Standard Feedback Form for EVERY enterprise !

Deigning feedback form is an art. These artists are rare.  

Its is not about HOW your company and your people are performing on a defined internal parameters. Customers are not interested in doing people evaluation job of your HR team. Do not limit their thinking by thinking of your feedback form designing team. 

It is all about how your company is achieving fulfillment of customers' need with ease and delight. Your questions should be framed to know all these three aspects and nothing else. 

Three questions with reasons of their answer. Period.

- Was the purpose of doing business with us achieved? 

- Was it easy to deal with us?

- Was the entire experience of dealing with us delightful?

Answer option should be either YES or NO.

This should be the standard feedback form all across the business. Let your customers speak and write more not your enterprise. Give them freedom to evaluate your performance from their perspective and not from your perspective. 

This is applicable to both customers and suppliers. 

Business Turnaround - Step Number One

Yes CEOs across the globe is putting CUSTOMER at the center when they plan for business turnaround. 

Finding reasons for sickness is certainly a good beginning for turnaround process to begin with however for any business it is CUSTOMERs who pays for its survival - be it good business or turnaround case.

Therefore immediate focus on better customer experience can give CXOs to work out plan and strategise turnaround initiatives. Preserving customers who have not yet left the organisation is critical and first priority & making them company evangelist is next best on agenda. 

Company may be sick for any reason but the moment customers know this they may continue to do the business but search for alternative is on immediately as everyone needs dependable service providers or suppliers. Even best customer experience service providers like Kingfisher airlines started losing customers the moment they know about the financial mess the company is in.  Only hope for their survival was their customer loyalty they had created by offering great experience. 

Imagine what can happen to companies not offering not so great customer experience.

Therefore while working on other issues to  turnaround the company immediate sharp focus on the customers is the key survival tool for turnaround companies. Many a times pathetic approach towards the customers is the reason for the companies to go sick and even die.   

Point is do not wait till your enterprise go sick to focus on customer experience. Focus on customer experience to avoid sickness and even is the situation arise customer can bail your enterprise out with their loyalty and word of mouth support.  

Why your customers MUST promote your brand ?

Why your previous & existing customers are NOT promoting your brand ? 

When previous & existing are customers are not promoting , their own loyalty is also at risk.

Its is a very serious issue. 

- may be they are not satisfied (not meeting basic need) 

- may be they are not happy (not exceeding expectations) 

- may be they think there is something better available 

- may be experience was not engaging 

- may be experience was not memorable 

- may be it was not emotionally touching 

- may be they considered price was more than value it delivered

- may be your promise was more than what you delivered 

Reasons could be any and many. Company can not afford to ignore these reasons. It is not that it saves your marketing cost but it is for the very purpose to know whether your enterprise is doing the right things in a right way. 

Before you get financial results at the end of the year , knowing what your customers are doing for you in the market is an indicator of financial results one can expect. 

Like political parties would like to know mood of the nation before election & take last minute corrective measures, entrepreneurs also must know & act on mood of the customers. When the mood is like the points stated above challenge for entrepreneurs is bigger. 

Make it a mission that every customer MUST recommend your offerings by becoming brand advocate.  There are few companies that enjoys this kind of reputation. 

SIGH of an Entrepreneur

You started your enterprise to serve your customers with your skill and passion. However in the process you need to manage people, policies, processes , acquisition, various regulatory compliance and many other things apart from serving customers.  Managing the management of business is Herculean task. It is this task which is the major culprit in diluting and shifting focus from customer experience.

Yesterday I was with one senior doctor managing her own clinic. With deep sigh she uttered " I am tired. Managing patients is fine but its the other things about practice that is too tiring. " I think most entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey must be going through this SIGH.

It is important for entrepreneur to remain deeply focused on customers and delegate all peripheral activities of " Management " to others. It is the customers and only serving customers is the objective of the business and who are going to pay for the business to survive  All other money are debt and at cost. Customers money is adding to the networth. 

Before you lose sight of customers while managing MANAGEMENT part, its time to wake up and get a grip of what you always wanted to do - SERVING the CUSTOMERS and in the process making them RAVING FANS of your business.

Does your enterprise Balance Sheet reflects TRUE Assets? No Its Not.

Opening the Balance Sheet and looking at the asset side will not give the true answer.  

Reasons:

- Fixed Assets are revalued and not MTM. We all know how much it will fetch if we are out to sale NOW. Yes but its Assets as long as it produces the goods which are acceptable in the Market with our cost structure.

- Stocks have two elements: Bogus & Inflated to boots profit and dead stock reflected having no market value. Remove these two to arrive at true value

- Debtors also have two elements: Generated through bogus sales and almost doubtful to doubtful debts

- Loans & Advances includes money given to associate concerns which is not recoverable in most cases. 

Therefore after adjusting the Balance Sheet with above realities , you may arrive at the RIGHT figure of the assets.  & if you adjust assets with actual liabilities , you may be surprised { shocked } with your networth figure.  

Therefore Balance Sheet is not the right place to find out the TRUE assets of the company.  Its the Non Balance Sheet assets that counts and matters the MOST.

Assets = Resources under Influence of an Enterprise which can be leveraged for Wealth Creation for all stake holders. 

An enterprise can influence its people working for it to give their best, its suppliers to supply best at most competitive rates, its customers to patronage again and again and refer new customers also,   its share holders to invest when opportunity demands , its relationship with government and other agencies to quicken the process and also policy influence,  its relationship with local area  groups/infrastructure ( What Tata Steel has done and is doing for the town Tata Nagar )  to garner their support as and when require , its Brand Promise & of-course its assets in the Balance Sheet. All these are the assets. All resources and relationships MUST be leveraged to create wealth. Not all area under INFLUENCE are reflected in the Balance Sheet.  

Question is HOW to leverage assets and HOW to expand area of Influence ?? Truly successful companies are masters of both. If any one is missing success will be limited but when both are present  success is to be seen to believe. In personal category Amitabh Bachchan , Dr Manmohan Singh are the shining examples of how they leveraged their Assets ( Voice / Acting and Knowledge / Experience - nothing is reflected in their balance sheet on the contrary these assets have made their balance sheet stronger ) and expanded area of influence.    Two of the largest enterprises in the country Reliance leveraged their capacity to deal with govt , capacity to execute at jet speed & Infosys leveraged owners' foresightedness , perseverance and governance policies to create wealth.  None reflected in the Balance Sheet.

To conclude its Assets outside the Balance Sheet that makes enterprise Balance Sheet stronger. Not the other way. Take stock , become aware of your off balance sheet assets TODAY and have plan to leverage them fully.

Assets = Resources under Influence of an Enterprise which can be leveraged for Wealth Creation for all stake holders.

 

By D'fault are you HAPPY or SAD???

By D'fault are you HAPPY or SAD???  { Pause and Check for a minute }. We read motivational books , watch movies, go on a tour , picnic , movie and drama. Go out for dinner , parties play with kids. Celebrate birthdays , other important days, marriages, people who drinks go for it. We develop hobby to remain engaged in activities we like. In an otherwise painful realities of our life, we feel happy to watch movies, which take us away from the realities.

We try to escape from { painful } realities to all these places and resort to these activities.  We like to remain HAPPY.{ always }

Corporate world has to take clue from our need to become and remain HAPPY. Happiness is not only in demand but is @ Premium. Yes make your customers HAPPY and you will neither have to find customer again nor worry about the profit. Equation goes like this - Delivering HAPPINESS = Customers plus Profit.

Happiness Drivers:

- Extra ordinary customer service.

- Extra ordinary product knowledge/Insight { today experienced at a restaurant from chef } .

- Unexpected pleasant surprise { read somewhere that a restaurant on a particular day offers select diners free dinner on random basis. Not announced marketing scheme but genuine un-announced pleasant feeling of surprise. Word of mouth can brings more customers than marketing gimmicks }.

- With-out expectation authentic kind gesture. Authentic word is critical as most marketeers have failed to invoke this feeling in customers. Sale not Solution is the ONLY motive. (Met a politician today and cud sense this - getting a voter base may be at back d of his mind but during the meet genuine urge to help and not seeking vote was his gesture) .

- Designing extra ordinary products / service is a work of an ART. Art will always attract its fol{lowers}. ( Steve Jobs is d recent inspiration, there are a few others too  ).

In our entire chain of business processes and touch points - what will make my customers HAPPPPY or what will remove sadness and pain from his life??? Ask & Act.

{ Happy to state this blog has completed 10000 hits in a year of its existence. Thanx to all visitors/readers. }