I am relatively new to Twitter, Linked-In and Facebook, but I like the idea.  I am hopeful this will be a disruptor to the push sales mentality my Dad knew . . .  you know “smile and dial.”  One gets an opportunity to know someone and “kick the tires.” 

The next old idea that needs to change is customer research where a professional is needed.  There are some important things to do and not do in research, but they can be learned.  People that do the work in service organizations should be engaged in the research as they are really the ones that understand and can change the work.  Too many times have I seen a “professional survey” that sits on an executives desk and no action takes place to achieve business improvement.  Conversely, the people that provide the core (or value) work are in prime position to understand what research can be jettisoned into action. 

My counterparts in the UK (Vanguard Consulting Ltd.) ask two questions to prospective clients:

  1. How much money do you spend on customer research?                                                                                                    
  2. What actions for improvement have you taken as a consequence?

If the answer is “not much,” you have wasted money on research.  When the response is “quite a lot” to both questions I see command and control managers with new edicts, rules, reporting, work standards and the like in response to any negative findings.  These become frustrating to the people that actually DO the work.  Misinterpretations of the research by command and control management lead to tampering (taking the wrong actions) and creating more waste.  Actions need to be based on knowledge of the work. 

The people on the front-line that do the work are in the best position to interpret what a customer needs or doesn’t need.  In service, many times managers script to ask for help and to comply front-line service workers do, even if it doesn’t look like someone needs help.  This can actually be annoying rather than helpful.

So if you are going to improve your customer management process by using customer research, engage the front-line worker.  They can be taught to do their own surveys and customer research.  More importantly, they can save you a lot of money and give you actionable business improvement ideas from the research.  Systems thinking begins from the outside-in and your front-line is best equipped to aid your organization in achieving greater customer satisfaction.