig. And about half of you will not succeed.
You won’t succeed because you never wanted management in the first place. If you had wanted management you certainly wouldn’t have studied all those years to be a technical professional. So let’s be clear. Being a technical professional is generally not a “people oriented” profession. Technology deals with ideas, laws of physics, machines, equations, and only peripherally, with people.
Now all of a sudden, because you do your technical work so well, you are going to be asked to focus on “people”.
I take the position, that from the technical professionals’ point of view, management is a new career. One that you didn’t ask for and one you didn’t prepare for. And yet, here it is. It’s going to require preparation and practice. And it’s going to require more than just knowledge of how to use Microsoft Project, or how to set up budgets and schedules. It’s going to require an understanding of how to deal with and communicate with and manage people. It’s going to require a personal understanding of your own motivational forces and an understanding of the motivational forces of others. This is why the transition to management is such a challenge for many technical professionals.
It’s a new career. It can be done. It can be done smoothly, elegantly, and successfully. It must be done with a conscious process of choice and an understanding that, for most technical professionals, it’s a second career.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 09/25 at 10:47 AM Engineer to Technical Manager • Becoming a manager • Technical Manager • Management • Engineering Management • Management for engineers • Management for technologists • Technical Management • Inter-Personal People Skills • Communication for engineers • Soft Skills for engineers • Soft Skills for Technologists • (0) Comments • Permalink