I was in a conversation
recently with a Fortune 500 manager handling Voice of the Customer (VOC)
initiatives. I think she just needed to vent steam.
The gist of her story
was that she felt her company was not treating customers right, making them run
through hoops to get even basic information to help them understand their
invoices and on and on.
The processes and
systems were not structured to deal effectively and efficiently with customer
requests for information.
“I would not want to be
my own customer” is what she said as she described how on the personal front
she had switched a vendor for providing the type of service her company was
providing its customers.
My question to her was
how does the company treat its own employees? Do they have to run through hoops
to get information, get claims reimbursed etc.? The answer was a resounding
“Yes”. I was not surprised.
My premise is that
customer service like charity “begins at home”. The reason is not just
semantics or platitudes but more nuts and bolts. Organizational DNA has an
information architecture strand. It remains same whether it is dealing with
external customers or with internal employees.
It is very unlikely that
a company with excellent internal processes would have lousy customer
facing ones and vice-versa.
How can organizations
get their Information Architecture right? My answer is “with some COMMONSENSE”,
by building an architecture, systems and processes which focus on :
·
Collaboration – “Can we
all work together ?”
Are people, systems, processes,
technologies working in a collaborative way? Does the architecture support
that? Has it emerged from that?
Ownership and Oversight - “Who is minding the candy store? ”
Governance, Stewards
Mediation – “ Can we get a referee ? ”
Who breaks the tie of conflicting information
needs? How?
Maintain - “Houston! We’ve got a problem”
Does the architecture facilitate trouble shooting,
problem solving?
Open- “Help yourself”
Does the architecture facilitate users/customers
helping themselves? Does it help in monetizing new value streams?
New – “ What have you done for me lately”
Does the architecture showcase new and emerging
trends? Does it have the flexibility to leverage them?
Strategic – “ Boldly go where no man has gone before”
How effective is the architecture in enabling
the future state vision for the organization
Enterprise wide- “ whole kit and caboodle”
Can the architecture be scaled for the entire
organization?
Necessary – “Keep the lights on”
Does it ensure that legacy systems stay
operational and can be leveraged to the extent possible
Scout, Speed, Scalable, Selective - “We are the Special Forces”
Does it allow innovation : a small "Special
Forces" contingent which can quickly scout new options , build prototypes,
execute limited precision deployments for a selected target audience. Focus is
on 4 S's : Scout, Speed, Scaleable and Selective.
Evolutionary: Parameters, Process, Performance – “Go with the flow”
Plan, Build, Run: The larger
"Infantry" component focuses on scaling up some of the early wins of
the Special Forces component , establishes a process framework around it and
launches them for mass deployment. Focus is on 3 P's: Parameters, Process,
Performance.
And if organizations do
not get these right, they end up with:
Conflicting priorities and resource
allocations
Rapid growth of unorganized data and
inability to deal with emergence of newer technologies
Arbitrary decision making focused on the
short-term/tactical rather than the strategic
Political jockeying amongst departmental
heads in the organization and within IT departments resulting in sub-optimal
decision making.
Needless to add, this
results in crappy service for both external customers and internal employees.
But as they say
“Commonsense is very uncommon”
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