Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: February 4, 2010
About 10 days ago I posted about the marketplace showing the political shifts in the United States. In a post “It’s there if you pay attention,” I discussed the shift in sloganed merchandise being sold in Washington DC in terms of its content. While he did not mention my blog (oh that he would have), Rush Limbaugh noted the same thing today on his radio show. I like it when we are ahead of the curve…
Mitch
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: February 1, 2010
Ralph spends a fair amount of his non-consulting time working with police and fire-fighters based on some significant expertise that he has acquired through the years. Recently he had the opportunity to use process management techniques he teaches in his consulting work to create a training video for the Fire Fighters Support Foundation. In this free video, Ralph uses Cause and Effect Diagrams and Constraint Analysis to help fire-fighters learn to improve the impact of their “after action reports.”
Well done Ralph.
Mitch
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: January 27, 2010
Toyota has taken the
unprecedented step of shutting down production of eight of their automobile manufacturing lines until they can figure out what is causing the unintended acceleration of their vehicles. This “automatic acceleration option” is similar to the problem Audi faced with their 5000 model in the 1980s. Audi’s approach to the problem did not result in a factory shut-down, just a decimation of its sales in the United States for many years.
The similarities to how the two companies reacted initially is striking:
From there the stories diverge. Audi had 107 reported complaints to the National Highway Safety Administration by early 1982. They did not fix the problem until 1986, all the time stating it was not a real problem. Toyota, on the other hand, has reacted swiftly to the problem, even though reports are that they do not know what the cause is or how to fix it … yet.
Will Toyota suffer the way Audi did? I don’t think so. They will take a hit to prestige and bottom line, but their reputation is likely to stay in tact and people are unlikely to stay away from the brand once the problem is solved. Two lessons they are following: Do what Tylenol did when they had their poisoning scare many years ago, and don’t do what Audi did.
Mitch
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: January 26, 2010
Everybody has an opinion about ads, which is why Marketing people get so much “help” with deciding how to advertise products and services. The ad in question is interesting for a lot of reasons:
All that being said, the question is really will it help sell the product? I don’t know if the ad is actually causing an increase in sales, and the advertiser isn’t going to tell me. However, I offer it here for your amusement and comment if you so choose.
Mitch
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: January 25, 2010
The culture of your company affects everything you do. Google is a great company (whether they are getting too big for themselves is another conversation). However, their business model does not include talking with individual customers. They “talk” via the Internet, if they respond at all. And in Internet time (which for the purposes of customer service is not “real-time”).
This culture does not work for cell phone customers, especially if your phone leaves more to be desired than expected in terms of usage. Google has gotten a fair amount of negative press since releasing their Nexus One phone in terms of people not getting the support they need, want and demand from a cell phone provider. But then, Google does not have that culture and by the time they get it right, it may be too late.
Big does not mean you can do anything, it just means you can afford to lose customers for longer. To wit, General Motors took 60 years to go from #1 to bankrupt, but it was a pretty straight line downward.
Mitch
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: January 22, 2010
We all face low-priced competitors. Some of them are good and have driven costs that don’t add value out of the process, which forces all suppliers to get better. However, many of them are just hoping they can get some business by offering a low price. And the value they offer may not even be worth that low price. As my friend Ted Steinberg often says when asked how much his services cost, “You mean if you buy them from me, or if you don’t buy them from me?”
The Office Depot is currently running a terrific commercial to demonstrate this point. (That is not the point of their commercial, which is to sell banners and other products, but I liked the content of the story in the commercial and have no comment on its ability to achieve Office Depot’s goals.)
As Roy Field’s, former Group Executive for Teledyne used to say, “If you can’t fix it, feature it.”
Mitch
Posted by: Mitch/Ralph on: January 18, 2010
Maybe it’s schizoprhenia, who knows. I was getting ready to leave to go to the airport to catch my American Airlines flight to St. Louis when I get a call from a live person telling me the flight has been delayed about an hour and forty-five minutes. Wow, not even a robo-call, but a live person who talks to me. I’m stunned.
I’m sure when I get to the airport the gate agents will remind me by their actions that if it weren’t for passengers they could fly on time; and flight attendants who are there for my safety (which I hope I will never need); and baggage handlers that seem to find ways to make it take longer than you can imagine to get your luggage.
But, then maybe I can remember the guy who called me to save me some time. He was great.
Are you consistently providing the level of service your customers need, want and demand?
Mitch