• "Be the change you wish to see in the world " – Mahatma Gandhi,

• Blur – the speed of change in the connected economy

Authors: Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer Publisher: Addison Wesley

If you think that business can be sustained by the old rules of mass production,segmented pricing, and stable organisations, you’ll need to think again.

• http://bus.colorado.edu/faculty/lawrence/busplan/ Tools for writing Business Plans

Several weeks ago I was driving to Perth Domestic Airport to catch a flight to the Eastern States. Realising I was running a little late, I decided to telephone the Airline on my mobile phone to check on the flight departure time, hoping on this occasion that it too was running behind time.

The scenario went something like this.

Telephone directory gave me a 13 number to ring.

On ringing the number it gave me six options to choose which state I was wanting.

After listing all the other states, I did as requested and pressed option ‘six’ which gave me Western Australia.

My next option was to choose the airport in WA I wanted. Perth, Kalgoorlie, Broome etc.

I duly pressed ‘one’ for Perth.

Next! If you know your flight number, please press the hash key.

Now choose between International and Domestic.

Finally? Did I want arrivals or departures?

I pressed ‘one’ and then waited as a long list of flight numbers and their respective departure times were read out.

I don’t exactly know how long the whole procedure took, but it felt like an eternity. Whereas a promptly answered call by a trained customer service officer could have handled my call in less than 20 seconds.

A question I regularly ask my audiences is "who enjoys and finds the telephone answering technology employed by many organisations to be helpful?" In three years of asking that question, I can recall only three hands, out of many thousands, ever being raised in the affirmative. My follow up question is "how many of you work for organisations who use such technology?" Generally, somewhere between 30 and 50% of participants raise their hands. My final question in the series is "how many of you in the audience have ever been asked by any of those organisations as to whether or not you, the customer, wanted the technology in the first place?" Never has a single hand ever been raised.

My observation is this. If none of the people in the audience find this technology helpful or pleasurable to use, then what makes them think that their customers think differently?

Customers are people. People who think and feel the same as you and I do. If you don’t find the ‘press on, press two, press three’ technology helpful, then guess what? Neither do your customers.

It is interesting to note that the customer backlash of this technology has reached the stage where the Liberal Party in Queensland has vowed, as an election promise, to remove all such technology from all government departments if returned to office.

My anecdotal research reveals that many people are refusing to do business with companies that employ this technology and are taking their business elsewhere.

It all boils down to this. When you or I make a telephone call there are only two things we want. ONE, to speak to a human being, and TWO, to speak to a human being who can answer our question. THAT’S IT!

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not against technology. Your receiving of this ‘e’letter is evidence of that. What I am against is business being ‘hijacked’ by technology that fails that most important of questions; "will this piece of technology make it easier for our customers to do business with us?"

Do your customers a big favour and replace all your telephone technology with human beings; people who are fully trained to provide answers and assistance to meet the needs of your customers.

Until next week, many happy customer returns!

Graham Harvey APS

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