dba

Nature vs Nurture and the Art of Customer Service and Product Innovation

I’ve been silent for the last week because in my spare time rather than blogging, I’ve been banging my head against the Windows logo. Short version of the story… I started getting a Windows error (svchost for you geeks), which I was able to diagnose as an Auto Update issue. After some amount of playing around, I found a Knowledge Base article stating there was a hot fix, but it was only available from Microsoft support. They had an option for online chat support for $35, saying it would be faster than the email run around. I’m an optimist and went for it. The chat went about as you would expect… back and forth that wasn’t focused on my problem, but rather about them filling in their customer database. Then, the remarkable piece happened, the support agent came back to say, and I quote:

“That hot fix isn’t available any more. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

 Many responses came to my mind, as you can imagine, but the most important and immediate one:

“Oh, hmmmm, that’s too bad… well, in that case, maybe, at least, TRY TO FIX THE PROBLEM I JUST PAID YOU TO AT LEAST TRY TO FIX?!”

However, being more patient, I said, “Any other ideas?” After 30 more minutes (really), the chat hung up and I heard no more. Sigh.

Alas, I will fix my own problem, but it reminded me of an on-going discussion that I had with Scott Cook when I was at Intuit. The short title, “Can you train people to understand customers?” While some people are naturally good at seeing the hard to see, or being empathetic, I believe that people can be trained — or nurtured — to see. Continuing my optimistic tendencies, my top tips for nurturing listening, understanding, seeing and/or empathy… that fit for both customer service and product innovation:

  1. Slow down. The biggest limiter I’ve seen is jumping to conclusions. Take the time to pattern match at a more detailed level to get the true picture, not the general one that “everyone can see”.
  2. Work at disproving your theories. When you have a theory, many things you see will fit it because our minds work that way. If you actively work to find the holes, you’ll typically do a better job at proving them.
  3. Be there. For customer service, take the time to understand the full situation… not just what the customer is saying now. If you are in innovation, actually go and sit with your customers. I always say, “See around the problem.”
  4. Relive your time with customers. Reviewing what you think you’ve learned is important. What surprised you in the case or the visit? Surprises provide the biggest opportunities. (Caution: Surprises aren’t all good, but the ones there are… really are.)
  5. Go for the fun. While the obvious might make us feel like we solved a problem quickly, it usually isn’t fun. Let customers teach you… rather than you teaching them. This opens your mind and makes you think differently.

Do you think my MS rep would have benefited from these tips? I do. What are your experiences on nature vs nurture, and product innovation or customer service?

OK, I’ve already ordered this shirt. I’ll be wearing it often… 

T-shirts are user friendly
         (PCs are not)

P.S. Yes, I almost put “Computers are not”, but well, you know I tip my hat to Apple with that adjustment.

Trust, Europeans, CEOs, advice, PowerPoint and dog commands

A 2006 European study covering “who you trust” (pdf) rates CEOs as the least trusted source on a product or company information — seriously dead last in every country polled. Ouch!

I have a thought each for CEOs and those not trusting them, and I want your feedback on these newly formed thoughts. Both were spurred into action by my respected friend, Jenny Spadafora, who writes a thinking person’s blog, 12frogs. Thanks, Jenny!

For CEOs… find points of overlap

As I licked my personal wound of feeling mistrusted simply based on three letters behind my name, Jenny challenged me, “How many CEOs do you trust?” My fingers started typing names, which I erased and then typed, “I don’t know them well enough to say ‘trust’.” She continued — pointing out something we saw time and time again as we visited customers at Intuit — people trust people who are “like them”. And… most people don’t feel CEOs are like them.

My advice for CEOs and would-be CEOs (and anyone that wants to lead):

Get to know your customers, employees, suppliers, and shareholders.

From my expeirence, the points of overlap where they see places where you are like them increase interaction quality and more trust will develop — a virtuous cycle.

Quick example, last week, our Customer Service team brought a Dilbert cartoon to me that made fun of a new CEO around an issue that is sensitive here (location). The team felt I was like them enough to appreciate a cartoon, even if it could have been considered somewhat at my expense. I was proud to have gotten to that point in only a couple of months with my being at their office only 1/3 of that time.

Do y’all have examples of this type of “points of overlap” theory working to increase trust?

For those wanting to trust… seek first to understand

Yes, CEOs should hold themselves to a high bar and continue to raise it as they meet their objectives. They should not be scoundrels. That said, the consumer of the information and actions of the CEO should hold themselves to a higher standard. Remember two things:

  1. When you see a dumb decision, there really are often factors you don’t know about, can’t see, or even, can’t understand.
  2. Recall that global optimization (across a corporation for example) often does cause local stupidity (in your department or life for example).

You shouldn’t excuse dumb and stupid acts, bud do raise your own bar in working to understand.

How did Jenny get me here to this point? She wrote an exceptional post on assault with a deadly PowerPoint file. (Please read it because she’s right.) Her first point is about realizing that the PowerPoint is not the novel, but the Cliffs Notes. As an information consumer, either when looking at a PowerPoint, hearing a presentation, or questioning a CEOs actions, understand that you are getting the Cliffs Notes version and there is more to the story. Seek first to understand… then go on the attack if you need to, but make darn sure you’ve done step 1. Hold yourself to that standard.

What do you think? Think these two points can help us get to a better place? Does it matter that CEOs rank last in trustworthiness, or am I just being sensitive?

I’m going with a pun for my shirt today. I’m a word geek, so I have a subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary online. In thinking about this post, I looked up trust, and was amused to find that the second definition was:

b. Imperative: an instruction given to a dog, requiring it to wait for a reward, usu. in a begging position with a tidbit placed on its nose.

So, with that in mind for a definition of trust, I’m:

Waiting for my reward

On my way to trying to be insightful, I bought three things

I’ve been flattered — and somewhat intimidated — that the most common word folks have used about my blog has been insightful. Yipes, that’s a high bar, and it feels like I have to think a lot. Today, I wanted to lean more towards cool and spontaneous, than pensive. So, how about listing stuff that excited me so much I actually bought them as soon as I saw them? Here’s my top three recent “cool” purchases:

  1. Moleskine’s small Japanese fold out pocket album. I found this when Fast Company profiled Scott Wilson, an up-and-coming designer. Unfortunately the online link doesn’t have the full picture of him that shows the accordian folded pages, which, as Scott said allows “a long thread of ideas… [seeing] how they progress.” (The middle Amazon close up pic does show this a bit.) I regularly have this problem that things flow, rather than jump to the next page in a notebook, and I’m looking forward to seeing if this works for me.
  2. SLEEPTRACKER watch. I must have been sleeping in 2005 when this won an amazing innovation designation from Time, and I can’t remember where I saw this recently, but as soon as I did, I ordered it. I have always believed there was something to waking up during the right sleep stage… some days you feel you were woken up in the middle of something. The idea that a watch can tell when I’m in the right stage and wake me up during the time range I set… I LOVE THAT.
  3. Remote control, inflatable Sumo wrestlers. The video on ThinkGeek is fun, but not near as fun as seeing these two guys in action. They are not easy to drive, as they like Weebles — bottom heavy. The sounds they make… you laugh just hearing them, period. Now, full disclosure… we’ve returned our first set because one of them had a mechanical failure within the first hour of play. I’ll tell you if the second set is also defective.

Now, after attempting to be cool, I have to admit an insecurity… I have a fear that “insightful” could be the new “interesting”? Are you folks trying to find a nice word to categorize my ramblings without telling me you fell sleep through them? Admitting that, on my shirt today would be…

Am I “interesting”?

P.S. With that said, I am on a personal crusade to wipe the bad smell off “interesting”. I use it all the time and really do mean it in the sense of intriguing, “you are teaching me something”, “it makes me go hmmmmm…”… in a good way! 😀

Before it is tooting my own horn…

First things first…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I had a terrific holiday in Santa Fe and hope your holidays were just as wonderful.

The shirt presents were hits; I got to see first hand how many smiles they can generate. I didn’t think I would get Richard out of his “I’m the decider” shirt. Thanks to the team for great execution on these presents!!!

Speaking of the team, I wanted to write a note about our customer service team before it would be considered tooting my own horn.

Before I joined Spreadshirt, I placed some orders to understand the full Spreadshirt offering. When I talked to our US Service Director, Denise, during the interview process, I shared my positive experience with her team on one order that had an issue. She thanked me, then proceeded to tell me about what had happened. What’s surprising here? She took initiative to investigate whether I had placed any orders before talking to me. I hadn’t told the Spreadshirt folks that I had placed the orders, but she checked. Since I’ve joined, I see that Denise runs her team this way, they investigate problems, and that provides differentiated service.

Research, investigation… whatever you want to call it… makes a difference, and it’s something I live by. It takes time, but even if you’ve gone down the wrong path, it works. It shows people — customers, partners, employees, colleagues, press, analysts — that you care enough to think through their situation. The key, it must be real, not mechanical. This is the quality that Denise brings out in her team, and it makes for rave reviews… and not just from me! My Google Watch on our name is regularly bringing up praise for our service team, which I happily forward along.

As a manager, how do you ensure a customer service team that holds this as a key goal?

  1. Hire people that are curious.
  2. Hire people that naturally show they care.
  3. Hire people that don’t get stuck on one theory to the exclusion of others.

The good news is that these are fairly clear qualities to get to during an interview. So, what’s on my shirt today? It is a bit long, but speaks to the essence of all three points:

In science, the most exciting phrase is not “Eureka!”, but “Hmm… that’s funny…” — Asimov

Thanks to a customer service team that I’m proud to represent!

My (business) hero

Lukasz and I had a wandering conversation as we were both working way too late Saturday night. As we talked about business goals, it intertwined with personal goals and he asked who my hero was. I said Herb Kelleher… clarifying a bit “on the business side”. My parents and grandmothers are heroes to me on the whole person side. And, many more people who have inspired me, I would add to my hero list, but before I make this a list of truly awesome people (note to self… another post idea), let me get to Herb.

In case you don’t know him, Herb is the founder of Southwest Airlines, which is the largest US carrier in terms of total system passengers, particularly remarkable considering the other major carriers have international operations included. What I find amazing is how he built the top performing business in one of the most established, heavily unionized businesses around with the industry fighting him at every step… and kept a sense a humor through it all. Now, I love Ben & Jerry’s — having a tremendous respect for what they did and how they ran their business — but they were selling premium ice cream, a nascent industry at the time they started. Southwest has the same feeling and spirit that Ben & Jerry’s did, and Southwest is an AIRLINE… stodgy, old, grumpy, set in their ways, competitive, etc.

How did Herb do it? In my opinion it actually boils down to one thing… not one simple thing, but one thing. I’ll use Herb’s own words to explain it:

I keep telling them that the intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplane. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn’t something you can do overnight and it isn’t something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways.

I’ve bolded what I think is the crux of this statement. This is what I aspire to do:

  • Separate the tangible from the intangible (harder than it sounds)
  • Focus on people and customer service
  • Inspire them in accomplishing their job every day

On my shirt today:

I work for you

Reminding me that as a leader, I work for my employees, customers and stakeholders… one of whom I’m likely standing with during every minute of my work day.

Related books I recommend:

What is the least you could do?

In the Innovation Lab at Intuit, we came up with a concept of minimum viable to describe our goal for initial product/service releases… the least bit of functionality that’s actually viable in the market, i.e., something can get real-, using- customer feedback. Why the least? Why don’t you worry about WOW’ing the customer with nifty features?

Minimum keeps you and the customer focused on the core of the pain you are trying to solve for them… or core of the joy you are trying to deliver. I often use the example of tuning and fine tuning on product definition. This should be your tuning stage… can customers “hear” the music you are trying to produce? Are they seeing what you are trying to solve? Can people use it to solve that problem? Do they use it in the way you thought? Do they use it for anything else?

Viable means you have to have something that works, and can function “in market”. This isn’t a prototype; it is actually delivering value. It might only solve one core problem. For example, we did customer research for Intuit’s Easy Estimate. The pain we were trying to solve was estimates for contractors. What was viable for this wasn’t just the calculation about the estimate. Actually, what we learned was viable was a site walkthrough checklist, going to an estimate (a calculation), going to a proposal (a document), going to QuickBooks once accepted. So, this had our focus for viable… not the depth of what could be needed for calculations. Get the flow right… additional functionality on calculations could come later, after the was actually being used in their workflow.

So, what do you think? Do you have good minimum viable examples? Do you have other concepts that have worked for you in figuring out how and when to launch? Or leading people in launching new products, services, or companies?

Oh, and why did this come up today? Because I’m finally launching this blog, and… it isn’t where I want it to be. It isn’t where I feel it will “wow” you in the way I want, and I worry you won’t come back and give me a second chance when I get there. For example, the header is plain; the tag cloud breaks; trackbacks are being included in comments; recent posts aren’t showing on the home page; the associated t-shirt store isn’t set-up… some of these are pretty major. I realized though I wasn’t living minimal viable, a concept I truly, deeply believe in.

So, what is on my shirt today?

Practice what you preach

P.S. I’ve launched a new tag with this post dba. When I post something that is a core value to me, like minimum viable is, I’m going to tag it is as “dba”, as in “doing business as Jana”.