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One Rule For All?

It’s a constant battle for directors and senior executives to keep in touch with their customers’ true needs and feelings – partly because they are often protected from the realities of what is really happening at the interface with the customer. In the best companies, the directors may spend regular spells on the shop floor. For instance, Tesco’s Terry Leahy is renowned for spending a day each week in a store, or with staff who are working at the sharp end.
 
Special treatment
But how often do directors actually use the same products and receive the same service as their customers? This may even apply to all of the company’s staff. For example, if you work for a bank, you may get a special deal on your mortgage; and if you have an issue, you will also often deal with a special department in the bank. So do you get the same service as your regular customers? And do senior executives get special treatment?
 
Many people in telecoms companies are provided with broadband connections to enable them to work from home. But what would happen if a director was working from home, and something went wrong? Would he or she have to phone the standard service line? If they did, and they had to go through the endless automated lists before reaching someone who could actually help, they might be more eager to sort out those services!
 
In reality, the staff (and especially the directors and senior executives), are given a different, special level of service to other customers.
 
Drawing attention to the problem
So what can – and what should – we do? Is it the place of an insight team to say that the directors shouldn’t get a special service? Would it do much for their career prospects if they did? Probably not!
 
So what can you do? Here are some suggestions:
  • Organising ‘customer immersion’ programmes for key people is now a much more accepted part of the insight role. It would therefore make sense to at least find out which of your own company’s products or services your senior staff actually use.
  • You can then find out which channels or support services they tend to use. If these are different from those used by regular customers, this needs to be pointed out so that they are aware that they may have an unduly ‘rosy’ picture of their own services.
  • It may even be possible to suggest that they downgrade their own level of service to that of their customers, so that they can then see it from their customer’s viewpoint. No-one will be criticised for suggesting this – even if it doesn’t result in any changes.
By drawing attention to the issues in this way, senior staff will at least be aware that their view of their customers’ needs and feelings may not be an accurate one.
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