Doing a Ratner

Hello.

Cicero was asked during the week by a correspondent unversed in the Latin vernacular to explain the meaning of the sign off at the foot of your weekly dose of wit and wisdom.

And so for those of you lacking in a classical education, these words mean ‘Be happy. Be lucky’. Surely a great philosophy to get you through the week ahead.

So now you know.

And before Cicero forgets, you might like to know that this is Movember and so, to draw attention to men’s health issues and to raise money for these, and in particular prostate cancer, Cicero will not be shaving through this month. Watch this space for updates.

Moving on.

Last week Cicero met an old colleague, a renowned Marketing Grand Fromage or MGF, whose name we had better keep hidden to avoid super injunctions and other writs, and to keep a friend.

‘How you doing?’, asked Cicero by way of a greeting, ‘And how’s business in these tough economic climes?’

‘Great to see you. It’s been a while. Business is tough but not too bad-could be a worse. But these punters wind me up. Some of them are so thick and cause us nothing but hassle.’

Cicero was dumbstruck. So dumbstruck that he was unable to respond. ‘Punters’? ‘Thick’? ‘A hassle’? This is no way to talk about the people who pay our wages and keep us in the style to which we have become accustomed. Where’s the respect?

And this set Cicero thinking. A lot can be learnt from this brief conversation.

Paying close attention to customer complaints is a leadership "best practice." But how many of us out there in the real world pay close attention to things people say about their customers. And few things say more about organizational culture and character than how your people complain about the customers and clients they serve.

Put aside hypocritical bullshit bingo slogans like "The Customer is King" and "The Customer is Always Right." When frustrated and on deadline, your people rarely talk about their most challenging and/or most important customers that way. What employees say — and how they say it — when the going gets tough speaks volumes.

Respectful criticism and critique should always be welcome. But all too frequently there's condescension and contempt. The smartest and ablest experts in knowledge-intensive and creative industries, like marketing, sometimes appear quickest to mock their customers' perceived ignorance and incompetence. This behavior isn't cathartic but corrosive.

Tone at the top is crucial. Remember Gerald Ratner when he famously described what his shops sold as ‘total crap’. He was torn apart.

The larger question, however, remains: Why would any Head Honcho or MGF in any organization say or do things that disrespect their customers?

If contempt for customers is part of the "brand experience"— yes, Mr O’Leary this means you — then such dismissiveness makes business sense.
But if these comments authentically represent organizational perspectives, then no one should be surprised when customers and clients choose to return the favour and walk.

When marketers wonder aloud "will the dogs eat the dog food" when they launch a new product or when sales people joke among themselves about how they got the customer to overpay, the organization is allowing a disrespect discourse to harden into a cultural norm. Making fun of customers isn't funny but dysfunctional, self-destructive and ultimately corrosive.

And this is the real leadership challenge-to let people feel free to critique and discuss customer relationships without it becoming disrespectful and rude. For it is possible to learn much from understanding why your people think the way they do and to take actions to improve. Indeed it is possible to learn as much from the complaints your people make about your customers as from the complaints your customers make about your people.

Your customers might be bad but they do pay your wages and we must never ever forget that. Unless of course you too wish do a Ratner.

And now Cicero wishes he had thought of that response to his MGF friend.

Is it only me.......but not everyone in this country is unemployed, some of us actually work.

Last week I had something delivered at home. Or at least someone I had bought something from tried to deliver something to me at home. Not unsurprisingly I was not in. Foolishly I had gone out to earn some bawbees rather than stay at home waiting ceaselessly on the off chance that some courier or parcel service might walk up my path with my parcel. I know. It’s my fault. I should have stayed at home. How else after all was I going to get my purchase delivered?

Now it never ceases me to amaze me how some businesses think everyone in this country is either unemployed or a house husband or wife. And yet many of them don’t appear to realise that an 8% unemployment rate equates to a 92% employment rate therefore there is a 9 to 1 chance that people are going to be out.

I am one of the 92% who has a tendency to be more out than in should anyone try to deliver something to me in during what is still known in many parts as the working week. In other words there is no point in anyone trying to get me at home on a weekday between my core working hours of 9 to 5. Indeed when you factor travel and discretionary hours time, there is very little point in trying to catch me at home unless you do so during the wee sma’ hours when only binge drinkers and ne’er do wells are out.

And of course when you are not at home but at work trying to do your bit to pull the economy out of its stall pattern, your parcel gets taken back to the parcel depot, you are left with a card telling you that should you wish to retrieve your purchase you will have to drive across two counties to collect....and of course they only work working hours too. Kafka would be proud.

Now some of the more technologically advanced Parcel Postman Pats will send you a text to let you know that their van with your goods in it is on its way to you. This is quite a breakthrough but this innovation is only useful should you work in the local smithy and are able to get back home within the hour. It fails to take account that in the post industrial knowledge based economy we now have, people no longer eke out a living in the garden shed or in the local fields. The world has moved on even if Parcel Postman Pat hasn’t.

Now it might only be me but it is time for these people to wake up and realise that we are not all unemployed benefit scrounging no marks. Some of us have a job and as a result we have a tendency to be out during the day. But the solution is simple. Change your business model.

Instead of trying to deliver during the day, deliver in the evenings and at weekends when it should be easier to find people at home. I know some think of me as a genius but that surely isn’t rocket science. In this day and age, with a 24x7 economy, there is no longer any need to pay people extra to work outside ‘working hours’, such arrangements are only made for public sector workers because ‘they’re worth it’.

And there must be financial benefits if Parcel Postman Pat can maximise the number of one touch deliveries he makes without the need to return the parcel to the depot.

It’s simple really. Anyone else got a business problem they want me to solve?

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.