But i'm with Banco Espanol not business banking

To use a catch phrase from  the olden days (as my kids would call it) “I wanna tell you a story”.

Last week I went to my bank’s premises (a former  building society) to pay in a business cheque. I have both my personal account and business account with this institution for simplicity and convenience Hmmm, or so I thought.

I handed over a cheque which I wanted paid into my business bank. “I’m sorry but you will have to pay that in through the ATM machine” was the rather frosty edict from the cashier.

“But I’ve done it over the counter before” I protested.

“ That is only the case when the ATM option is not available” was the next rebuff. 

Quickly followed up by “ We don’t do business banking here in the branch”

As far as I’m concerned there is no difference between Banco Espanol and business banking they are all the same brand irrespective of whether one is for personal banking and the other for business customers.

So what can Banco Espanol learn from this experience. Don’t put up artificial silos because from a customer perspective you are all one Bank irrespective of internal structures. Put yourself in the customers shoes.

Secondly perhaps the cashier could have employed some flexibility and not been such a “job’s worth” The refusal of the cashier to process my cheque meant it took 5 business days to clear.

Keeping up the Iberian theme, what could I have done about the can’t/won’t do mentality I experienced – perhaps grow some large cojones !!

Muchas gracias for reading my pequeno blog,

Linkedin endorsements finger clicking bad

Aren’t I the big star with over 1500 linked connections and numerous endorsements.

Well actually the thing I court the most within Linkedin is the recommendation from a connection. To be able to write a meaningful recommendation that connection has to know me well and either have experienced my work first hand or seen it as an observer.

So when I get endorsements from connections that have never seen me doing my training stuff it means nothing to me. I really only want recommendations because people will have thought about what they write rather than just clicking endorse.

So whilst I may show an abundance of endorsements to anyone checking out my profile, it don’t cut the mustard with me. Call me old fashioned but it doesn’t seem right to be endorsed by people who don’t know me that well and who haven’t been Dell’Armied ! It devalues the endorsements and it’s the lazy person’s way – a bit like a Facebook like.

There maybe some algorithm type thingy going on here with search ranking (which I don’t pretend to understand) which may benefit me but from an authenticity perspective it just doesn’t sit comfortably with me.

Would love to hear what others think.

Would we in learning & development last 5 minutes if we worked for Roman Abramovich ?

As Roberto Di Matteo and many football managers know you are only as good as your last game which for Di Matteo was a 3-0 defeat to Juve. If ever there was a profession that personified the phrase “ it’s a results business” it has to be the fickle yet beautiful game.

This got me thinking ? What if Mr Abramovich decided to employ me as a freelancer or he decided to buy a training company. Would we be able to say well, Sir you spent £x amount on training and this is how it affected the profits of your business.

Maybe this lack of demonstrable value add/ROI is the reason why the first thing to be cut back in times of recession is training.

But equally not investing in training can be devastating to a business as Toyota learnt ,when  the problems that resulted in product recalls in 2011 were down to the fact that proper training hadn’t been carried out.

It strikes me that in times of austerity the only training that gets done is the mandatory stuff.

Why is that ? It comes back to lack of demonstrable value add. Training without application and transfer of learning is entertrainment and we’re not in the entertrainment business. So as professionals we need to be more than simply order takers .

So if we are asked to run a training event we should consider asking some of the following questions:

• What is the issue that the event is trying to solve ?
• How does that issue manifest itself ?
• How much is it costing you currently ?
• How much extra income would you expect to be generated as a result of the training
• What needs to happen (post event) to make sure that the training or new skills learnt on the day are successfully transferred back into the workplace
• How will we know that the training has made a difference ? (measures of success)

So as a profession we need to ask the right questions of our customers in order to be able to show that we’ve made a difference and be able to quantify that difference, then training wont be the first thing to be chopped in difficult times.

Until we start doing this, training will just be seen as a cost by the bean counters.

Sorry George but we don't owe you a bean !

“For more than three decades, Starbucks had a storied history of being a great place to work, of ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality coffee beans” The above quote comes from the inside cover of  “Onward” by Howard Schultz (Starbucks CEO) . Ethical sourcing and roasting undoubtedly but clearly not ethical enough to pay a single bean of UK Corporation Tax. 

Thanks to the way the business is structured and expenses apportioned (I don’t pretend to understand the mechanics of their accounting and tax avoidance) they have not paid one single penny in UK Corporation Tax. They allege that they made a loss in the UK.

Don’t get me wrong; what Starbucks have done is not illegal ! BUT it is clearly immoral. Add this corporate behaviour to the following examples of how to destroy trust:

·         Banks who rigged the libor rate

·         MPs who fiddled their expenses

·         News of the World journalists who hacked into mobile phones unlawfully.

Organisations exist in society and from a corporate social responsibility point of view should look to give something back which generally Starbucks has been pretty good at. But organisations if they want our trust and custom need to behave ethically and what Starbucks has done falls well short of the standards of acceptable behaviour.

I suggest, that if we as consumers demonstrate our abhorrence to this type of behaviour by taking our patronage elsewhere this will focus the minds of brands on how they should conduct their affairs.

 I could go on roasting Starbucks ….. . This morning I had a business meeting and whilst my tipple was the usual latte the venue wasn’t. You’re going to have to show a lot of contrition and a new behaviour to win my custom back and not become a has bean!

PS I’m not ignoring Google or Amazon who appear to have underpaid UK Corporation Tax allegedly

To communicate to your employees or not, that is the question

How much time should you spend talking and communicating to your people. At a CIPD event I attended the HR director of John Lewis said they spend 60% of their time doing exactly this.

Seems rather a lot – well here’s why you need to keep your people in the loop from a friend's true story

He recounts, how he  was waiting to checkin at Alicante Airport at 5.30 in the morning within a large queue.  No one likes queuing at the best of times but at stupid o’clock tempers can become frayed and patience is severely tested.

“ Probably with my frustration mounting I heard a passenger in front of me (whose Uncle works at my home airport) regaling to several passengers that landing fees were so expensive at my local airport and that the Spanish Airline Vueling would be pulling out. Needless to say I corrected her on several issues.”

My friend continued “ However it does rather beg the question how often are staff (at my local airport) briefed on improvements being made, the new routes coming on-stream and the negative impact of old myths like landing fees, if stories like this are still being  perpetuated”

Employees should be your biggest supporters and ambassadors for your brand and business. Communication is a key driver of employee engagement and successful change.

Still think communication is a waste of time ?

The financial services industry needs to step up to the plate & fulfil its destiny

In an article the Western Mail the CEO of the Monmouthshire Building Society states that creating a better financial services sector in the UK will not be the result of “bank bashing”.

 As someone who considers  themselves something of a financial services veteran (defined as 25 plus years experience),  this got me thinking.

Clearly Financial services has been tainted by behaviour of the banks & the insurers who mis-sold Personal Pensions & mortgage related Endowment policies. Clearly the industry has an image problem & is not trusted by the people who should be its biggest advocates – its customers !

This inherent mistrust of the industry and in some cases the inbuilt complexity, jargon and lack of transparency continue to confuse and confound the problem of lack of protection & security in key areas for consumers. In other words, consumers lack the very basic products that could make a real difference to their financial wellbeing.

So here is a ten point pledge that all providers of financial products should sign up to:

• Treat customers as they would expect to be treated themselves
• Design and manufacture products and services that are easy to understand
• Make essential products affordable and accessible to all
• Write customer communication that customers can understand
• Look after your customers first and  shareholders second
• Create customer experiences that are memorable for the right reasons
• Remember that every enquiry, letter, telephone call, case, claim, policy number is a real person. Focus on the person not the task
• Remember whose money it is that you are collecting and managing
• Offer additional discounts for existing customers on new products
• Scrap all sales targets and get your salesforce to focus on serving the customer first and foremost. Build relationships with customer and play the long game to rebuild trust. 

Do all of the above and financial services can grow up and fulfil its destiny & become the force for good that it should be !

Succession planning at the Principality- that's the way to do it

The big news in the Cardiff business community is that Graeme Yorston is to succeed Peter Griffiths as the CEO of the Principality Building Society #.  Griffiths, led the society for ten years (of which the last four have been incredibly difficult for the industry) and in a style and way that has enabled the Mutual to avoid the problems and bad publicity affecting other financial institutions.

This news, got me thinking . So how do you replace such a capable leader ? What is the process ? Was Yorston the only person to be considered ? Had the resignation of Griffiths forced the board to think of a successor ? Or had the board been proactively thinking about, when this day arrived, who would be stepping into Griffith’s shoes ?  Essentially what these questions are attempting to discover is whether there was a succession plan.

So if you were being proactive and planning for the CEO’s departure how would you go about putting in place such a plan and what would be involved ? Four years ago I wrote my CIPD Management Research Report,  “Future Proofing The Organisation” on  how do you succession plan?

Essentially the steps to follow are:

Create a written succession plan – with the primary goal being the development of internal successors. Additionally emergency succession procedures should be included, to cover  situations such as sudden death or long term sickness of the CEO.

Develop a required set of capabilities -  compare the resulting list against the firm’s senior talent pipeline. Ensure that the board has regular exposure to internal candidates through presentations, field observations and site visits.

Conduct regular in depth reviews – the entire board with the senior HR executive should review the plan twice a year to make sure that it continues to be fit for purpose in the light of the ever evolving business environment and company strategy.

Narrow the field down to two or three contenders – this should occur about two years before transition.

Implement the plan, about a year before the anticipated departure through:

• Indepth competency focused interviews
• 360 degree feedback
• Psychometric Testing

Then finally the board should make it’s decision

And that’s all there is to it ? Did the Principality follow this methodology, my guess is probably yes. Good luck to Yorston in his new role.

# The Principality is 7^th Largest Building society in the UK and in the past 6 months attracted £160M and 28,000 new customers in the first 6 months of this year.

It's a matter of trust

The title of this blog is also the title of the 1986 song by one of my all time heroes Billy Joel. I’ve always been passionate about music but one of my other passions is leadership which brings me on to the subject of this post.

Recent research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says that only 58% of us trust our leaders. The only surprise for me is that the figure is that high given the scandals of phone hacking, MPs Expenses and more recently the fixing of the LIBOR interest rate by the banks.

The late Stephen Covey in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People writes about how the Character Ethic had been replaced by the Personality Ethic in business.  The character ethic believed success as being down to things like integrity, humility, fidelity, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity and modesty. Covey noted that after the first world war there was a shift from the Character Ethic to what we might call the Personality Ethic. Success became more of a function of public image, of attitudes and behaviours, skills and techniques and a positive mental attitude. The Character Ethic became mostly lip service; the basic thrust was quick-fix influence techniques, power strategies, communication skills and positive attitudes. Jim Collins in “Good to Great” talks about level  five leadership – with modesty being a key component.

So is Covey right ? Was this the shift that has taken business to a point where the culture is toxic and CEO’s either claim not to know or turn a blind eye.

I keep reading of the clamour to return to authentic leadership, I’m not really sure I know what that this is but I do believe the following are pre-requisites of great leaders:

• They keep their promises         
• They respect their customers
•  They don’t ask their employees to do anything they are not prepared to do themselves
• They apologise if they get it wrong
•  They share their past failings with others
•   They do what is right for the organisation and its customers

 There may be behaviours that I have missed off my list in which case I’d love to hear from you about them ?

Bob Diamond won't stay in a travel lodge but Brad Burton does

Yesterday I was on twitter and I noticed a posting by Brad Burton (head of 4N the national & I believe now international networking organisation) including a picture of the Travel lodge he was staying at. So I tweeted 

@BradBurton you might be brad b but you're not so up yourself to stay in a travel lodge. I like that.

The larger than life Northerner justified it on the grounds of it being good value and you can't really argue with that.

In tight economic times, we all have to tighten our belts and that should include leaders.

 If we are really all in this together then I as a leader shouldn’t be asking you to do anything I’m not prepared to do myself. So If I ask people who work in my organisation to reduce costs and look for savings then I should be doing the same. A kind of sharing the corporate pain culture emerges..

So the fact that I as the leader, CEO, etc of that business am prepared to use Travel lodges means that my manage-ment team can’t point fingers and sneer about different rules applying to the CEO.

Leaders should be judged on their behaviours and great leaders set

the right tone and role model the right things.

This small twitter exchange ended with me complementing the larger than life Northerner on his leadership style. 

@BradBurton sets the right tone. Great leadership. Leading by example.

I like that too !

The tweet departing from you will not be answered by Arriva Trains and ATW wont apologise for any inconvenience caused either

Do you know what, if you are on Twitter you need to be on Twitter.  Obvious right ?

You'd think so but @arrivatw haven't quite got the hang of it - yet !

All their tweets are promotional - broadcasting the term is.

When it comes to listening, they don't.

So whilst increased profits were announced recently - don't expect them to reply to your tweets. Their facebook page is pretty much the same - one way traffic.

Someone needs to explain to the marketing department that customer service is an important part of the marketing armoury. 

Anyway here are a selection of tweets missing replies presumed lost in cyberspace ?.

@ArrivaTW My friend lost his wallet on one of your trains, has tried lost property 3 times and no-one has contacted him. Please call him!

Congratulations @arrivaTW for shutting an entrance to a station without any warning to do a bit of painting! In the morning commute!


 @ArrivaTW shame all stuck at heath high level with a train delayed for 20 mins at peak time. hope our ticket seller is cheery


@ArrivaTW So. Your timetable forces passengers to wait 1 hour for 'connection' at Swansea for Llanelli? What kind of service is that?


Not surprising that they came bottom in the @engagemetindex survey of train companies service on Twitter
 It's about time brands were held to account on such matters. 

So you think you can train !

Impact, presence, taking and responding to questions are all essential skills for both the trainer and anyone who is asked to give a presentation.

So clearly there is overlap and synergy in the skills required. But what skills would be required of a trainer rather than a presenter  ? and ...... if you are looking to take on a new trainer how should you design the assessment process to take into account the different skills required by a trainer? Good questions I hear you say and i'll endeavour to answer them in this blog post at a high level..

What skills does a trainer need ? 

• The ability to ask questions & more importantly listen to the answers
• The ability to design training interventions that take into account different learning styles
• The ability to design training materials/aids that enhance the delegate's learning
• The ability to observe the group and respond to non verbal clues
• The ability to control the group and manage challenging delegates
• The ability to train/facilitate learning rather than present
• The ability to draw delegates together to reflect on their the learning from the activities

So - how can we make sure that our new trainer has these skills or the potential to develop them ?

• Test the trainer's ability to conduct a simple training needs analysis (perhaps use a case study)
• Test the trainer's ability to design a training session 
• Test the trainer's ability to deliver that training session 
• Test the trainer's ability on how he/she thinks that the training can be evaluated according to a model like Kirkpatricks.

Would love to hear from fellow trainers or training managers

Brands that pass the Ronseal test - have nothing to fear from social media

In response to the latest UK customer satisfaction index figures customer facing businesses are being urged to give greater attention to social media or risk a widespread proliferation of damage to their brand.

The following quote from KPMG, sums up the state of the nation “ while British customers have often tolerated poor service in the past, the rapid growth of social media platforms have given rise to a consumer more prepared to voice their discontent with goods or services!”

According to Rohit Kapoor, Capgemini BPO Senior Director and Principal, a recent study revealed 86% of respondents indicated they preferred responses via social media platform. As customer service providers it seems logical you would listen to your customers……

 BUT Too many companies prefer to avoid social media, trying to avoid criticism in a public domain.

So organisations need to raise their game to avoid a public flogging by Twitter, by doing the following:

1)   Hire for attitude. Hire people with service in their soul. The technical stuff can be fixed but a sullen and morose employee who doesn’t want to deal with customers and portrays that lack of engagement is a lot harder to turn around.

2)   By empowering their front line staff to solve customer issues during those moments of truth

3)   By ensuring that the systems and processes of the organisation do not get in the way of point 2 above

4)   By dismantling the functional silos that create a poor and fragmented customer experience

5)   Making themselves easy to deal with and contact

6)   By training the whole organisation on customer service

7)   By ensuring that there is an internal customer service culture

8)   By delivering on their promise to their employees so that they deliver on the organisational brand promise

9)   Having leaders who role model customer centric behaviours

 Do all of the above and your organisation will have nothing to fear from social media.

 BTW – when you embrace social media it’s still really important that you listen to what your customers are saying. But that’s a large enough subject for a standalone blog posting 

Calling all brands - If you're on Twitter you need to be on Twitter

Today I tweeted the shocking statistic that 70% of complaints on Twitter are ignored by brands.

This reminded me of a recent story I’d seen in Forbes Magazine. It was about a bad experience some customers were having with a high end department store. (I’ll put a link at the bottom of this posting).  The experience was picked up on in Twitter land and even though the Twitter handle of the Department Store was used several times, so the brand could hear and act on what was being said, not once did they jump in and try and recover the situation.

You might not like what is being said about your brand or your service but you can’t just ignore it. To do nothing is commercial suicide. It beggars belief.

So if you’re on Twitter you need to be on Twitter because the social customer expects instant replies and it isn’t prepared to wait 20 minutes on the phone to speak to a human being ! Brands need to wake up and smell the coffee.

In the UK, the train company First Great Western @FGW is on Twitter. But come 4PM in the afternoon “ I’m signing off for the day, back tomorrow Jo”. Incredible, as the evening commuter trains start to run or not as the case maybe, the person manning the Twitter Feed turns in for the day. Along with the morning rush, this is probably the most critical time for commuters as they try to make their way home after a day’s toil. Brands like #FGW need to re-think this from a customer perspective. Customers trying to get home in the evening would probably like to interact with their transport provider, to be informed of delays etc – yet they can’t because Jo has gone home for the night.

First Great Western @FGW  Signing off for today. See you in the morning - Jo

4:11 PM - 16 Feb 12 via Twitter for iPhone · Details

•  Reply 
•  Retweet 
•  Favorite 
•  Buffer

Customer service is a 24/7 thing and brands like #FGW need to learn that and quickly.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizlange/2012/01/22/hey-brands-if-you-are-on-twitter-be-on-twitter/

Virgin on the ridiculous - how not to deal with a customer complaint !

The eminent UK Customer Service guru, Chris Daffy – talks a lot about wows and ouch in respect of the way that organisations treat their customers. A wow being something fantastic whereas as an ouch is the opposite.

When any organisation has ouched one of its customers, to the extent that they decide to complain, this presents a massive opportunity. Daffy talks in terms of ouch, wow and recovery !

Research shows that if an organisation successfully resolves the customer complaint then that previously disgruntled customer will become incredibly loyal to that organisation. In fact they will go even further, in some cases, telling their friends and becoming a real advocate for the brand.

So a massive PR opportunity exists. Imagine my dismay and disappointment when I received a standard, cut and paste, letter informing me that my complaint had been received and that Virgin Media aim to be in touch in the next two weeks.

So rather than ouch, wow and recovery I’m even more annoyed with Virgin Media. In fact more annoyed than I was feeling when I wrote my letter of complaint. It’s more like a quadruple ouch !

In this day and age of customer choice this just isn’t good enough. My message to Virgin Media : either employ more staff to be able to resolve complaints in a way that befits customer expectations or ideally improve your service in the first place, so customers don’t need to resort to complaining.

Simples !

That’s not logical captain

In my youth I recall Spock talking about Vulcan logic on Star Trek. I do wonder what he would have made of consumer logic in the 21st century ?

Here’s ONE scenario, you’ve been on a good dual fuel tariff for gas and electricity for a number of years but decide you fancy a change.

Why ? You fancy a change . Your current provider hasn’t done anything wrong to you. You just fancy a change. There is no logical reason for changing.

Research shows that 7% of customer are natural floaters. So you’ll lose at least 7% of your customer base each year for no obvious reason.

In another scenario, customers seem very reluctant to change their current account provider. In fact research suggests we are more likely to change our partner than our bank.

In the UK in the1980s low switching rates fostered complacency amongst the big four banks. They mistook low turnover to be an indicator of high satisfaction, whereas it was in fact customer apathy based on the fact that the banks were all as bad as each other when it came to service.

However, when First Direct entered the market with a new model based on 24 hour telephone banking, some customers did take the plunge. I remember being told once that a definition of a loyal customer is someone who hasn’t yet found a better alternative.  This sums up the First Direct scenario.

Key learns     

1)You’ll lose 7% of your customers anyway. Anything  above that suggests you are doing something wrong     

2)Don’t confuse customer apathy for customer satisfaction