After The Win, Companies Need To Deliver "A Perfect Conversion"

Your company has worked for weeks and months on positioning your services exactly the way you want. The client has given the right signals that it values your service proposition, and thinks your approach is intriquing. There seems to be a connection forming between the decision-makers and the sales team.

And then you get the word....you have won the big sale! Congratulations. Time to brew the pot of coffee...the real work begins.

Now comes a critical stage in the relationship...the Implementation or Conversion process. This stage is the first time your company moves from typical sales hype to reality of having to deliver what you sold. In many instances, this is a sobering time in the deal for both parties, one that Perfect Service companies need to critically analyze and design.

Bruce Temkin, in a recent blog post, describes this as the "Engagement Phase," the underappreciated stage between Point of Sale and Service. He believes that during this stage instead of worrying about collecting the proceeds from the sale, companies should focus on getting their customers satisfied. http://www.customerexperiencematters.wordpress.com/

The longer the transition period, more risk, and opportunity, a company has to reinforce its value proposition. Companies take this transition stage way too lightly.

My View

Many industries, particularly those delivering outsourcing services, experience long periods between sales and ongoing service. Typically, this stage is viewed as a technical experience as the service provider is taking its new client's detailed requirements and translating them into service capabilities. We are in the weeds here.

To perform this phase, most companies deploy a dedicated conversion or implementation team to the transaction. This team is staffed with Project Managers, Business Requirement Analysts, Technical Analysts, and other members of the Project Teams

To collect client requirements, there is a lot of client interaction and documentation, often with face-to-face meetings. Any confusion or details that are unclear are addressed here by this team.

In short, the conversion process is an intense learning experience, with frequent client interaction.

And once the conversion is completed and services are now live, the client is transferred to the Relationship Manager and the ongoing service organization. Several things can be improved with this typical arrangement:

1. Most of early relationship building is done with Conversion Team, not ongoing Service Team. The early meetings are where first impressions are created. While probably personable, the Project Manager's chief talent is most likely structure, detail clarity, and adherence to schedules.

2. Most client learning is experienced by Conversion Team, and although details are likely documented, the "soft" learnings are not as well as the conversations leading to specific decisions. As a result, client particulars must be "re-learned" by the service team.

3. There is often a lack of continuity in commitments made from sales to conversion to ongoing. This is understandable given that each group has its own objective. Unfortunately, that objective is rarely the same.

As Temkin describes: the main objective of Sales, Conversion and Ongoing Service should be the satisfaction of the client, not just the achievement of a departmental goal. Companies that recognize this will review their conversion processes with a different eye:

--Involving Client Service staff during the conversion process;
--Training Project Managers on the tenets of delivering satisfaction rather than merely the execution of the project;
--Identification and resolution of client dissatisfiers early in the Conversion process, rather than waiting for them during service delivery.

In Re-Engineering The Corporation, the classic business book, a view presented is that Conversion is just an extension of the sales process. That makes some sense, since business requirements and offerings are collected during the sales process and are used for implementating that business.

Instead, I offer the following thought: that Sales and Conversion are just the first part of the Service Process, and need to be as thoughtfully designed.

Obama Speech May Have Gone Over Head Of Many In Televised Audience -- That's Okay!

Saw this news item about President Obama's recent televised speech about the Gulf Oil Crisis:

(CNN) -- President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said.

In order to clearly convey your message, one must always keep in mind your target audience and the tone of the message you are trying to communicate. It is inconceivable that President Obama's staff did not purposely craft and deliver this speech as intended.

My View

Without opining on the state of American education, general guidance is to craft important messages at a 6th grade level. And without expressing a view on clearly divisive politics, I believe President Obama purposely took a different tact.

Why? I think that the Gulf Oil Crisis is a serious and complicated issue, one that requires careful description, planning, and messaging. The President needed to communicate to multiple audiences in an even-handed, yet compassionate way. While BP is an obvious villain in this episode, it is also a necessary partner in the fix, both in terms of capping the "spewing" oil and in funding the cleanup.

The President knows that using flip or overly simplistic antagonistic rhetoric will not remedy the situation any faster. The day following the speech, Obama met with BP officials and secured $20 billion for a recovery fund.

It is expected that citizens impacted by this disaster are angered. Those directly representing them must also express outrage. This outrage can be easily described in language concepts that are simple, emotional, and elementary.

However, when the senior leader speaks during difficult times, he or she must always be mindful of the exponential impact of his or her words on those listening. Those words must be consistent, factual, empathetic, but solution-based and hopeful.

To do this, President Obama stepped up the level of communication in his speech. He sounded like he understood the complicated issue, tried to put it in perspective with examples of other disasters, and was working all angles to minimize its impact. I think there has to be some comfort that the leader is in charge, even if the message sounded more professorial than preacher.

Senior leaders must understand their audiences, but should not simply communicate in simple terms. Rather, thinking through the intended outcome, and then crafting an appropriate message and medium is preferred.

Delta: Sometimes The Quality Of Service Is About The Art of Recovery

In a private moment after a particularly tense meeting with an important client, the senior manager at the client wrapped his arm around my shoulder and said, "Sometimes the quality of service is about the art of recovery." That lesson stuck with me throughout my career, and I was reminded of it recently while reading a letter from Delta Airlines this week.

In short, the letter apologized for a recent unpleasant flight experience when my bag was left behind (made even more frustrating since I had to pay $25 to check the bag in the first place.) The letter announced that I was going to be awarded 1,500 frequent flyer miles for my troubles.

Last week, I received a similar letter from Delta Airlines awarding me 1,000 frequent flyer miles for a cancelled flight.

Despite the inconveniences from the delays and the baggage mishap, I did not walk away from those incidents at the time with a poor feeling about Delta, rather sensing it was just my time to have problems that are common on all airlines. During the delay, Delta updated passengers with honest and relatively accurate progress reports, and ultimately we reached our deistination. When my bag did not show up, the clerk methodically and efficiently recorded my information and the next morning my bag was delivered to my hotel, as promised.

So while the letters and frequent flyer bonus miles were more symbolic than substantial, they were recognition that something went awry, and Delta management noticed. I like that.

My View

It is an unfortunate fact of business and life that things will go wrong. Using that long ago observation about recovery, Perfect Service identifies these as opportunities to demonstrate superior service.

One of the Perfect Service building blocks, that of "Perfect Improvement," is that customer service people must be empowered to "fix the situation" while the organization reviews the problem to determine root causes and ways to prevent it in the future. Customer service people do not wait until the problem is solved, but rather, do their best to make the impact of the current problem minimal.

Customers should feel like the error is not a usual event, and that the
service provider takes this specific situation very seriously. My counsel is to
make the company or person feel like you are "over responding" to an unusual
situation.

My son was recently receiving baseball lessons from a pitching coach to help him control where his pitches were going. After throwing a bad pitch, my son would think he was a wild pitcher. The coach said that when a pitch is wild, the pitcher should think that this is an unusual situation, and that the next pitch will be back to normal. That mindset alone gave him confidence, even when things go wrong.

At the airport, my expectation is that flight delays and baggage problems are normal events. What Delta did was to remind me that, at least to this company, the situation was being viewed critically, and they were sorry. This reaction makes me think that perhaps my situation was not normal, and that Delta was going to figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Of course, if it does happen again, and I get a third and fourth letter, then my conclusion is that Delta is using these apologies as the primary means of recovery, rather than improving the process. And that would be bad.

Don't Commoditize Your Services; Taking The Weather Out Of The Weather Channel

I've read in many business publications that the number one job of the senior executive in any company is to keep products and services from commoditizing. That is, to keep away from competing on generic characteristics that ultimately ends up a price war and depressed margins.

When we speak about Delivering Perfect Service, it is with the aim to carve out a niche in the marketplace by offering services at a level that is decidedly different and superior than other competitors. For those customers that value permier service, price will be a secondary consideration. The mission for the service company then is to continue to improve and focus along that specialty...to invest in differentiation.

A news item caught my eye that speaks to curious decision-making from management at The Weather Channel. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100524/ap_on_bi_ge/us_dish_weather_channel_1

It appears that The Weather Channel, previously THE authority on all things weather, has opened up its programming to movies and other general entertainment offerings. We have watched this slippery slope into the entertainment realm for several years as the channel has packaged many weather-related documentaries for its viewers. But the move into general-topic movies has created friction with cable and satellite carriers who view The Weather Channel as a public service channel, particularly for local weather warnings.

The move follows a trend amongst other specialized television channels in recent years to stray from their original purpose. MTV rarely plays music anymore. The History Channel, A&E, Science Channel, Discovery Channel all have added content such as specialized reality shows like Deadliest Catch on The Discovery Channel, Ice Road Truckers on The History Channel, Hoarders on A&E. These are entertaining shows, but what does Ice Road Truckers have to do with history? And don't get me started on Jon & Kate on The Learning Channel.

So why do it? The answer is simple....specialized programming is attractive to a select audience. General programming is attractive to a wider audience. The thought is that a smaller share of a larger audience is potentially more lucrative than a larger share of a smaller audience.

For years, The Weather Channel honed its weather-based programming, creating a ubiquitous brand and service for viewers across the country.

But is that about to change? Will we no longer see weather on The Weather Channel?

My View

It is a curious, but common phenomenon. Management looks at the market and realizes that there are many opportunities beyond the borders of its offering. By altering its features, marketing differently, perhaps even changing pricing, companies move into new territory.

The problem is that the value proposition that vaulted the company into its leadership position in the specialty niche may be compromised. The specialty offering may soon be overtaken by competitors, and soon is no longer special.

I have seen it time and again in the benefits marketplace. Competitors serving small companies decide to focus in the large company space; companies that offer a specific product now expand to offer a full-service suite; companies that offer a premier service begin to offer scaled-down versions of the product that are less expensive. And so on.

The end result: the companies gain a few marginal wins, but I have never seen significant marketshare gain for these companies. In the meantime, the focus on the primary specialized business is lessened, and as a result so is the company's differentiation.

The Weather Channel runs the risk of becoming a marginal general programming channel, instead of the valued premier content provider that it was previously.

Before management strays into other markets and generalize their products, they would be advised to think through their current unique competitive positioning and exhaust ways to extract value and keep their products worth the premium dollar their customers are spending.