by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Strategy, Supply Chain
If your customer experiences a break in service due to your company’s mistake, use this three-step approach to help save the relationship.
It can happen to good companies: Your organization makes a “relationship-defining” mistake with a new customer or, even worse, one of your best customers. How do you handle it?
On a recent client engagement where we were retained to increase sales force effectiveness, we got to see firsthand our client’s company reaction to an operational mistake in one of their aftermarket spare-parts service engagements. It wasn’t pretty.
Once the service break came to light, their first reaction was to go into “denial mode,” as they disputed the customer claim. After that didn’t work, they moved on to “shirk mode,” where they cited other factors that may have caused them to miss their service obligations. Lastly they entered “apology mode,” where they went overboard apologizing profusely instead of solving the problem in the first place. At that point, it got pretty ugly with their longstanding client.
What could they have done differently to remedy the situation and save the customer relationship? This is the advice I give my clients. It’s a pretty simple three-step formula that everyone in your organization should follow when there is a service disconnect of any proportion.
1) Get to the heart of the matter immediately.
Don’t look for back doors or contributors to help share the blame. If you make a mistake, own it outright and clearly. Don’t be wishy-washy. Be strong in your admission and stronger in your statements of reparation.
2) Contain and problem-solve.
Put your company’s energy here instead of trying to distance yourself from the problem. It will show your customer that your organization has core values and that your intent is to limit their exposure. Then fix the service break. You don’t need to be superheroes here. Be focused, listen, and act decisively.
3) Map the path to long-term resolution.
After the smoke has cleared and tempers have subsided, reaffirm your company’s commitment to your customer. Reiterate the steps you took to solve the problem — both the short-term fixes, as well as how you’ll ensure that the issue will not reoccur in the future. Very important: do it in writing. Conversations fade, as well as memories. Everyone will remember the pain of the service issue — make sure they remember the short-term and longer-term solution. One note of caution here: This is not the time to be patting yourself on the back. You screwed up, but you made it right. That’s why your customer chose you in the first place.
Customers don’t like mistakes, and they have a bigger dislike for mistakes that come with a lack of ownership and path to resolution. Follow these simple steps above to keep more customers for the long term.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 12, 2016 | Blog, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain, Talent
Today’s hiring managers in the supply chain face a number of challenges, so making the right hire is more difficult, and more important, than ever.
Finding the right person for a job opening is essential. Hiring the wrong candidate can be costly, not only in terms of team morale and productivity, but financially as well. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates the average cost of a bad hiring decision to be as much as 30% of an individual’s first-year potential earnings. That means a single bad hire with an annual income of $50,000 can equal a potential $15,000 loss for a company.
Given the demand for supply chain talent, the dearth of experienced talent, and an increasing number of newly graduated talent entering the job market, how do you make sure you extend an offer to the right person? Here are a few tips on hiring the right supply chain employee.
Look within the company
Is there someone within your organization who would thrive in a new role — even if the role is outside of their current field?
Look across the industry
Look at your competitors’ employees and identify individuals who are a good match to your company and the role.
Look outside the industry
A talented professional from outside the industry could provide fresh ideas and insight that would greatly benefit your company. Look for someone with transferrable skills and a willingness to learn a new industry.
Work with colleges and universities
Develop a relationship with colleges and universities. Work with the schools to identify upcoming or recent graduates who are/were stars. Another option is to establish an internship program with a school.
Work with a strategic advisory firm
Working with a strategic advisory firm is an option, as well. This type of partnership, such as the ones I build with our clients, can make identifying the right talent for the right position easier. An advisory firm often has the pulse on where the most talented people are in the supply chain and logistics industries. The firm can launch a successful candidate-search process, get new hires up and running, and help retain talent for the long run.
Be creative and have vision
Throughout the hiring process remember that creativity and vision are key.
Offer an out
Zappos pays new employees to quit. You read that right: The company pays new employees to quit their jobs. Once new employees have completed a 4-week training program, they can choose to remain with the company or quit. If they choose the latter, they walk out the door with a $4,000 bonus. Offering such an out may seem crazy. But the reality is that when unhappy employees leave the company within their first four weeks of employment, the financial implications are much, much lower than the cost of unhappy employees who are likely to be uninspired at work and quit in less than a year.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 8, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy
Stop wasting your team’s time by implementing these tips for running more effective meetings.
Let’s face it: Meetings can suck. A poorly planned and executed meeting is a waste of time and money, and it can be demoralizing. Meetings shouldn’t be like this. Here are nine tips on how to plan and how to run an effective meeting.
1. Define purpose
Every meeting should have a purpose. Meetings are often set up to happen on a recurring basis. The reality is that many times these meetings take place solely because they are in our calendars. If there is no reason to hold the weekly meeting this Wednesday, cancel it.
2. Focus
Have a clearly defined, singular focus. This keeps the meeting on track. If a meeting has more than one focus, it is likely that one issue will be covered in far greater detail than the other, that the meeting will get off track, and/or none of the issues will be adequately addressed.
3. Prepare
Do your homework. Prior to every meeting, make sure you have read anything you should have read, and that you have completed any tasks that you should have completed. Additionally, know the lay of the land. For example, if the meeting is about the company budget and your employees are anxious over budget cuts, be prepared to address your employees’ anxieties.
4. Invite
It sounds simple but bears repeating: Invite those who should attend, and do not invite people who should not be there. For example, if the focus of the meeting is sales, make sure you invite the sales team. Or, if the focus of the meeting is the performance of your HR team, don’t invite your research and development team.
5. Leverage technology
Technology abounds, and you should utilize it. Getting everyone in the same room is no longer necessary. Take advantage of technology such as Speek, Skype, and GoToMeeting.
6. Communicate
An effective meeting is not a place for you to download or transfer information. If you present information in a manner that speaks to attendees, you will motivate your employees and create buy-in. (The Heart of Change, by Jon Kotter and Dan Cohen, is a great resource on effective communication.)
7. Time management
Create an agenda and stick to it. Start the meeting on time, and end the meeting on time. A meeting that is scheduled for 10:00-11:00 should not run from 10:15 to 11:15. Furthermore, if a meeting is scheduled for 1 hour, the meeting should last one hour or less. There is no need to try and fill the last 15 minutes if the agenda has been covered.
8. Facilitate
A meeting needs a leader. If it is your meeting, lead it. Leading does not mean speaking at people for an hour; instead it means facilitating the agenda. If an important but off-topic issue is raised during the meeting, don’t allow the meeting to go off on a tangent. Instead, acknowledge the importance of the issue and establish a time to address the particular issue. Handled correctly, your employees will not view this as blowing off their input, but rather they will value the fact that you will allot the necessary time to the issue.
Facilitating the meeting also means not allowing one person to monopolize the meeting. Give everyone the opportunity to provide input, and speak up if the agenda is being hijacked.
9. Action
At the end of the meeting review the action items. Make sure the right people are in charge of each item, that they know what they need to do, and that they know when the task needs to be completed.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 5, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Talent
Some companies include failure as a performance metric, but establishing a culture of innovation is a better inflection point for success.
Media executive Jason Seiken is known for taking the Washington Post online and for turning PBS into a digital media powerhouse. Several years ago, he wrote an article, How I Got My Team To Fail More, which described his efforts at PBS to create an entrepreneurial culture by requiring members of the digital team to fail. Seiken wrote:
“Soon after arriving at PBS, I called the digital team into a conference room and announced we were ripping up everyone’s annual performance goals and adding a new metric. Failure. With a twist: ‘If you don’t fail enough times during the coming year,’ I told every staffer, ‘you’ll be downgraded.’ Because if you’re not failing enough, you’re playing it safe. The idea was to deliver a clear message: Move fast. Iterate fast. Be entrepreneurial. Don’t be afraid that if you stretch and sprint you might break things. Executive leadership has your back.”
Five years after introducing the failure metric to PBS, unique visitors to PBS.org doubled, and in each of the first seven months of 2013, PBS.org was the most-visited network TV site (beating out ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox). Additionally, video views on PBS.org and PBS.org’s mobile platforms rose 11,200%.
Was requiring failure the key to success? Not all those who read the post believed so. Rather, many readers suggested that the creation of a culture of innovation, one supported by executive leadership, was the inflection point for success.
The idea that innovation in business or an entrepreneurial culture is brought about by leadership is one put forth by many, including Robert J. Herbold. In his book What’s Holding You Back: 10 Bold Steps that Define Gutsy Leaders, Herbold submits that it is the responsibility of a leader to establish a culture of innovation. That is, a leader must communicate a goal of innovation to his/her employees; encourage employees to aspire to innovation; reward innovation; and instill a sense of urgency.
I see innovation and entrepreneurism as the goal and not failure. For this reason I believe the focus should not be on failure, but instead should be establishing a culture which supports innovation. Yes risk-taking and failure are likely components of innovation, but they are just that — components. “Requiring failure” may be sexy, but I believe supporting innovation is more likely to be the game changer.
What do you think? Is failure a requirement for success? Should leadership focus on encouraging failure?
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by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 25, 2016 | Blog, Data/Analytics, Leadership, Strategy
Forget tracking traditional metrics and focus on decision-quality data that helps front-line managers do their jobs.
It’s safe to say that the clients I engage with fall into two categories when it comes to business data: those that are drowning in it, and those that ignore it altogether.
The ones that are drowning in data know all the relevant facts that keep them out of trouble with their boards or their senior executives, but struggle to tell you what really drives their business costs or profits. The ones that ignore the data are the savvy veterans that rely on their historical win/loss records in their business, but ask them to change course or innovate, and they are like fish out of water.
Chances are you’ll fall somewhere close to those two camps, and for some time, I did as well. Then that I realized that tracking data for the sake of “tracking” was a waste of time for me and for my teams.
There is data, however, that should be tracked relentlessly and used in all of your decision processes. I call this “decision-quality” data. These are the numbers that drive your business strategy and execution.
What is decision-quality data?
Decision-quality data goes beyond the traditional profit/loss packages that are churned out every quarter and disseminated to your business chieftains. Decision-quality data sets are the building blocks and the levers of your business. Examples include areas of your business that can be affected by the execution of your employees.
Put simply, your sales employees may not be able to directly affect your finance treasury function, but working together with your finance team, they can affect cash flow by selling credit-worthy customers, cutting better financial deals, and, when necessary, helping in the collection process.
The same can be said of your purchasing professionals teaming with distribution leaders and finance team. This team can coordinate at the front line to cut costs and reduce inventory spend by developing inventory and financial metrics that matter to them and the company overall. By working in concert, they have the ability to solve the problems that arise and avoid pitfalls in real time instead of reacting when the quarterly metrics come out.
Quite frankly, if you are collecting and looking at data, but not taking action as the result of it, STOP. You won’t miss a thing, and your team will thank you for saving them time to spend on more productive activities.
Don’t fall into the data-cycle-trap dictated by data tracked on a calendar basis for the sake of tracking. Ask your teams what data they need to be effective, and simplify the way for them to get it in near real time.
Once this type of data is in the hands of a cross-functional team of front-line managers, task them with the needed improvement, and watch them make dramatic impacts in your overall business performance and customer experience and, in turn, your profits. The results will be better and more sustained than if you drove them with a mandate from the top because these managers live and breathe in the environment that created the data in the first place. Their cross-functional nature and familiarity with the issues are a winning combination.
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