Leadership: When it comes to customer complaints are you setting the right example?
August 16, 2010Off on an adventure – back in a bit
August 20, 2010Can you help me?
As many of you may know I am in the process of completing a book on ‘How building better relationships with your people and your customers can deliver sustainable growth’. As part of that process and to start to spread the ideas within the book, the nice people over at Change This, have agreed to accept my proposal to create a Manifesto (very cool ebook) around the core ideas in the book to allow the ideas to spread more easily. Change This was started by Seth Godin in 2004 and is now run by 800CEORead. Their mission is to support and spread great ideas.
The way it works is that they put up proposals on their site and people vote on the ones that they want to see turned into a Manifesto.
This is where I need your help.
A copy of the proposal from the site is below and what I would like to ask you to do is support me by clicking on the link below and then voting to have the proposal turned into a manifesto (look for the orange button towards the bottom of the page). If we are successful in getting enough votes to get the proposal turned into a manifesto then I will make the completed Manifesto available on the site or send you a copy whichever is easier.
http://changethis.com/proposal/show/79
The RARE Manifesto: How to create a business where companies and their employees care about their customers and that delivers sustainable growth.
Proposal #79
RARE in this context means something that is ‘unusually great’ rather than something that is seldom see.
It has always been a personal peeve of mine when companies forget or mistreat their existing customers. This got me to thinking. What if we lived in a world where all companies took care of their existing customers as well as new customers, where companies were trusted and liked, where doing business with a company was a good experience, where companies and their employees cared about their customers?
I believe that it is a world that is worth striving for.
Whilst there may be great examples out there of companies and brands that treat all of their clients very well, I believe that the majority of companies are stuck in the, what I like to call, the “Hole in My Bucket Syndrome”. Do you remember the song?
There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it. .
….etc etc
In the song, Liza advises Henry that to fix his leaky bucket, he needs straw. To cut the straw, he needs an axe. To sharpen the axe, he needs a stone. To whet the stone, he needs water. However, when the song asks how to get the water, the answer is “in a bucket”! This implies that the only bucket available is Henry’s leaky bucket. Of course if Henry’s leaky bucket could carry water in the first place, it wouldn’t need repairing!
Consequently the song gets stuck in an infinite-loop.
When we think about this in the context of our businesses, is the solution really more ‘water’ to replace the lost ‘water’, or to be more specific, more customers to replace lost customers?
Should the focus not, in the first place, be on fixing the ‘leaks’ before adding new water?
I think so, and I think that this is the first step to creating a sustainable business and platform for growth.
This manifesto will share with you a simple framework and set of strategies for creating that RARE business.
Here’s that link again:
http://changethis.com/proposal/show/79
I hope you can help me and I thank you, in advance, for your help.
Thanks to kandyjaxx for the image.
4 Comments
Change This: I need your help @ http://bit.ly/b1MCRO Let me know what you think of this
Change This: I need your help http://bit.ly/aiG2K0 Can you click through and cast your vote? Please RT
Change This: I need your help http://bit.ly/aiG2K0
RT @adrianswinscoe: Change This: I need your help http://bit.ly/aiG2K0 Can you click through and cast your vote? Please RT