The New York Times today has a story, “A New Capital of Call Centers,” which focuses on the fact that many  companies with US customers are moving their call centers to the Phillipines or back to the U.S. because personnel in the new locations speak better English than, say, their counterparts in India.

Evidently, these companies believe that customers’ primary concern is the quality of the language used by the call center agents.  My primary concern, however, is whether or not the call center agent is actually able to answer my questions, solve my problem, and/or take my order accurately.  Overall,  I’ve had much better luck with the hard-to-understand foreign agents who seem to know what they are talking about than with US-based agents who are poorly trained and/or work in call centers in which no system is in place to help callers actually get their questions answered.

In brief, I wish companies would pay more attention to this Renee’s Rule™: Make my life easy.

What do you wish?

It’s no wonder Sears is in trouble.  Their personnel training and software systems need help.

The situation:  A repair person came to perform annual preventive maintenance on my Kenmore washer and dryer.  When I showed the person that I could not get the lint screen clean, he offered to send me a new one because a clogged screen slows down the drying process and uses more electricity.

He ordered a replacement screen.  Sears sent the wrong screen.   It would not fit into the slot.

I called Sears to order a replacement for the replacement and carefully explained what had happened, including that the problem was  that the screen, itself, had lint that could not be removed by the repair person or by me.

Again, Sears sent the wrong part–but a different wrong part.  In the photo below, the original part is on the top; the second replacement part, on the bottom.  As you can see, there is no “screen” on the second part.

Original and Replacement "Screen"

Here’s the worst part:  After getting the second wrong part, I tried cleaning the screen with a soft-scrubbing sponge–guess what?  It worked!  If the repair person had only been properly trained……

Sears’ cost:  Time for the repair person and the operators who took both the first and second orders + shipping for two parts + an unhappy customer.

A professional friend recently pointed out to me that in my two  most recent posts, I was actually addressing the fact that www.thefoundary.com did not have a search function.   It still doesn’t have one.

On the other hand,  www.foundary.com, does have a search function but is likely just a site set up by a domain squatter to capture ad revenue from visitors who do what I did:   type in the wrong URL.

Or..is it?  Perhaps the people behind thefoundary.com are also using the name “foundary” in order to increase their revenue at a very low cost….

I promised to provide a series of posts regarding my predictions for 10-year trends.  So..here is the first:  Over the next 10 years, at least one appliance maker will figure out how to produce reliable, long-lasting appliances at a moderate cost.   (I am thinking particularly about ovens and refrigerators.)  These appliances will sell like the proverbial hot cakes.

Their success will be driven by three things:

1. Consumer demand for appliances that work and require few repairs
2. Improved production technology that will produce such appliances more cheaply than is now possible
3. Viral “advertising” via the internet as consumers discover that such appliances exist

I hope this is not wishful thinking…….

I have recently been asked by reporters, “What would you do at Harry and David?”

I responded with a description of the turnaround steps described below.  Those steps are always the same, but the specifics vary from project to project.  (When I spoke with reporters, I also discussed some of the situation-specific actions I would initiate.)

My S.O.P. (Standard operating procedure)

1. Get total control of cash
2. Prepare short-term cash forecast
3. Select Turnaround Team from key, existing management team members
4. Convene the team; go through financial statements line by line–first, looking for ways to improve short-term cash situation, second, identifying ways to increase revenues (and/or margins) and decrease costs — (note: understanding the financial statements inside and out is critical!)
5. The result is a written plan that includes a list of who is responsible for achieving what results by which dates and financial projections, which are the numeric representation of the plan.
6. Then, it’s time for the team to implement!
7. Design and begin  implementation of a sound management control system if one does not exist
8. In the meantime, there are generally crises to contend with and negotiations with a wide range of stakeholders.

In addition to the above, I also send a web-based confidential survey to all employees.  The employees know what’s wrong, what needs to be fixed, and often see things that people at “corporate” miss.  Surveys to vendors and customers can be equally enlightening.

The above steps make it sound like the turnaround process is an orderly one, but it’s not.  Leading a turnaround is like being a general on the battlefield.  It’s messy and fraught with peril.   You have a plan, but unexpected crises are constantly arising.  I always tell prospective clients that it will feel like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan.  One of my favorite owner/clients used to stop by my office occasionally and say, “I’m having a ‘Saving Private Ryan’ day.”

The lesson:  If you want to invite people you know to “connect” on LinkedIn, don’t use the section that says, “Enter Email Addresses.”

This is a lesson I learned the hard way.

Recently, I uploaded the email addresses of my key professional contacts (people who were already receiving my periodic email updates) to LinkedIn so I could “connect” with those who wished to do so.  There was no indication that these invitations would be different from those I frequently receive from others.  Those invitations appear only once, and I can either accept or reject them. End of story.

Shortly after the upload, however, I received an email from a long-time professional friend who told me that he had received not one—not two—but three separate invites from me to “connect.”   I was appalled and immediately contacted LinkedIn to stop that process.

Now, I have sent an email note of apology to those who may have received the multiple messages.

If I were the CEO of LinkedIn, I would understand that business relationships must be guarded carefully and take steps to ensure that LinkedIn’s processes would be clearly defined so that my customers could proceed without worry that they might damage their valuable professional relationships.  Evidently the real CEO, Jeff Weiner, does not share my concern.

In the 9/20-9/26 edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Matthew Lynn (and the photo that accompanied the article) implied that Stephen Elop, who became CEO of Nokia on 9/21, is not the best person to lead the turnaround because Elop is not a “phone expert.”

I do not know a great deal about Elop except that he was recently “the Canadian head of Microsoft’s business unit” and that he has software experience and a reputation for “shaking up” businesses, but I do know that Lynn’s apparent assumption—that “industry experience” is central to a turnaround—is just plain flawed.

One needs to look no further than Alex Mandel’s leadership of Teligent in the late ‘90’s to see that “industry experience” does not guarantee success. Mandel had been president and COO of AT&T, but Teligent failed spectacularly under his leadership. Although the failure was blamed on “the downturn and overcapacity,” the underlying issue was that on the ground and in the trenches, Teligent was simply unable to provide the reliable wireless services it promised. The lesson: The leadership skills required to launch a technology start-up with no existing infrastructure are very different from those required to lead a long-established company.

In a turnaround, where time truly is “of the essence,” the most valuable commodity is effective leadership, not industry expertise. I’ve had 34 clients. Of those, 3 were in one industry; 2 were in another; the rest were all “one-off.” Based on that experience, it is clear to me that industry experience is not, by any means, the determining factor.

The most important skills needed in leading a turnaround are

· The “power of the glance;” i.e., the ability to see quickly what needs to be done
· Common sense
· Ability to establish the right priorities
· Clarity of vision and the ability to convey that vision
· Decisiveness
· Ability to mobilize the troops to provide ideas and support the effort

Is having industry expertise a plus? Yes. But it is no substitute for having the right leadership skills. No matter what the industry, it is relatively easy to find someone with industry expertise. It is much more difficult to find someone who has the right leadership skills.

I’m rooting for Stephen Elop and hope he proves Mr. Lynn wrong!

Recently, I had to place a call to American Express’ customer service. First, my problem was solved right away. Second, almost immediately thereafter, I received a customer survey. Guess what the first survey question was? “Do you remember this call?” (paraphrased)

I almost fell out of my chair. Someone had finally THOUGHT about a customer survey and what it was trying to accomplish!

Customer satisfaction surveys are conducted, presumably, to get feedback about the customer’s “experience.” These surveys could be powerful tools for gaining and retaining customers and for reducing costs, but too often they are not. I call them the “Silly Surveys.” (Actually, some additional “S words” spring to mind…)

How many surveys have you received and wondered, “Which call and what person is this survey asking about?” If you are like me, too often, either I’ve had to talk with more than one support person, or the survey arrives long enough after the incident that I am not sure which incident, contact, or person the survey is asking about.

In addition, too many surveys fail to ask a critical question: Should this call have been necessary in the first place? Instead, it asks: Was the support person knowledgeable, clear, polite? Was the problem solved? The answer is often, “Yes, to all of the above,” but too often, the underlying problem is that the company has a poorly constructed website that makes it difficult to accomplish simple tasks–tasks that are easy to accomplish at other sites. I had to waste my time placing a call that should have been unnecessary.

In the case of the above example, the support person will get kudos (or, at least, won’t get into trouble), but I, the customer, having made too many similar calls to this company, am likely to be considering changing vendors, and the company is missing an opportunity to reduce its tech support costs. If customers could easily accomplish simple tasks at the website, fewer tech support people would be needed.

Renee’s Rule™: Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

Last week, The Deal quoted me as saying that technology just might give Borders a second lease on life.  Links to the article are available only to The Deal subscribers, so let me explain.

As you may know, financier Bennett LeBow recently invested $25 million in Borders and became its Chairman. That $25 million infusion will buy Borders some time, and a combination of savvy marketing and the savvy use of technology may dramatically improve the company’s prospects.

• Technology has transformed the marketing battlefield.
• Although Borders is late to the digital distribution game, the company has a key, not-to-be-discounted asset made valuable through the wonders of current technology: The list of 30-million email addresses they have accumulated through their “free” Borders’ Rewards program.
• That list is a springboard that will allow Borders to promote its new digital offerings rapidly to a massive, already existing database of customers.
• Current technology will allow them not only to reach those customers but also to know the book-buying  preferences of those customers.  In addition, Borders will be able to send personalize emailed “pitches” to the 30 million—right away—without delay and at a relatively low cost per customer.
• As a result, Borders will likely attract digital book buyers quickly at a low cost-per-customer and per-purchase.

I, personally, would not invest in Borders now, but it’s premature to count them out.