Throwing away your reputation
Author: Clive Simpkins
A reputation is something acquired, rather than worked toward,over a long period of time. The brand name or ?equity’associated with that reputation can be worth a fortune. Or, oncetainted, it can become your greatest liability. Reputation is adelicate bloom. The public are short on good memories and big onretention of one slip-up. So it begs the question – why wouldyou, without careful thought and assurance of quality control,relinquish your business’ reputation into the hands of someoneelse? Too many businesses today are doing just that.
I’ve been a subscriber to Financial Mail (FM) longer than I canremember. My week just wasn’t complete without it. Courtesy ofthe relentless inefficiency of the Post Office, I often had toread my FM several days late. But read it I did. This year, Ididn’t receive a notification for renewal of subscription. Itjust stopped arriving. After a series of attempts to renew,endless waits to get through to the subscription call centre,unreturned calls and the like, I gave up. Then somethinginteresting happened. After two weeks, I found my addiction toFM waning. I could actually get through the week without it.Business Report, FM’s stablemate Business Day and Moneywebproved more than adequate to keep me thoroughly briefed onbusiness news. So I was weaned, involuntarily and throughsomeone’s inefficiency, from a career-long subscription andaddiction to FM. It was rendered obsolete courtesy of a badlymanaged subscription renewal service. About a week later, Ireceived two printed notices in my mailbox inviting me tosubscribe to FM.
I haven’t used this space to take a gratuitous swipe at the FM.But the experience reminded me afresh of the danger of leavingsome aspect of your business in the hands of someone, or people,who seem not to care. Indian, Jewish, Chinese and many othercommunities have historically used family members in theirbusinesses, because they understand the need for ?ownership’ andan appropriately vested interest. When it’s your money going outthe door through wasteful phone calls or unnecessarily discardedpackaging material, you tend to notice. When it isn’t, we’re notas inclined to care. It’s to this issue that business, with itsfalling service standards and ?don’t-care’ unfocussed employees,needs to pay attention.
I recently had to deal with Capital Alliance on behalf of myelderly godmother. Their call centre employees and indeed eventhe manager of the call centre didn’t understand the scope andauthority conferred on me by a general power of attorney, asopposed to a special power of attorney. Nearly fourteen days offrustration culminating in a call to their MD’s office, wasrequired to educate them. Their letter of apology indicates thatthey now understand how a power of attorney functions. But theexperience with their call centre was deeply annoying.
Many companies have call centres or switchboard operators whoanswer the phone as if through a wad of Kleenex. To this day, Iwouldn’t know the name of several of them if it were up to theoperators.
For business, this means giving very careful thought tooutsourcing facets of your organization that have a directimpact on your customers, clients or suppliers. The behaviour ofthe outsourced operation becomes what business legend JanCarlzon (of SAS airlines fame) dubbed, ?A moment of truth.’Carlzon emphasized that it doesn’t matter how that encounterwith your organization occurs, or through whom it occurs – ithas implications for your reputation and your customer retention.
The customer is not interested in your infrastructure problemsor your outside supplier issues. They’re doing business with youwhen someone answers ?your’ phones. Example: I’ve just had aquality assurance call from the UK. The incompetence of theBritish call centre functionary who called me to check on myHewlett Packard South Africa service centre experience, was mindnumbing. She was incapable of working ?off-script’ – a commoncall centre problem. As a result, any information HP get on myexperience, will be useless.
If you’re going to outsource – whether through a call centre ornot – make sure you remain the brand custodian. It’s you who’sinvested the time, money and energy in building your brandequity and reputation. Why on earth would you want to abdicateresponsibility and leave that precious asset in the hands ofsome socially unsophisticated yobbo who doesn’t give a fig aboutyour business? You might as well just throw it away yourself.Think about it.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/throwing-away-your-reputation-1873.html
About the Author
Clive is a marketing & communications strategist. He specialises
in helping people and organizations make sustainable change.
http://www.imbizo.com
