This week started unusually when Peter returned from a visit to India straight into a Monday morning meeting with David Cameron and Boris Johnson at our offices at Central Working. The topic was entrepreneurialism. A small group of entrepreneurs were invited to put forward their insights ranging across supporting growth, flexible space, banks, government schemes and red tape.
As Virgin Money finally managed to enter the UK High Street banking market we wonder if this will bring an improvement for customers?
There newest TV advert proclaims “40 years of better. Now in a bank” and I want to know if this is correct? Have virgin really revolutionised the industries they are currently in and improved in for us, the customers?
They state on there website that “Virgin has a history of entering markets to improve things for customers” but is this true? Thinking about Virgin Atlantic, Media and Trains, have they become market leaders or just competitors?
Time will tell but it will be very interesting to see how it plays out. Add the fact that, for a number of years, Virgin and Tesco’s have been in competition to crack the high street banking market it could be a very different industry in a few years time.
We will certainly be paying close attention to the effect, if any, that this increased competition has on customer experience. Let’s face it, when dealing with many high street banks, it can’t get much worse.
I spent a couple of days this week presenting to a large financial services business and encouraging them to learn some lessons from social businesses.
One of the major chords was about the values of the business: being open, transparent and honest and in public. I was using 3 examples of ”crowdsourcng” and “crowdservicing”: Mini showing its customer ratings for sales and for service on its dealer sites, first direct ( happy 21st!) sharing customers good and bad commentary and giffgaff (happy 1st birthday yesterday ! ).
giffgaff works with its customers on all facets of the business – product development, sales, marketing and service. to be able to do this it has to transparent, open and honest. How many telcos would publicise their network outages?
Look at what first direct is doing next – inviting customers to join their Beta Lab to help them develop their products. A step too far for your business? Or just a step back into history if you are an IT company who have been doing this successfully for ages.
Back at the events, we were discussing how that could work for a financial services company. Just imagine sharing your internal customer feedback and customer data on your website. Publish your NPS scores and verbatims for example?. Publish your quarterly customer research?
Let’s face it, very few people in your business get to read it, let alone act on it. So what if the tables were turned and executives had to explain to customers what they were doing about the experiences represented in the data. The pressure would really be on to show the public audience that you are serious about customers.
Today, it might look like a very brave step indeed. But imagine if in a year’s time all your competitors were doing this and you were still afraid to do it. How would that look?
Oh and by the way, whether you like it or not, customers are already sharing their feedback and data anyway. Do you think they don’t know? Your job is to help them know more and do something about it – not hide the data.
Today, corporates are allowed to be not open, not transparent. At some point soon that will become very difficult without looking dishonest.
Dare you share your customer data on your website? Discuss
I flew to Stockholm last Thursday morning at 7.30am by British Airways from terminal 5. I’m just on the way to pick up my car, one week later.
Why did I fly? Because no one mentioned any possible disruption, despite the fact that 90% of flights were already stopped by 7am. Blissful ignorance.
Did they not have the information to give? Somehow I doubt that.
Did they think about the effort they would cause their customers downstream? To quote Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon:
“I think most big errors are errors of omission not commission. The times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it…and yet failed to do so”
The chain of ‘customer effort’ and frustration that BA have created for me is fascinating. And the amount ot work it caused other people and companies. All avoidable, had BA been open and honest. I’ll try and précis it.
I could go on……. but I’m distracted by the effort in resolving how Fiat sold me a “previous model” as a new car without telling me and hoping they’d get away with it.
One small omission by company, many large effects for customer. Huge customer effort…..
So my message is….. think about the effort you cause your customers downstream. They will. To quote Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, again:
“I think most big errors are errors of omission not commission. The times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it…and yet failed to do so”
I loved the sign, held up at the Belgian Grand Prix: “Want to borrow a tenner, Ron?”.
An offer of help to McLaren fined $100m last week for using (or not) information from a disgruntled designer at rivals Ferrrari. That’s what happens I suppose when you’re offered a Fiat as a company car instead of a 360!
The weekend news was full of people taking their own tenners out of the confidence shaken Northern Rock. Or Northern Crock as they are now colloquially known. These tenners add up.
For once I had time this weekend to read the papers rather than skim them. Both these stories, and the unfortunate missing Maddie McCann, got me thinking about the truth vs the PR – the steak vs the sizzle as one of my Aussie colleagues calls it.
By the weekend, it seems that far from being sweet and innocent as first claimed, the Mclaren team had 5 trillion emails and texts flying back and forth between test driver De La Rosa and the Fiat driving engineer with answers to various useful questions.
By the weekend, a Portuguese senior policeman, who illegally leaks daily by the sounds of it, is under investigation for covering up a confession under torture in some other kidnap case.
By the weekend, the root cause of Northern Rock’s crash in confidence was starting to be debated. Was it Northern Rock’s business model of borrowing from banks, rather than savers, to lend to borrowers? How many others face the same risk eg Alliance and Leicester? The business model didn’t sound very risky to them, the FSA or the Bank of England. After all that’s what the banking system does.
Or was it the big banks who parcelled up the US sub prime loans, who say they don’t know their exposure (or at least they’re not going to quantify it in front of the newspapers), who have sufficiently little confidence in each other to lend to each other, who just might benefit in a fire sale of some of these upstarts.
Or was it the Government for not letting Lloyds buy Northern Rock just before the crisis, for not getting the BofE to “kick ass” and make bankers lend to each other to keep the wholesale banking system running?
I read the headlines of “no need to panic” whilst in the business pages the end of Norther Rock is only a matter of time, with collapsing confidence in the stock market.
The final blow to confidence, if needed, was a completely lack lustre performance by our Darling chancellor on Radio 4 this morning….. he seemed more interested in staying on message that the UK economy has been wonderfully managed. And of course 100% reasurance that there’s no risk, and no, the insurance scheme wasn’t going to take up that cast iron risk. Surely its as safe as money in the bank?? How short he must feel the public’s memory is of government reassurances about Rail and Equitable Life.
So in these stories, which is steak and which sizzle?
I was left with the overwhelming feeling that I couldn’t tell anymore from reading the papers, nor did it matter. I wasn’t going to get the truth in the headlines given the barrage of PR from one side vs another. In very few pages was there an analysis of the whole problem, the root causes, the possible outcomes. I didnt feel I was getting the story behind the story. Whatever happened to independent journalists researching and writing their own stories rather than repeating salicious gossip, top and tailing PR copy, making sure they include a bold statement from government without evidence just so they don’t get hassle later (sadly, the BBC’s the worst at that!)
Maybe its time that a new channel be started – heh maybe its there on the internet – TrueGoogle.com or some such. The stories behind the stories, from people who have no axe to grind, who quote sources rather than government leaks. Save me looking please – my weekends are only so long – what are your favourite sites for this kind of analysis? Meanwhile I’ll start reading the Economist again despite swearing I wouldn’t because they spammed my letter box so hard.
So back to Ron Dennis’ tenner……
Pavarotti arrives at the pearly gates.
St Peter opens them and says, “Oh, it’s you, Luciano, come on in. Squeeze through.”
Pavarotti says, “Hold on, I’ve got an envelope for you. It’s from the Pope.”
St Peter opens it up and reads it. “HERE’S THAT TENOR I OWE YOU.”
