To take this a bit further, let us turn to a simple example, which we will then develop with a slightly more complicated case study.
Take, for example, a European telecommunications firm which, just like its sister companies, will be facing deregulation in the near future.
This company grew out of the long-standing management traditions of the public sector. Agent loyalty is not a problem, their status is secure and clearly defines their rights and obligations, as well as how their careers can evolve and how they are to be remunerated. These rights are linked
to seniority and not to the business activity of the company. Recall that monopolistic situations have been particularly favourable to the devel- opment of these advantages, the cost of which has been externalized on to the customer – the user – who at the time could do nothing about it.
In order to match the growing competition, our company has devel- oped remarkable marketing skills, and has conducted an impressive number of customer profile studies. Similarly, it has developed elaborate methods of measuring customer satisfaction, which it does on a regular basis. The surprising fact is that, despite the quality of the company’s products, which are as good as any, its customers, especially those who generate the greatest amount of business, seem ready to take any chance they can get to head over to the competition. In its attempt to deal with this paradox, the company has tried offering more and more products and services, targeting the categories of customers which it has identi- fied, but seems all the less able to keep customers from taking their business elsewhere.
To better understand this situation, let us take a look at one of the company’s customers, John Doe, a “professional”, according to the company’s own system of classification. The company, having identi- fied specific needs for this particular segment of the market, has offered Mr Doe the services of a special department. He was informed by mail that “his” department had opened (the possessive was used so as to create a sense of intimacy), which he right away decided to call up in order to have a fax line installed in his home. John is told by a company representative, obviously well trained in “the customer welcome process”, that the company regrets that it cannot accept orders over the phone. Surprised by the lack of confidence in the very medium which, after all, the company is promoting, he asks how, then, should he place an order? He is informed that orders must be placed by mail – and cannot help but wonder whether this company is simply trying to generate some business for former co-workers at the postal service.
In any case, ten days after mailing his letter, our “professional” receives a highly personalized reply bearing the name and address of a “corre- spondent” on the letterhead. The letter states that the new phone line will be installed that very day, within a window of about two hours, so as to avoid any unnecessary delay. Suddenly faced with the prospect of having to stay home from work (Mr Doe is after all a “professional”), he picks up the phone and asks to speak to his new correspondent. The representative on the line is surprised by his request, and informs him that the title “correspondent” simply refers to the person who entered his file into the computer database. After being transferred to another
The Customer’s Victory 31 representative, he explains that he cannot possibly wait at home for the fax line to be installed. The representative is sorry about the mix-up, adding that the company could not foresee that he would be away.
Surprised that they could not have simply called to set up an appoint- ment, he is told that of course they had tried to contact him, but that since he was not at home (he is of course a “professional”) a time had been set anyway and the letter sent out. At the suggestion that a mes- sage could have been left on his answering machine, the employee, who incidentally pays no attention to the customer’s remark that the answering machine had been purchased through the very same agency, states that the company does not conduct business in that fashion.
Finally, at the “professional’s” suggestion that they call in the evening, the representative retorts that the company has not yet resorted to working after hours.
What is going on here? The organization has in fact addressed the wrong problem, or, at the very least, has not understood the scope of the problem. Increasingly forced to listen to its customers, the company first reacts by offering more products. In this respect, which is moreover how the company determines whether or not its customers are satisfied, the company is doing an outstanding job. But, as we will see later on, the product, as a function of demand (its technical characteristics), is decreas- ingly what differentiates competitors. Competing products are increas- ingly similar, regardless of their apparent sophistication.11 The
“differential advantage”, then, resides more in the way the product is pro- duced and/or the way it is offered. That is to say, in the organization, the one which develops products, the one which manufactures products, and the one which offers them, and in the ability of these three to cooperate.
In the case of this company, the products are technically very good and their prices very reasonable. However, the organization which offers them has in no way “listened” to the customer. It is simply entrapped in its own norms and procedures, in the way it develops its database, in the routine and red tape which are part and parcel of the way it manages public relations and work schedules. Suddenly, the professional cus- tomer has disappeared. And the reason he is gone is that the complexity of his needs were not understood. The company never dealt concretely with his daily life, including when he goes to work, when he stays home, how his phone is used by his family during the day and for work pur- poses at night. He was no more than a virtualprofessional, around which no concrete organization had been set up either for him or for the other members of the organization, nor had a pricing policy been established which could take into account how he really uses the telephone.
All that had been set up was a means of sidestepping the issue, a screen, a decoy – the words are not too strong – which simply stand in as the symbols of listening, but they are not listening.12By dealing with listening as a function – an aspect of marketing in this case – the organization spares itself from taking a good hard look at itself, that is, more directly, at how appropriate its own modes of functioning are for the customer which it intends to serve. This is exactly what it needed to see. Listening to the customer, which has become so necessary, so inevitable now that the customer stands as the winner, confronts bureaucracies with very difficult and disturbing problems. Listening simply cannot be reduced to yet another function – bureaucracies excel at that – no more than quality could be reduced to a function in the 1980s, despite many attempts to do so.
Much more than a function, it is a mode of functioning, organization.
Listening is a set of behaviours, of arrangements, of cooperative efforts;
it includes how employees’ careers evolve, and through this their status in the company, their benefits, their privileges. In order to truly listen to the customer, one must begin by taking a closer look at all of these various domains. In many cases, listening can be quite painful.