Customer Satisfaction Training

"Knowledge is Power." Don't know who said it first but whoever did "hit the nail on the head." Does all knowledge create power? I think not. For example, what good is sophisticated computer systems knowledge if a company lacks the commitment and implementation skills required to convert that knowledge into a world class delivery system. I say that knowledge is power only when a company can effectively convert that knowledge into a relevant competitive advantage.

The most valuable knowledge that manufacturers should pursue is customer knowledge. Lack of in-depth customer knowledge was a root cause of the torrid over production of telecommunication equipment in 2000. Result: inventory write off in the millions of dollars for many hi-tech companies in 2001. Without real time customer data, companies will never improve sales forecasting process, optimize product designs, nor reduce related engineering change activities. Our lead article today address the issue of "Customer Connectivity." Guided by executive leadership, every person in the company should be involved in obtaining real-time knowledge from their key customers.

If your company is to emerge from the business downturn as an industry leader, employees will need to think and act like entrepreneurs. To this end, our second article delineates the "how to." From the "New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World" we present Mr. Price Pritchett's article, "Behave Like You're in Business for Yourself."

"To Get Results, Hit the Right Note." In an article written for Fast Company, conductor Roger Nierenberg makes a great case against criticizing workers. Our third article tells what we should be doing­--it's from the sidebar of his Fast Company article.

Pricing Trends is back by popular demand.

We finish the newsletter with the sidebar, The Power of Focus" from Soundviews book review "Profit From the Core."

We suggest that you both print and archive this newsletter for current and future reference. Feel free to make copies and share with colleagues.

This newsletter has reached your desk because we share a common objective -- to help key manufacturing people avoid "burnout" while achieving their full performance potential. To unsubscribe simply send us an email with "Unsubscribe" as your subject.

Enjoy,

Featured Articles in This Month's Edition of CKN:

Individual and team direct-line communications with customers is the best approach to obtaining timely and relevant "how are we doing" feedback from customers. Customer satisfaction surveys are tedious, possibly supplier biased and not very accurate in their customer service portrayal. We prefer a "one-on-one" customer connectivity system! 

Your employer wants more than your body, more than just your arms and back and brain. Your employer wants you to act like an owner.

Why is this? And what does it really mean?

One reason why you need to think and behave like you're in business for yourself is because organizations are breaking into bits and getting flatter. There's less hierarchy. Fewer layers. The move is toward small scale, decentralized business units−sort of like mini-enterprises, or self-contained work groups−that operate more independently

Organizations are reshaping themselves in an attempt to become more entrepreneurial. They want to get closer to the customer. They want decisions to be made by the people who are closest to the information. And they want to be able to move faster. The idea is that only small units are agile and adaptable enough to thrive in today's world of high-velocity change.

So now we're seeing a lot of self-directed teams, "Empowered" employees. The management ranks are shrinking rapidly, and this means more power, information, and responsibility flow through to you.

You'll need to assume more personal responsibility for the success of the entire enterprise, rather than focusing narrowly within the boundaries of your old job description. To act like an owner you need a sense for managing the whole. You need peripheral vision.

Consider how you−personally−can help cut costs, serve the customer better, improve productivity, and innovate. Constantly think in terms of commercial success, how you and your group can add directly to the financial health of the organization.

This could prove to be more "freedom" than you prefer. For example, if you've found comfort in "working for somebody else"−e.g., having other people call the shots, supervise you, and stand accountable for problems and results−you may start to sweat. On the other hand, behaving like you're in business for yourself gives you the chance to really shine.

Besides all this, though, thinking of yourself as "self-employed" is the mindset that serves you best in the years to come. Organizations simply aren't going to look out for people's careers like they did in the past. Odds are you're on your own. Much like an independent contractor, you have to "build your business," uphold your reputation, and satisfy the people who pay for your work.

Customer Satisfaction Training for Winners 

If you're in charge of a team that has been under performing, how do you change its behavior? How do you communicate without offending or alienating members? "No one wants to under perform, yet so many people do, "says conductor Roger Nierenberg. Why? "Because there are an enormous number of parameters for judging performance and most people don't know what aspect to work on. But as the leader, you stand on a podium and therefore have access to the big picture. Things that are amazingly obvious from the podium and not at all clear from the chair. Your job as a leader is to communicate a sense of how things could be−and to show people how to achieve that vision.

How do you do all that? By giving direction, not criticism. Direction points to the way things could be. Criticism, on the other hand, points to the way things were. It doesn't enlighten people. Direction tells people what to do whereas criticism tells people what not to do. Here's a criticism: 'The percussion section is playing too loudly.' A direction is. 'Make sure the audience can hear the woodwinds.'

Customer Satisfaction Training for Winners 

Customer Satisfaction Training for Winners 

• Most companies that sustain value creation possess only one or two strong cores. A tightly focused, sustained value-creating company will usually pull ahead of a rival embedded in a diversified company with no clear purpose or core. Anheuser-Busch leads in the beer business over Miller, which is part of a packaging foods conglomerate. Nokia leads the cellular phone business over rivals like Motorola and Ericsson, both companies with many separate parts.
• Private equity companies often achieve their greatest success by buying orphan businesses from diffuse conglomerates, thereby creating focus. Many of the most successful leveraged buyouts stem from strategically under managed, noncore businesses (with profitable cores at their centers) that are purchased and revived by new owners who allow those companies to become freestanding businesses.
• Spin-offs usually create both focus and value. Before PepsiCo spun off its $14 billion restaurant business (which consisted of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken), that business deviation from the company's soft drink core was seen as an anchor, keeping Pepsi from mounting a firm challenge to the more focused Coke−and keeping the restaurant business from challenging McDonald's supremacy in the fast food market. Since the spin-off, both Pepsi and the restaurant business (re-christened Tricon Global Restaurants) have done well.
• The few companies that became smaller and still created value are those that restructured to focus on a strong core. Guinness, the famed Irish brewery, had entered into more than 250 non-core businesses and watched its core business−its Stout beer−erode in market share. Once it sold 150 of those businesses, moving operations back towards its core, its stock increased in value more than 10,000 times in eight years.