Inside Jobs, February 2, 2009

A Tale of Two Project Teams

A business tale of what it takes to turn around troubled projects.

The year is 2005 and times are good. The business environment is vibrant and the economy is strong. Large businesses are committing large amounts of capital and resources to implement new strategies, establish new capabilities, and open new markets. It was no different at PintCo, where Jack works as a Director of Customer Relationship Management.

Jack walked into work on Monday morning like any other. He dropped his briefcase in his office, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed down the hall to meet with his boss, Brandon, about one of the company’s troubled projects. Although Jack had substantial experience, he had only recently joined PintCo after being hired away from a chief competitor. He was still learning about some of the nuances of his current employer.

After the typical morning banter, Brandon and Jack got to the topic at hand. “Jack, I’ll get straight to the point. I need to you to take over the Customer Master File project from Paul.” Brandon said. He continued, “We hired you because of your significant project management expertise. I know that you’ve turned around a lot more difficult situations than this.” Over an hour later, Jack emerged from Brandon’s office and set out to learn more about the challenge that Brandon had posed to him.

Jack was an experienced business leader and project manager. He had seen more than his fair share of ugly projects; some he turned around while others had spun hopelessly out of control. He would be able to tell very quickly how this one would go based on the makeup and culture of the project team.

Troubled Waters

Over the course of the next few weeks, Jack took over the Customer Master File project, met with key project team members, and conducted dozens of interviews with key stakeholders. It was only a few weeks since Brandon had handed the keys to him for this troubled project, and now Jack was back in Brandon’s office to give a rather stark update on the situation.

“Brandon, I’ve talked to the project team and to key stakeholders, and I now why this project is in trouble,” Jack started. “If you truly want me to turn this project around, I’ll need your support to make some critical changes.”

Brandon, a 20-year veteran at PintCo, knew what was coming. He had seen too many projects start, flounder, and then fail at the company. He didn’t want to hear that another project was on the brink of failure, but he asked anyway, “What did you find out, Jack, and what can I do to help?”

Jack drew a deep breath and began to explain his findings. “Brandon, as you know this project has been in flight for nearly 6 months now and it is already behind schedule and over budget.” Jack went on, “In talking to the project team and other stakeholders, I don’t see the situation getting better without making some pretty significant changes.”

Jack’s experience helped him to quickly identify a number of critical issues with the project, which he carefully outlined for Brandon:

1. “The scope of the project is not well defined,”
2. “The IT architects are sitting in their ivory towers and disagree with the project’s direction,”
3. “The project team is not functioning as a team,”
4. “There is a lack of clear executive sponsorship, and”
5. “Steve from Marketing is trying to manipulate this project for his own political gain.”

“I’m not going to sugar coat this for you Brandon,” Jack explained. “I’ve seen this situation far too often in my career, and if we don’t change the situation this project will fail in glorious fashion.”

Foundations for Success

Brandon knew that what Jack said was true, and he also knew that changing the situation would be difficult, painful, and potentially costly. He reluctantly agreed with Jack, and together they laid out several key changes.

“Thanks for working with me on this Brandon,” Jack said. “Just to confirm, let me summarize the changes that we agreed to implement:

• “First, we’re going to stop the current project and recreate a clear and well-defined scope and get consensus buy-in on the new scope.”
• “Second, we’re going end the architectural holy wars by assigning key IT architects to the project on a full time basis.”
• “Third, we’re going to co-locate the team and assign members to a full-time basis on the project. No more part-time participation.”
• “Fourth, Brandon, you agree to be much more visible and an active participant to drive key decisions for the project, and”
• “Finally, Brandon – you are going to have a heart-to-heart with Steve and if necessary his boss - to eliminate any political agendas that could derail the project.”

Brandon and Jack both agreed with the plan. Jack knew that some of these changes would be unpopular, but without them the project would be doomed. He left Brandon’s office with a sense of relief and apprehension. There was still a lot of hard work and heavy lifting yet to be done…
Celebrations

Six months later, Jack ran into Brandon in the break room as they both were angling for their morning coffee refill. “Jack!”, Brandon greeted Jack with a chummy pat on the back. “Congratulations on getting the Customer Master File project into pilot. By all accounts, it has been a resounding success!” Brandon crowed.

“Thank you,” Jack smiled and answered, “but you know it was pretty touch and go after we met in your office to plan the project turnaround. There were a lot of unhappy campers and several of them didn’t like the idea of being assigned 100% to the project if you recall.”

“But we quickly converted them – and now I see a project team that is hitting on all cylinders,” Jack added. “In fact, Sharon told me she was ready to quit six months ago – and now she’s happier than ever and up for promotion.” Jack explained.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” Jack said proudly as he turned to walk away and take on his next big project.

Inside Jobs, May 22, 2008

Inside Jobs, May 8, 2008

Taming the Customer Data Beast

Your business is growing; more products & services are being sold to more customers at more locations and across more channels. Behind the scenes, your customer data challenge is growing too; customer data becomes scattered across departments, divisions and locations; your employees can’t access the right information at the right time; and few – if any – data standards exist.

“Let’s build a massive
customer data warehouse
to solve all of our problems,”
shouts your CIO.

On the surface, his approach sounds reasonable. A single centralized database sure would be nice; create a common data repository where anyone in the company could get the most up-t0-date and accurate customer information. By doing so, you could provide better customer service, improve retention, and up-sell or cross-sell more products.

Does it sound too good to be true? It just might be.

Beware The Tar Baby

Building a comprehensive customer data warehouse for any company can be a daunting task. Don’t make the same mistake as Br’er Rabbit in the classic children’s story of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Underestimating the challenges of a customer data warehouse can be a real tar baby; once you stick your hands in it, it’s not easy to get out:

• The existing customer data will likely be in multiple formats that require significant cleansing and standardization.
• Different stakeholders will likely have unique data needs that will need to be reconciled.
• The number, type, and complexity of the customer data attributes that your employees would ‘really like to have’ will grow exponentially.
• Data warehouse solutions often require highly specialized technicians to design, build and maintain the monster on an ongoing basis.
• Your existing customer facing solutions likely won’t play well with a 3rd party data warehouse.
• Once you get the data into the data warehouse, it may be difficult to get it out in an easy, useful, or timely manner.

Despite the inevitable and oft-times obvious challenges with such an endeavor, many companies take on the tar baby and get stuck. Companies can spend a mountain of money to create their own holy grail of customer data. They buy expensive technology and hire highly specialized technicians to nurture and maintain it. The customer data warehouse takes on a life of its own and they lose sight of why they were building it in the first place.

Perhaps you turn to your CIO and ask,
“Now that we’ve built it,
what do we do with it?”

Taming the Beast

To effectively tame the customer data beast, companies must be able to develop and maintain an unrelenting focus on the customer experience. The ultimate customer experience is the ends while customer data is simply the means. Too often, companies can lose sight of the true goal when they’re in the midst of a building a comprehensive customer data warehouse.

To overcome this pitfall, companies should first develop a compelling customer experience strategy and define and optimize their end-to-end customer experience processes. By doing so, any customer data requirements will be framed by how they enable the customer experience strategy and process.

For example, you may all agree that you need to collect and maintain customer demographic information. But before you go through the effort of finding, dissecting, cleansing, migrating, and storing that information, make sure you know how, when and where that information will be utilized throughout your customer experience process.

In order to tame the customer data beast, you must use your customer experience strategy and process as your guide. Building the customer data warehouse without framing it around your customer experience process is a risky endeavor. Instead, your company’s customer experience process requirements should drive your customer data needs, not visa-versa.

Integration is the Key

Perhaps your company already has a customer data warehouse and you are looking for ways to use it more effectively. The key is data integration.

Since the early stages of the computer age, data has been king. Database management systems fetched top dollar and were in high demand. Remember the meteoric rise of Oracle, Sybase, and Informix in the 1990’s? Database administrators were also in high demand, and any individual with this highly specialized skill often fetched a top salary.

But the king has been dethroned.

Move over data, there is a new king and his name is integration. Having timely and accurate data continues to be very important. However, getting the right customer data in the right place and in the right context is how companies today are looking to make a difference:

Data is just data.
Data in context is information.
Information with relevance is knowledge.
And knowledge is power.

Today, companies must consider how to effectively share, move, and synchronize their customer data. Data quality and quantity are table stakes; the real differentiator is how you use it.

Realistically, you can’t have a conversation about customer care, customer service, or customer relationship management without talking about customer data. If you’re serious about becoming more customer centric, you will likely find yourself building a customer data warehouse (if you haven’t already). Before you begin, be aware of the complexities and make sure that you have a clear plan for using the data to effectively enable your end-to-end customer experience.

How Well Do You Really Know Your Customer?

The basics of customer information and how to use it.

How well you know your customers can go a long way in determining the long-term success of your business. Regardless of your industry, knowing your customer comes down to how well you collect, manage, and use the right customer information.

Granted, each industry and individual business is different. The amount and level of detailed customer information will differ depending on the type of business and market approach. For example, a mass-market retailer such as a grocery store may not have access to individual customer identifiers such as name or address. As a result, they may rely more heavily on aggregated customer information that provides basic demographic data. On the other hand, highly personalized service businesses such as specialized health care providers or management consulting firms will typically have very detailed customer information.


Regardless of your business model or industry, being able utilize current and accurate customer information can help to focus marketing efforts, personalize the customer experience, and anticipate shifts in trends and tastes. When it comes to customer relationship management, customer information is king. It all comes down to how well you collect, manage, and use the right customer information.

CUSTOMER INFORMATION 101

Customer information can come from many sources and in many forms. Here are some customer information basics that any business should know and maintain:

1. Contact Information: Contact information is the basic information that identifies the customer. Examples include name, address, email address, telephone number, billing information, shipping information.
2. Demographics: Demographics represent data attributes that provide factual information about the customer. Examples include age, race, sex, marital status, age, number of children, income, education, employment status, location, etc.
3. Socio-Economic Data: Socio-economic data identifies the connection between social and economic factors. Examples include the correlation of demographic data or changes in economic factors - such as a recession - on individual buying behaviors.

TIPS:

• Collecting customer information should be an evolution. Don’t try to collect it all up front. For example, to get a customer lead you may only ask for a name and email address. Then when an order is placed, you can collect additional information such as address, telephone, and payment information.
• For mass-marketing companies, credit card providers can have a very rich source of customer spending information that can help you understand your share of wallet, key demographics, and spending trends.
• Privacy Rules: If you collect customer information, make certain that you take every possible precaution to properly secure it and maintain privacy. A customer information security lapse is a quick way to lose credibility and trust in the marketplace.

INTERACTION DATA 101

Customer interaction data can be just as powerful, if not more so, than customer information. Here are some basic customer interaction data categories that every business should know and maintain:

1. Contact History: Contact history provides the details of all outbound communication for each customer. Examples include emails, telephone calls, sales letters, newsletters, proposals, etc.
2. Transaction History: Transaction history includes the details of each transaction performed for each customer. Examples include purchases, refunds, returns, etc.
3. Interaction History: Interaction history provides the details of all inbound communications for each customer. Often combined with contact history, examples include service, support, information, quotation, and other requests initiated by the customer.

TIPS:

• Develop and follow a customer response policy. For example, be sure to respond to any incoming customer inquiry or request within 24-48 hours. Customers can quickly get turned off by any business that isn’t responsive to their requests.
• Know your transaction history. Make sure that you know what product or service your customers bought from you before you contact them. You don’t want to look foolish by trying to sell the same product that the customer just bought from you last month.
• Persistence matters. Don’t just assume that since you’ve contacted a customer once that your job is done. Often, a customer lead that is contacted multiple times is more likely to convert into a sale.

CUSTOMER INFORMATION: USE IT OR LOSE IT

Collecting customer information is obviously important. What you do with it is critical. If you don’t use it, you may lose it. Customers come and go and their contact information often changes. Therefore, you may only have a limited amount of time to make the most of your customer information:

1. Get Feedback. Customer feedback can be the single most important piece of information that you can attain. Leverage your customer information to establish a continuous product or service feedback loop. Then, incorporate what you learn into your next generation product or service.
2. Follow-up. Don’t just sell and forget. Make sure that you have an effective customer follow-up program to keep your customer contacts current. Often, selling follow-on products or services to existing customers is easier, and more profitable, than acquiring new customers.
3. Focus on Conversion. Collecting customer lead information is an important first step. But don’t just focus on volume; Make sure that everything you do is focused on converting people into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat buyers.

MANAGING CUSTOMER INFORMATION

Customer information is one of your most important business assets. The more you can collect, manage, and utilize – the better. But customer information can also be a fickle thing. Customers move. They change jobs. They change their mobile phone numbers and email addresses. Customer information can seem at times to be in a constant state of flux. To manage this properly, you need to get disciplined about customer information management. Consider establishing a process and assign responsibility for regularly collecting, cleaning, validating, and updating your customer information. Remember, when it comes to customer information – the rule of ‘garbage in. garbage out’ definitely applies.

There are obviously many ways you can store your customer information. Whether you utilize an electronic spreadsheet, or a robust customer relationship management (CRM) solution, make customer information the central focus of your customer strategies. Don’t just collect customer data for the sake of it. Make the most of it. After all, data is just data. But data with relevance is information. And customer information is power.

Go ahead and ask yourself, ‘How well do I really know my customer?’