Saturday 9 August 2008

Manage by the Same Numbers?

Becky Carroll over at Customers Rock! posted an article about marketing and customer service that got me thinking. Now her main point is about the impact that both marketing and customer service have on a brand, especially if each communicates a different message (think about the difference between your ISP's ads and what you experience when you call them).

However, the comment that got me thinking was when she noted:
Yet too often, marketing and customer service are managed separately in a company or organization, they don’t speak to each other, and they don’t have common metrics (you know, those things that drive the behaviors?).
In the context of my previous post on managing by the numbers, this is an important addition. When subsets of an organization have the same outputs, both groups need to be managed by numbers that are based on solid and consistent methodology, clear definitions and common understanding.

But do we think of these subsets as having the same product? Think about your Line Managers and your Training Department? Both groups share employee satisfaction and productivity as metrics. Yet Training will often be judged based on units delivered, pass rates, and often 'customer' satisfaction surveys (I could do a whole post about the wholly ineffective ways that training groups 'survey' learners to determine how 'good' their training is.) Line Managers will be judged by productivity, attrition, employee satisfaction, and so on (and don't think the way these numbers are 'created' wouldn't be worthy of a few posts as well).

I think an organization that measured its operational and support groups with the same scorecards would have some very interesting results.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to Customers Rock!, David. Perhaps not all metrics need to be the same, but somewhere there should ideally be one or two that drive consistent customer-facing behavior.

Rock on!