photo credit: boyghost

Yesterday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF, a conglomeration of old money guys from 185 countries) indicated that they don’t see the global economy recovering until 2010.

Meanwhile, Anoop was voted off of American Idol. Wow, I had a hard time getting to sleep after hearing about that:)

The Economy doesn’t have to be Your Economy

“The economy” or “The global economy” may have an impact on your business but it is not YOUR economy.

Don’t let all the doom and gloom junk on CNN and elsewhere cloud your thinking. Sure, some businesses and plenty of people are struggling. Business-wise, look closely at the reasons why.

Look under the covers at the businesses that are having trouble. In large part, a lot of them are businesses that haven’t shown any consideration for their customers in decades, or they stuck in outdated business models for far too long, or that they did things just because everyone else was doing them (over-building, over-extended, subprime lending, obvious stuff).

Examples: GM says they won’t make their debt payment and bankruptcy is likely. New York Times stock said to be worthless.

Are they unrecoverable? Depends. If they continue to try the same things that got them where they are today, maybe not.

Meanwhile, there are shining spots in the business news…

• Wells Fargo just announced their quarterly profit is up 52%, hitting their estimates and (of course) exceeding the estimates of analysts.
• Apple announced the best (revenue and profit-wise) non-holiday quarter in their history, with iPhone sales up 123%.
• I’ve heard from a number of small businesses that months in the first quarter or the entire quarter was their best ever compared to those months/that quarter in previous years.

So who is right? The IMF or Apple, Wells Fargo and some local businesses?

It doesn’t matter which of them is right. What’s right for you is what matters.

Care as much about it as they do

Earlier this week a client remarked to me that I work as if I care as much about their business as they do.

Isn’t that how all your clients should feel?

Did anyone ever feel that way about GM or the New York Times?

You get what you focus on. Focus on doing more, better for your clients and you’ll get more, better clients.

Over the last week or so, I’ve hunkered down in the perfect storm of communications.

Bresnan

I get a card in the mail asking me if the recent visit by a Bresnan Cable tech took care of the problem and if I was happy with the service. It’s the same guy who always comes to work on my cable issues. Treats you like a relative, even if he does sometimes have to come back more than once now and then. I wonder if they intentionally send the same guy. Smart if done on purpose (assuming the guy isn’t a bozo<g>).

Usually when I see him more than once in a week – it’s because cable boxes in general are just poorly made hardware commodities that fixing one thing exposes another thing (but later, of course<g>). But…that isn’t his fault.

Movie Gallery

During Thanksgiving week, my kids went up to Movie Gallery to pick up a DVD. My account was in lockdown. That was their terminology for it – ushers up nice images of Shawshank, doesn’t it?

Lockdown apparently occurs when you don’t return a movie for 3 weeks, I guess.

So my kids use their own account instead of mine and I later go up there – after finding the movie – to ask what the deal is. Turns out I’ve had the movie for 26 days (yes, it was a 3 day rental<g>).

Ok, my bad. However, I wondered where the reminder postcard was. Where’s the phone call asking where the heck I put the video?

NOT ONE WORD.

I’d had the movie for a month – without a single call, email, postcard, carrier pigeon, etc.

Folks, as we talked in role reversal last week – look at things from your customer’s point of view. Late fees are not good. Why else would people agree to wait for movies by mail?

Before I left, I asked the clerk what the deal is with no notifications. They don’t mail anymore. Costs too much (what she was told – vs “Earns too much in late fees”?).

I ask why I wasn’t called. For years, they’ve been good about calling, even if it is after the movie is late.

Why don’t they send text messages 2-3-4 hours before they close in order to remind people about the almost-late movie that’s . Seems obvious that they want them to be late. “Late” might be legit / intentional, so why not let it slide.

Because it isn’t in the best interest of the CUSTOMER. “Pity the fools”, as Mr. T would say.

Her reply regarding the calls. “We can’t make the calls anymore. Corporate does that now, they have some kind of automated system…. but some people never get called. It doesn’t work too well.”

Repeat after me…Business is Personal. Think like the customer.

Wells Fargo

We’ll close with a little bit of good news.

I use Wells Fargo for a bunch of stuff.

I got a live call from a lady working for Wells 2 weeks ago. She called simply to “make sure we were doing ok”.

I said “Sure, why do you ask?”

She says (paraphrased, it’s been a week or so), “Well, a lot of people are struggling with their mortgages and stuff, so we’re calling all of our customers to check on them even if they aren’t late. If they’re having some problems and they haven’t told us yet, it gives us a chance to help them figure out a solution before things get worse for them.”

Out-frickin’-standing.

They may be a big lumbering megalith, but someone there really gets it. Yeah, I know. It’s a little self-serving on their part, but the positioning of the call is smart.

Making the call before it has to be made (even if it might never have to be made), that’s the brilliant part.

Download audio file (PityTheFoolWhoDoesntCommunicate.mp3)