Late is as bad as never

[Part 3 of a series on the Chief Customer Officer]

More words of wisdom - and warning - from Tim Story, Chief Customer Officer:

Ted: Your last position was short-lived. You were heading up sales for a small-to-mid-sized firm poised for explosive growth. What went wrong?

Tim: In sales, getting your proposal out late can be as bad as not making one at all. And in management, not listening to your sales force and operations experts can kill you.

One bottleneck that really crippled my most recent employer: we couldn't get pricing out fast enough to land the accounts. The company had only one guy who handled pricing on all new accounts. While he did a good job with it, he wasn’t able to keep up with the sales force, because he was also in charge of production and project management. This made him slow on final proposal approvals.

By the time our proposals got to our clients, many times weeks late, the clients had either gone somewhere else or reduced their budgets.

I brought this to the COO who, being in charge of operations, understood right away. Together we brought it to the CEO and CFO. They failed to recognize the problem.

If we could have gotten those proposals out when the clients were 'hot,' the cash flow would have been there to keep our company growing. Instead, management was forced to lay off half the workforce.

Now the CEO and CFO understand the problem, and they’re restructuring to handle it – just a bit late.

Ted: This exact problem happened with my second employer, way back when. I think one very important lesson is, listen to the folks who are on the front line! All day every day, they are in touch with your customer: they know what he wants and needs.

As employers, we all want to work with mature, competent adults. Well, make use of them!

*****

On other matters: Jane, my guru on all matters coffee as well as all matters customer service, called me on the floor for my recent entry knocking Starbucks. She said that, while she can't defend Starbucks' pricing for iced coffee, that discrepancy is an industry standard.

So, we took a four-mile road trip to Dunkin Donuts yesterday to do some comparison shopping. The results:

Dunkin Donuts

Small hot coffee (10 oz) $1.39
Small iced coffee (16 oz) $1.79

True, the ice takes up most of the extra six ounces. But I think you'll agree, comparing the two has DD looking somewhat better than Starbucks.

...Which isn't to say that I admire how Dunkin's Executive Chairman of the Board (and former CEO) Jon Luther runs his company. But I'll save that story for another day. It's involved.