Of Banking and Nurah's Theatrics......

Today I have deeply reflected on the hugely devastating impact a single employee’s reckless behaviour on social media can have to the extent that it may result in bringing down a brand.

A friend put up an exasperated post on FaceBook about his extreme indignation that his bank, where he’d been a customer for the past 15 years, had as a result of ambiguous information, gotten him into a situation where a cheque he’d issued bounced.  For the sake of this post, we shall refer to my friend as Mahrin. In Mahrin’s frustrated post, he indicated he was now shopping for a new bank with the intention to close down his account. As you may imagine, there was lots of empathy and there were lots of proposals from his friends of banks with excellent service that he could immediately switch to. Mahrin’s flabbergast  was arising from the fact that he’d issued a cheque and received a notification alert that it had been paid out and he had a balance of -321Ksh, meaning  his balance was rendered negative as a result of this transaction. I would like to mention at this point that the overdrawn amount was so minimal in comparison to the cheque amount that should one care to do thee mathematics they’d need to multiply it by a hundred and sixty six.

Another friend in Mahrin’s friend’s list from the banking industry, and for the purposes of this post we shall refer to her as Nurah, came to the bank’s defence and explained to Mahrin that indeed it was his fault that he had insufficient funds to service his cheque.  I would like to point out here that this information was not put across politely. In response to her, many friends explained that banks have indeed changed their interactions with customers and that the least the bank could do in this case was to call up their dear customer and explain the circumstances and allow Mahrin to correct the anomaly or find a win-win situation. Nurah responded in quite a defensive manner that this was not the bank’s responsibility and that what was being demanded was not procedural and in fact in her words ‘a favour’ from the bank. This was then met with a volley of stunned responses commenting that banks are nowadays in partnership with their customers and Nurah’s postulation was quite the opposite. One friend quite aghast at this quickly looked up the bank that Nurah works for and indicated that he would soon publish on social media the atrocities she was spewing. And to my utter amazement Nurah responded to this suggestion and I quote “You may go ahead and go viral if you wish!”

I would like to proceed on here to report, that I noted with concern that indeed I wasn’t the only one who thought her behaviour and responses rather out of order. And when more comments appeared to confirm the same, the respondent continued on and on to explain technical details of why one must have sufficient funds in their account and not expect their bank to be their money monitor. And I once again reiterate – quite impolitely.  The friend did indeed fulfill on his promise and in 34 seconds had published the name of Nurah’s bank on the post thread.  As the bank is not one of the mainstream banks, one friend asked what bank that actually was and I couldn’t help but indicate that I didn’t know what bank it was but I was now aware that their employees had wanton audacity online. And like I am sure everyone on the conversation thread did, I looked up the bank’s website and noted with utter dismay that their brand promise is ‘Banking with a Smile’. I can assure you that I wasn’t smiling and I made a mental note to myself to never go near that bank under any circumstances. The said Nurah in various places further along the post kept putting out details quite impolitely,  of why the bank was ‘right’ and Mahrin was ‘wrong’.

At this point I cannot help but swing into my brand strategy management persona and point out three distinct things. One Mahrin’s fundamental complaint was that his bank did not value him despite long sustained customer loyalty, enough to communicate with him about his rather minor cheque situation; two, the bank sent a notification alert to indicate the cheque was paid out when in essence it wasn’t , a fact that the bank was unable to elucidate when he demanded an explanation; three, no amount of explanation on the technicalities of what happened was relevant, the complaint was about lack of and miscommunication and that was the only subject at hand.

So, Nurah’s reckless posting on social media has served to paint her bank in an extremely bad light, create a negative aura around it and have people who have never interacted with it completely switch off and dismiss it without a glance.  As a result of her being bullish, defensive and impolite, her bank has also been banded together with her and is now seen through this lens. For the readers of the FaceBook post and their numerous friends and friend’s friends – you may extrapolate as needed – the negative reflection remains. As we all are aware, brand reputation is built on positive word of mouth and recommendations. This is the most powerful tool a brand can use to build positive brand equity. If a random poll was conducted amongst the sample group roped into Mahrin’s post, the brand performance on the warm -feeling -meter would be in the negative realm. And yes, all of this as a result of one employee’s social media activity.

So what‘s the lesson to learn from all this? In one organization I worked for, employees had to read the company’s social media policy and as part of the employment guidelines and sign that they wouldn't participate in damaging social media activity that would link them to the brand. We are naturally associated with the brands we work for and we serve as either brand ambassadors or destroyers. What factors do those responsible for brand custody need to build in place to ensure that brand damage is not caused by internal customers?  As with this case, it is pretty apparent that the efforts made to protect brand reputation externally should be equally applied inwards, to the extent that employees are so loyal to the brand that they guard its reputation almost with their lives. How does a brand attain this level of internal brand engagement and subsequent passionate brand loyalty?

This is a subject for debate amongst the brand gurus for it is one thing to develop strategy and advocate for internal facing initiatives, and it is another to inspire the people to deliver on the brand promise – Always.

And yes – I will leave this debate for another day………………

The Forgotten Link - Riches From Within

This article first appeared in Business Journal Africa - Empowering Africa's Entrepreneurs - Issue No 161 of Sept 2013

I recently attended the launch of the UNDP report ‘Realizing Africa’s Wealth – Building Inclusive Businesses for Shared Prosperity’.  An in-depth and well researched report, providing the status quo on inclusive business and its promise in Africa, with insights from in-depth enterprise and partnership case studies, expert interviews and survey responses from across the continent. What struck a chord for me was a research finding that I have related to the largely unexplored area, of the role that the internal customer plays with regards to service delivery and business return on investment.

An excerpt from the report records ‘Our research shows that companies and entrepreneurs need support with information, incentives, investment and implementation in order to successively implement and scale inclusive business. Data from individuals enables the development of marketing strategies as well as information on new products and processes that companies can use to build inclusive businesses’.

This concept revolves around the importance of internal data and dynamics to make relevant and informed business decisions. What is often top of mind when organizations think about data and information gathering, is to outsource a third party research firm to conduct market surveys and product viability studies. The key resource that would provide pertinent up to date information is often overlooked and largely ignored. In a business environment, the persons with the most relevant information on what works or doesn’t work are the key players in the field. These are people that come to work every day, that follow the laid down procedures and that manufacture the products or provide the service.

The staff at every level interact on a daily basis with the processes, products and in the service industry, the actual customers. They are the first hand players who  know which areas on the field are bumpy, where the grass is worn out, where the markings have faded, when the goal posts are misaligned and require realignment, when the gradient is skewed and when it is time to take a step back and overhaul the entire field. What better source would there be to get information on what is workable or not, and which processes are time and resource efficient or otherwise? What better source of information could there be to advise on what makes a more user friendly interface and what would significantly ease the process and cost of production?

It is these same players who face feedback from customers on a real time platform and can at the drop of a hat articulate the pain points that customers face. It is the staff of an organization that are accosted by their relatives, friends and other members of their networks when the brand they work for has goofed or has excelled, with raw unedited feedback that would make excellent fodder for improvement strategies.

It is my postulation therefore, that more attention should be given to the internal customers in an organization. A specific strategy should be drawn up to seek feedback from staff on what they think would improve the products and services that the company offers. It would be useful as well to have information from them on what would improve interdepartmental efficiencies, and how processes could work better.  Every organization should have an ideas management system, complete with a methodology to manage the ideas depository, discussion structure and development mechanism if viable.  The richest resource of innovative ideas lies with staff that already have vested interest in making things better. If ideas are warmly welcomed and due acknowledgement is given when they morph into real tangible outcomes, the motivation for staff to think outside the box and explore new options will be limitless.

The internal customer strategy should take on a formal and systematic approach as would be assigned to any external parties. The mapping of interdepartmental customer service relationships, and the initiation of service level agreements between internal departments, should be given the same attention and seriousness that would be accorded to an external party that the company would be entering into a contract with.

Internal customers are also a brilliant source of competitor information. They are privy to what the competition is undertaking and receive information from parties in their networks who know they’d appreciate the leads and tips. Staff are also a good source of mystery shopping data, as they are able to scout about and compare similar products and services to the organization’s offerings, given their already intimate knowledge of what the company does. This information should be valued on receipt and a concerted effort made to encourage staff to seek out useful competitor information.

The beautiful spin off of having internal customers who feel like ‘resource consultants’ is that the employees feel valued as a key contributor to the company’s success. Word of mouth is the biggest seller and if an organization has a work force that are raving brand ambassadors, that serves to improve brand positioning and direct marketing at no added cost.  Pro­vid­ing great and focused inter­nal cus­tomer ser­vice is imper­a­tive to a company's suc­cess.  Invest­ing in staff with the same level of attention and focus as would be attributed to external resources will increase employee job sat­is­fac­tion. And having happy employees has a direct and quantifiable echo effect on external cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. In relation therefore, the effect of exemplary customer satisfaction on the company’s balance sheet is unquestionable. Organizations are literally sitting on a gold mine in-house unaware of the rich resources within their walls. 

According to the Service Profit Chain Report (Harvard Business Review 2010 ER/12-14) “businesses that look at their organization as a microcosm of many customers and suppliers within the overall company and within departments themselves are highly successful. Customer service must become a requirement for the entire organization with a key focus on internal service. There is a direct correlation between internal reflection and focus and the business balance sheet”.

The challenge therefore to all businesses is to place internal customer dynamics on a strategic platform and to include it as one of the key elements in the organization’s corporate strategy, and then sit back and watch the revenue performance. 

The Guy Sporting the Hot Pink Business Suit - Maybe not a misnomer?

We were in the supermarket aisle last Wednesday picking up our usual 10 pack of white tissue rolls, when my son pulled out a pack with pink rolls and asked ‘Mum, this pink tissue paper is for girls?’ I had a rather challenging time explaining that pink tissues can be used by everybody and are not the reserve of little girls. I then started to wonder where this whole pink and blue typing came from and how pink became a girl colour and blue a boy colour. And pretty much the entire world abides by these rules from childhood unto adulthood, for to date it is claimed that men that have been spotted sporting a corporate pink shirt, can only be described as a brave and daring lot. A slightly bigger group have increased their bravery and adventured into pink ties, but even as they wear them, they do so with a streak of bravado. And indeed when we come across this lot, we immediately chalk them down to being, bold, daring and dashing.

So, this provokes us to delve into the role that stereotypes and stereotyping play in our world of service delivery. Is this a good or a bad thing to do? Are the assumptions that we make about people from different backgrounds, religions, cultures, countries and socio –economic divides, helping or ruining our cause to up the service delivery bar?

Where do we draw the line between knowing our customers and ‘judging’ them? For it is not all West Africans that are loud, not all vertically challenged people sensitive or dread lock haired persons defiant right? When does one use their knowledge of a given group to aid the cause of handling a customer as they assume would be best desired, or cast these pre conceived ideals aside and put on a generalized good service format?

It does help significantly to understand a group’s dynamics and assume a stance that would make them more comfortable and make their transactions more enjoyable. I've thought about a strategy we used when I worked at a Hospital not too long ago. We felt that it was generally safe to assume that fathers with ill children unaccompanied by the child’s mother would be extremely troublesome, impatient and quick to react to delays or interruptions to service. We chalked that down to their not being in control, having a unwell child and generally operating out of their comfort zone, while playing the role of the comforter, many of who took to this circumstance like fish out of water. It was our general rule therefore to already be aware of this underlying factor and handle these fathers with a different set of gloves –pun-intended- to preempt explosive situations. But then again, isn't that stereotyping at its peak? Who said that all unaccompanied fathers fall in this category? There is in fact an increasing population of fathers completely in touch with care giving especially with the rise in single fathers raising children. These fathers would be completely offended to imagine they’d been classified with those ‘other fathers’ and were receiving ‘special’ attention.

Here’s my take …..

In customer service the golden rule is ‘know thy customer’. It is critically important for customer service practitioners to intimately understand their customers, know who they are, where they come from, what they like and do not like, their preferences, their quirks, their history, background, eccentricities and where possible their hopes and dreams. The better you understand your customer, the higher your chances of consistently providing signature service. So when it comes to stereotyping, more often than not the intervention put in place to more delicately handle whichever stereotype is at play would call for more patience, more understanding, keener listening, more sensitivity and generally more tender love and care. 

These aspects wouldn't hurt even if applied to persons that go against the grain and are exceptions to the assumed stereotypical rule. It would mean for example that the single father with an ill child in the hospital, who is already adept at handling the situation, would get more perceptive service. And as this doesn't hurt the situation, it would be more of a folly to not apply extra care when dealing with a particular customer than to apply extra care where it is not necessary.

So yes, let us be keenly aware of stereotypes, use them to profile our customers to provide them customized service, be extremely careful to not let our stereotyping biases confront clients and then use this ammunition to go out and give the best, most discerning service to those that walk in through the door or interact with our businesses. 

So next time you look at that dashing chap in a hot pink business suit – think twice, no make that thrice and then go give him memorable service.