OCTOBER 24, 2003

By Lisa Bergson
Lisa Bergson

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FACTORY DAYS
By Lisa Bergson


Keeping the Customer Satisfied
In tough times, a small outfit like mine depends on happy, loyal clients -- and a do-it-yesterday eagerness to make sure they stay that way

A handwritten note in faded ink is posted on the bulletin board behind my desk. Drafted sometime after Bill Clinton's first presidential victory, it reads: "The Customer, Stupid." To me, that says it all. To my employees, however, the notion seems to have faded. For, lately a sense of urgency around customer service has declined. I have some thoughts as to why.


My team's handling of a purchased component failure, a processor used in one of our products, is a study in confused priorities. You might think that at a time when orders are hard-won, employees would make an extra effort. In my experience, such is not the case. I find people become quite apathetic when they see no prospects for raises, job advancement, or even a full workweek. My operations director, call him Ed, differs on the merits of this point, conceding only, "It doesn't help."

NO SENSE OF URGENCY.  In any event, unless I stay absolutely glued to a particular problem, it seems to get swept under an invisible carpet. But, for the last six months, I have had to concentrate on fundraising for Tiger Optics, leaving day-to-day matters to my senior managers. While products continue to ship out the door and a thin stream of orders trickles in, the lack of focus on customers is evident.

Gruff and to the point, Ed previously managed production for larger companies, where the notion of individualized service was foreign. But it is personal attention that is one of the distinguishing factors of a small shop like mine. Sometimes I get the feeling he thinks I'm just being girly, forcing me to be extra assertive to get the message across. It takes a stern lecture to prompt him to accelerate our effort to find a replacement for the defective component.

"This should be the top priority, every minute, for quality-control and purchasing," I rail. Instead, my guys were waiting for the maker of the defective part to devise a solution, and waiting for the alternative supplier to give us drawings, and then waiting for engineering to evaluate the options. Meanwhile, our major multinational customers are not inclined to wait. "Remember, customers don't have to come to us," I admonish. "We're too small to survive against the competition unless we provide excellent service. We have to step and fetch!"

SOONER OR LATER.  This culture of complacency hurts us in the marketplace. One of my regional sales managers allows a demonstration unit with the defective component to sit at a customer's site for seven weeks. "When are we going to get a working unit?" our local sales representative e-mails him, with a copy to me. Talk about negative advertising! "I didn't realize it was still there," the manager says, admitting he's been waiting for engineering to solve the problem before leveling with the customer.

With what strikes me as a false sense of pride, my staff is reluctant to inform customers of open issues. I ask our director of engineering why he is dragging his feet about issuing a corrective-action report on the component failure. "We want to show that we have our hands around the problem," he explains. Ed concurs, "I want to be sure it's all resolved before we contact the customers."

In my experience, it is far better to include the customer in the process. At least then he or she knows what's going on and that we're not just sitting around biding our time. "The two worst scenarios are the customers hear about the problem from someone else or, they have the problem, and find out we've known about it for over a month and didn't warn them," I tell the engineering director. "In either case, our name is mud. Whereas, if we level with them, they will trust and respect us for being honest."

THE MARKET'S GRIM SOLUTION.  At my insistence, our sales director drafts a letter to all customers who may be affected. Calling it an "operational nuisance", he apologizes for "any inconvenience this may have caused you." Given the opportunity to edit this mealy-mouthed missive, I scratch "nuisance" and apologize for the inconvenience we "have caused you". To customers, even the suggestion of a problem is an inconvenience. Any attempt to belittle their aggravation will only compound it.

Between pride, poor leadership, and low moral, as an organization, we have failed to face customer service issues. If we're unable to identify and put first things first, we deserve to get left behind. The market will take its own corrective action.


Lisa Bergson is President and CEO of both MEECO and Tiger Optics. Before joining MEECO in 1983, Lisa Bergson worked as a business journalist at BusinessWeek and freelanced for many business publications. You can visit her companies' Web sites at www.meeco.com and www.tigeroptics.com, or contact her at lbergson@meeco.com
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