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January 19, 2004
A glimmer of light in customer hell
Regular readers of this blog know that we consider most traditional telephone companies to be charter owners of customer hell.
Their information systems are often over-engineered contraptions that are more headache-prone than helpful. Ordering and installing DSL is like trying to buy a space shuttle. There's often little or no ownership of a customer problem, and customers are often forced to hang up and call another number to reach a different department within the same company (this means you, SBC).
With the growth of VOIP and commoditized long distance threatening their existence, more than a few arguments go, let the dinosaur phone companies die off so that more efficient organizations can take their place, and the market will become less expensive and more efficient.
Today's Wall Street Journal features a Q&A with Qwest chairman and CEO Richard Notebaert, who was brought in to clean up the near-bankruptcy mess left by expensive suit Joseph Nacchio. Notebaert outlines the five top strategies to save the regional phone companies, the top one of which is the clarion call of customer-evangelism:
1. Put the customer at the center of the universe.
2. Accept that you're a commodity. Slash your prices.
3. Drastically cut your costs.
4. Use what you've got. Don't build costly new infrastructure.
5. Embrace low-cost new technologies -- don't fight them.
A phone company CEO saying that customers are the center of the universe... Heretic!
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Saying that customers are the center of the Qwest universe is one thing; transforming an organization so that it can deliver on this promise is quite a different thing...and quite frankly, (as a current Qwest customer) something that I don't expect to experience in my lifetime.
Many moons ago in a far off place, lived a handsome prince with a handsome face named ED WHITACRE (SBC's CEO) who delivered nearly the exact quote to a room full of eager Leadership Development Program candidates. When I started my career at SBC Communications back in 1990, we fondly wielded terms like "exceeding our customer's expectations." Heard a paraphrase of Notebaert's quote again when I worked with Anderson and McKinsey to create an alternative local exchange carrier subsidiary at BellSouth. An AT&T marketing exec had joined BellSouth and was touting that our goal was to connect our customers without limitations, differentiate on customer care, and deliver much more than ever expected.
Never amounted to more than magical puffery. Having first hand experience, just wanted to share that when it comes to Telecom next to nothing is ever new under the sun, simply repackaged.
