Comments

Jeffrey Pfeffer’s interview is interesting.

‘Evidence based management’ is a good concept and I would not suggest we should ‘manage’ anything without some ‘process.’

I do however hold the view every time ‘give me a gallon of passion and a pint of process.’

Mr Pfeffer talks about ‘Innovation’ being a buzzword and that few companies practice innovation although most talk about it. He is right - but to be devils advocate for a moment ‘Evidence based management’ is surely also just a buzzphrase too?

My worry with 'evidence-based management' is that it takes out all human factors of creativity by turning everything into measurable, rational and hence boring processes.

If you do that you end up with robots showing no imagination; Not caring for their customers; and being risk averse.

In fact you end up with the sort of experienceas a customer that I have just had for the last 5 weeks.

Here is what I wrote on my Simplicity Blog today

Respect your customers - PLEASE!!!

As we get closer to reconnecting with our many friends and business colleagues around the world next week I have had time to reflect a lot about the almost 6 weeks of hell without our Internet connection we have experienced due to Wanadoo.

I have begun writing an article about customer care … or more accurately the total lack of customer care in 2006. What does customer care actually mean today?

This article will obviously be informed largely by my recent experience with Wanadoo but also informed by a trend I have definitely noticed in the last year or two as a customer in all aspects of my life.

It just seems to me that:

1 Some organisations ‘get it’ and they deliver phenomenal customer care. I of course tell all my contacts.

2 There are those ‘other’ organisations where I experience ‘crap’ customer care and I tell all my friends and business associates about them too.

I cannot understand ANY organisation in 2006 that does not place customer care on top of their agenda.

It is so obvious why that is important. Namely that we live in a world where information crosses the planet in nano-seconds and in my opinion a ‘bad’ customer experience travels far more quickly than a good one across the ‘virtual’ world.

Organisations that bury their head in the sand and do not have a pro-active approach to customer care will go under. There is nothing more certain than that. And they deserve it.

Good organisations do not need to be told how to do customer care properly – they do it as part of their culture.

Bad customer care reflects a bad organisation.

Yes I do believe it is that simple.

Posted by Trevor Gay at May 25, 2006 7:07 AM

I understand your point, Trevor, & empathise totally, but if Won't-A-Doo used Pfeffer's Evidence-Based Management approach, I think they wouldn't find themselves in the low- or no-margin rut that leads inexorably to the craptastic customer "service" you talk about.

Too many businesses today have commoditised themselves totally, competing on price, stripping out Q.C. and service to try to eke out a bit of net. The evidence is that this, at best, works only ephemerally, and usually not even that long. But this is an article of faith, a theology of doing business on the part of a Taliban-like Cult of The Free Market who believe this is part of an "inevitable" global market revolution. In reality, the low-quality, low-margin model is merely a choice made in favor of a faith and against a vast preponderance of evidence that it's Russian Roulette with Five Bullets.

If Pfeffer's/Sutton's p.o.v. was at work at Won't-A-Doo, they wouldn't have dug themselves this grave. The book's authors don't oppose creativity -- in fact my somewhat-informed interpretation (I haven't read the book, but I read two previous articles and this interview) is that to "do" a Pfeffer/Sutton endeavor, you need a vast reservoir of creativity, deployed every day in re-making the organisation's own design as well as the design of its products.

And to agree with you, when you say, "Organisations that bury their head in the sand and do not have a pro-active approach to customer care will go under. There is nothing more certain than that. And they deserve it," I add only, "And it's our job to help them go under as painfully and quickly as possible as a lesson to their peers and rivals".

Posted by jeff angus at May 25, 2006 9:54 PM

'Won't-A-Doo' - I like that - brilliant Jeff thanks :-) - You are spot on!

Posted by Trevor Gay at May 26, 2006 8:24 AM