In my post yesterday I made a comment about not being able to discern the differences in customer service anymore. I've had an experience the past couple of days that shines a light on what an exceptional customer experience is. I was in Charleston, South Carolina this week on business. Thursday morning I received a call from my tenant that the smoke alarms were going off. The decision was made to call the fire department as there was no way for Amanda or I to get home quickly enough (obviously for me) to check it out. The fire department arrived to our house and were greeted by smoke pouring out of the windows. Fortunately, they were able to get in and contain the fire before serious damage was done.
Once I got word of what happened, I called our insurance agent, Mark Osgood from Label Lavigne Insurance in Chicopee, Massachusetts. I told Mark what had happened and within twenty minutes he was at the house to meet with Amanda and to handle all the details for getting our lives back in place. A restoration company arrived to secure the house and an adjuster arrived to survey the damage and provide us with directions on what we would need to do next. A cleaning crew is now in to clean the house from top to bottom (a lot of smoke damage) and a dry cleaning service was in to take virtually every piece of clothing and fabric cleaned. All these services are being billed directly to the insurance company so we don't have to haggle.
Life won't be back to normal for a little while, but thanks to Mark this near tragedy has been a lot easier to deal with. Thanks Mark!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Conflict Generation
It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to post which I guess is because its been a little crazy here at the Vann Group. I'll never complain about crazy, because crazy means we are busy and busy means we can pay the bills this month. Before I get into my thoughts on the topic of "conflict" I did want to mention that 60 minutes did a great story this past week on the narcissistic tendencies of the Millennial generation, which was a topic of a previous post. Check out the link if you get a chance.
One of the reasons we've been so busy here at the Vann Group the past couple of weeks is because of the increasing number of conflicts that are clients are involved with. Conflict in our business is not uncommon for us as it is an inherent reality of business. As the "consiglieri" for many business owners we are intimately involved in their day-to-day conflicts. These may range from customer or vendor issues to more personal issues related to partnerships and family members. At any given time, we might be involved in developing offensive/defensive strategies to combat the conflict or we get involved in actually mediating the resolution. It has always been a core of our business and we like to think that we are pretty good at finding attainable solutions.
That being said, we've noticed that the level of conflict in the businesses we work with is increasing. Whereas a couple of years we might have one or two going on, today we seem to have anywhere from half a dozen or more at any given time. They are at varying degrees of intensity but it seems as though it’s a constant. Interestingly enough, none of the conflicts are particularly vindictive (some are) but more commonly are the result of business realities.
That got me to ask the question “why are we seeing so many conflicts in business these days”?
I’ll start with my own reality as presently constructed. As I type right now its 11:30 on a Thursday night. There is no logical reason for me to be working at this particular moment yet here I sit crafting my thoughts for this post and intermittently responding to email. I just wrote one to a client and received a response within 10 minutes. Thus we have our first cause of conflict - technology has turned business into a 24/7 proposition. Because of email, cell phones and text messages we communicate with each other constantly and expect responses immediately. How many times has someone called you and asked you if you got the email they just sent? This rapid communication drives stress at a faster pace than before technology innovation. This stress creates conflict over issues that would previously be resolved without a conflict.
It’s not only the constant presence of communication that causes conflict, but also the way in which we communicate. A voice, email or text message is a quick way to touch base, but it also creates a situation where the meaning or intent of a message can get easily get misinterpreted because the purpose is to communicate quickly rather than respectfully. I make it a point to not respond to email on an emotional basis but I still do it. Increased misinterpretation of communication is the second reason for the rise in conflict.
My third belief in why we’ve seen conflict increase is also related to speed and stress as the speed and overall performance pressure of business today also helps to create conflict. A successful business today can be out of business tomorrow because of the breakneck pace at which business is transacted. We’ve really seen this trend in our crisis and turnaround business. When we get the call from a bank today its more likely than not to help with the wind down rather than the turnaround because the end came so quick. It’s not uncommon for the banker to tell us how surprised they were at the turn of events because the last numbers they saw were fine and all payments were current.
The fourth reason for this increased conflict is the level of expectations that have been set by all of us in business. Think about how often you actually believe that the level of service, the quality of the product and the price of both exceeded your expectations. That probably hasn't happened too much recently. Part of this can be attributed to the Wal-Mart effect. Amongst many other impacts, Wal-Mart has conditioned us to essentially believe that you can have quality goods at a cheap price. This perception has transitioned from retail to virtually every aspect of business because if Wal-Mart can do it then everybody should be able to do it.
At the same time, we've deluded ourselves into this belief in exceptional customer service. If you get a chance, go to Amazon .com and search for "customer service" and look at the number of books and the titles. Management guru’s have been bombarding us with theories on customer service for years. It has gotten to the point where we have no idea what even good customer service is let alone exceptional. Case in point, last week I was disputing the notion that Starbucks provides quality customer service. In hindsight, it probably does; I can’t think of a bad experience at the place. But my perception of customer service has become so skewed I have no way of discerning what is a reasonable standard for service anymore. Now, add that to the Wal-Mart effect on quality, price and delivery speed and you get a fantastic recipe for conflict.
We also need to put into the mix our own opinions about "quality of life" - the newest entitlement that we all supposedly deserve. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I know who believe that once they've achieved a reasonable level of success they are entitled to a "quality of life" that is rather unrealistic. The scope of this entitlement varies from business to business but typically involves increased compensation, less responsibility and more time off. This sense of entitlement is usually voiced quite loudly because the more they increase the more the entitled party gets to complain about how hard it is. This is usually not well received by partners, employees or customers. As the level of entitlement rises so does the level of conflict amongst those involved.
The last driver of conflict that I have identified is desire. I've increasingly noticed that as success comes and the entitlement feeling kicks in, the desire to grow and take risks diminish. Business then becomes more about protecting the status quo rather than creating a new standard. We've found this to be a particularly powerful source of conflict with partners’ as one desires the entitlements related to the status quo while another strives to raise the bar. Desire is an interesting source of conflict because it can often get hidden. There are usually practical arguments that a partner who lacks desire can hide behind when it comes time to not make a growth decision. The sense of entitlement tied into the lack of desire can destroy even the best of business partnerships.
The confluence of these external factors with what can easily be classified as common human characteristics is providing an unending stream of daily conflict. Assuming a continuation of these factors its safe to say that conflict, along with profit and risk has become one of the defining traits of being in business. The result of this is that we have an entire generation of business owners who need to be skilled in the art of creating, analyzing and resolving conflict. Hence we are the Conflict Generation.
As to how to master the traits of conflict…. that will be the subject of another post.
One of the reasons we've been so busy here at the Vann Group the past couple of weeks is because of the increasing number of conflicts that are clients are involved with. Conflict in our business is not uncommon for us as it is an inherent reality of business. As the "consiglieri" for many business owners we are intimately involved in their day-to-day conflicts. These may range from customer or vendor issues to more personal issues related to partnerships and family members. At any given time, we might be involved in developing offensive/defensive strategies to combat the conflict or we get involved in actually mediating the resolution. It has always been a core of our business and we like to think that we are pretty good at finding attainable solutions.
That being said, we've noticed that the level of conflict in the businesses we work with is increasing. Whereas a couple of years we might have one or two going on, today we seem to have anywhere from half a dozen or more at any given time. They are at varying degrees of intensity but it seems as though it’s a constant. Interestingly enough, none of the conflicts are particularly vindictive (some are) but more commonly are the result of business realities.
That got me to ask the question “why are we seeing so many conflicts in business these days”?
I’ll start with my own reality as presently constructed. As I type right now its 11:30 on a Thursday night. There is no logical reason for me to be working at this particular moment yet here I sit crafting my thoughts for this post and intermittently responding to email. I just wrote one to a client and received a response within 10 minutes. Thus we have our first cause of conflict - technology has turned business into a 24/7 proposition. Because of email, cell phones and text messages we communicate with each other constantly and expect responses immediately. How many times has someone called you and asked you if you got the email they just sent? This rapid communication drives stress at a faster pace than before technology innovation. This stress creates conflict over issues that would previously be resolved without a conflict.
It’s not only the constant presence of communication that causes conflict, but also the way in which we communicate. A voice, email or text message is a quick way to touch base, but it also creates a situation where the meaning or intent of a message can get easily get misinterpreted because the purpose is to communicate quickly rather than respectfully. I make it a point to not respond to email on an emotional basis but I still do it. Increased misinterpretation of communication is the second reason for the rise in conflict.
My third belief in why we’ve seen conflict increase is also related to speed and stress as the speed and overall performance pressure of business today also helps to create conflict. A successful business today can be out of business tomorrow because of the breakneck pace at which business is transacted. We’ve really seen this trend in our crisis and turnaround business. When we get the call from a bank today its more likely than not to help with the wind down rather than the turnaround because the end came so quick. It’s not uncommon for the banker to tell us how surprised they were at the turn of events because the last numbers they saw were fine and all payments were current.
The fourth reason for this increased conflict is the level of expectations that have been set by all of us in business. Think about how often you actually believe that the level of service, the quality of the product and the price of both exceeded your expectations. That probably hasn't happened too much recently. Part of this can be attributed to the Wal-Mart effect. Amongst many other impacts, Wal-Mart has conditioned us to essentially believe that you can have quality goods at a cheap price. This perception has transitioned from retail to virtually every aspect of business because if Wal-Mart can do it then everybody should be able to do it.
At the same time, we've deluded ourselves into this belief in exceptional customer service. If you get a chance, go to Amazon .com and search for "customer service" and look at the number of books and the titles. Management guru’s have been bombarding us with theories on customer service for years. It has gotten to the point where we have no idea what even good customer service is let alone exceptional. Case in point, last week I was disputing the notion that Starbucks provides quality customer service. In hindsight, it probably does; I can’t think of a bad experience at the place. But my perception of customer service has become so skewed I have no way of discerning what is a reasonable standard for service anymore. Now, add that to the Wal-Mart effect on quality, price and delivery speed and you get a fantastic recipe for conflict.
We also need to put into the mix our own opinions about "quality of life" - the newest entitlement that we all supposedly deserve. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I know who believe that once they've achieved a reasonable level of success they are entitled to a "quality of life" that is rather unrealistic. The scope of this entitlement varies from business to business but typically involves increased compensation, less responsibility and more time off. This sense of entitlement is usually voiced quite loudly because the more they increase the more the entitled party gets to complain about how hard it is. This is usually not well received by partners, employees or customers. As the level of entitlement rises so does the level of conflict amongst those involved.
The last driver of conflict that I have identified is desire. I've increasingly noticed that as success comes and the entitlement feeling kicks in, the desire to grow and take risks diminish. Business then becomes more about protecting the status quo rather than creating a new standard. We've found this to be a particularly powerful source of conflict with partners’ as one desires the entitlements related to the status quo while another strives to raise the bar. Desire is an interesting source of conflict because it can often get hidden. There are usually practical arguments that a partner who lacks desire can hide behind when it comes time to not make a growth decision. The sense of entitlement tied into the lack of desire can destroy even the best of business partnerships.
The confluence of these external factors with what can easily be classified as common human characteristics is providing an unending stream of daily conflict. Assuming a continuation of these factors its safe to say that conflict, along with profit and risk has become one of the defining traits of being in business. The result of this is that we have an entire generation of business owners who need to be skilled in the art of creating, analyzing and resolving conflict. Hence we are the Conflict Generation.
As to how to master the traits of conflict…. that will be the subject of another post.
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