Having a problem determining how to deliver your services in a way that consistently satisfies your customers? Maybe the trouble lies in how the solution is framed. A suggestion from Lance Bettencourt, author of Service Innovation: How to Go From Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services, explains an enticing framework of opportunity:
“When conflicts arise in satisfying customers’ outcomes, they should be viewed as opportunities to take a new service delivery approach that challenges conventional industry wisdom.”
Bettencourt has crafted a fine book for service business owners seeking steps to address those opportunities. An experienced strategy adviser for Strategyn who has consulted for Microsoft, TD Bank and Abbott Medical Optics, Bettencourt provides a strategy development framework that business owners can easily understand and use to implement new services and operational ideas.
The Truth About How Your Customers View Your Services
Bettencourt approaches service innovation by declaring the four truths of services. These truths describes the kinds of existing services from the point of view of the customers’ benefit:
- Customers hire products and services for completing a job.
- Customers hire solutions to accomplish distinct steps in getting an entire job done.
- Customers use outcomes to evaluate success in getting a job done.
- Customers have distinct needs that arise related to the “consumption” of a solution.
These approaches, assert Bettencourt, mean that “a company is forced to think about service innovation from multiple valuable perspectives,”adding that the approaches can overlap yet still yield economic results. He cites IBM’s revenue growth from $10 billion in 1990 to $50 billion as an example of benefiting from innovation discovery.
From there, Bettencourt identifies the four approaches to service innovation that a company can pursue to develop opportunities:
- Core Job – a specific job requested by customers
- Service Delivery — how customers obtain the benefits of a service
- Supplemental Service — a service that helps customers gain more value from a product to complete a specific job
- New Service — an introduction of a new service
To help readers further understand, he treats the first three approaches in their own separate chapters. This allows readers to understand the supporting steps to defining the opportunities. Chapter Three, for example, examines a core job through formal questions such as “What must the customer do to successfully conclude the job?” and “What problems related to getting the job done must be resolved on occasion?” These questions are asked in a formal job map, a means to discover opportunities to improve service delivery.
I liked the book’s readability, and I particularly liked the job map processes. There is a map for each kind of service opportunity outlined, and the aforementioned formal questions appear for each step outline. Supporting comments are ready to offer “ah-has!” such as the following comment on the question, “What service needs or inputs must the customer define or communicate to ensure success obtaining service or benefits?”:
“Even for simple services, a service provider can add value by helping customers to define their needs. To be successful, the customer wants to have the right inputs available for making decisions, not overlook any relevant needs, limit the costs of defining needs, and define the needs in a manner that can translate into decisions concerning service options. To ensure that its customers get an optimized treatment plan for their lawn, for example, Scotts LawnService uncover a lawn’s unique challenges through a detailed analysis of soil types, shade and sun exposure, types of weeds and varying levels of grass density.”
Tables and charts also summarize the suggestions well. Figure 1-2 shows the flow chart for developing a successful service strategy, for example, while Table 7-1 lays out options for service delivery. You do not need to be the scale of IBM to use this methodology.
I thoroughly enjoyed Service Innovation because its concepts allow readers to take actions that can increase customer value and identify the opportunities for results. Service Innovation broadened my view of what I can look for to improve service to my customers.
An Outstanding Service Book You May Not Want to Share
Why, you ask?
It’s that good of an idea generator.
And given the number of small service businesses (they contribute 80 percent of the national GDP, according to Bettencourt), developing new ways to service customers is a worthwhile endeavor. This book flies in the face of those who cry out that customers are important yet never show exactly the way to really deliver. Service Innovation has the right framework to execute innovative ways to deliver services. The book quotes strategy guru Michael Porter, “…trade-offs are the essence of strategy. You just want to make the right ones.” Service Innovation will show the way.
From Small Business Trends
Grow Your Sales and Gain Satisfied Customers Through “Service Innovation”
Selling to Zebras: How to Close 90% of the Business You Pursue Faster, More Easily, and More Profitably, by Jeff and Chad Koser (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2009), came highly recommended, and I was sent a review copy by the authors’ Vice President of Marketing, Christine Ullman.
The book arrived in a box wrapped in funky zebra wrapping paper, with a personal note from Chris. As someone who does P.R. for a living, and who has reviewed many books, this really stood out. Give this woman a bonus!
Anyway, I eagerly started reading this book, and found some terrific nuggets. Then I started reading more and thought it was really targeted at larger companies than mine, so I put it aside.
As luck would have it, I had a business issue to deal with, and a solution within Selling to Zebras rang a bell. So I decided to pick it up again. Here’s what I learned:
1) Second chances are important, (in books and in life – including a somewhat exaggerated but mostly true story of how I hated my husband when I first met him.)
2) There’s some really good stuff in this book that I can use right now to help me with my challenge.
On to my business challenge and how I solved it. . .
First, you’ll need to understand what a Zebra is, in the context of this book.
A Zebra, according to the authors, is the prospect that is perfect for your company – and not just from a product or solution perspective. It is a prospect that you know you can win based on identifiable, objective characteristics – and Zebras are the only prospects a salesperson should pursue.
Why did the authors choose a Zebra to symbolize the perfect prospect? The authors say it’s because a Zebra’s stripes tell you exactly what kind of animal you’re looking at – you can’t mistake a Zebra for any other animal, so you know for sure when you have one.
In the book the idea of a company’s Zebra is explained in story form. The head of a sales team is in danger of losing his job (and possibly the jobs of his salespeople) due to dismal sales. By learning about the Zebra process, he is able to turn things around.
One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the creation of the Push-Button Zebra, a spreadsheet you can use to identify the worthiness of your prospects.
The book gives examples of the different attributes that can be considered for your own Push-Button Zebra spreadsheet. In the book you are also given access to a free template to create your own Push-Button Zebra.
My Push-Button Zebra
Now I can explain my business challenge.
I was recently contacted by a prospect to do P.R. He had a great product that I was interested in representing, but he was getting proposals from several P.R. companies, and I had an uneasy feeling about this. I needed to make a decision about whether or not I was going to do a proposal for this company.
Then I remembered a similar situation in the book, where the head of sales was given a “prospect” by his boss, and based on the Push-Button Zebra, the head of sales realized this was not a good prospect, and didn’t want to waste anyone’s time putting a proposal together.
Since I hate doing proposals, I didn’t want to do one unless I absolutely had to. So instead I decided to use the more objective Push-Button Zebra process to aid in this decision.
I spent some time determine the aspects of my best Zebras. Here were the attributes I included in my spreadsheet:
1) Price as a Deciding Factor – ranging from “price is the only criteria”, to “seeing the value of my company”
2) How Did They Found Me? – ranging from an “Internet search” to a “personal referral”
3) Access to Decision-Maker – ranging from “no contact”, to “Decision Maker is primary contact”
4) Funding – ranging from “uncertain” to “budget criteria established”
5) ROI – ranging from “not quantifiable” to “proven ROI with similar clients”
6) Previous P.R. experience – ranging from “never used a P.R. firm” to “used a P.R. firm and value the benefits of P.R.”
7) Time-Frame – ranging from “wants immediate results” to “interested in a long-term business relationship”
There are seven attributes with a maximum score of four, so the highest score that can be achieved is a 28. Zebras are in the 20-28 range. My prospect scored a 12, which was close to a high risk prospect. Based on this decision, and my gut, I decided not to pursue the prospect.
Finding Your Stripes
I’ll be using this spreadsheet to determine whether or not to move forward with other prospects, and I urge any of you who are responsible for sales, to do the same.
From Small Business Trends
Find Your Zebra: Watch Your Sales Skyrocket
I have moved around the United States over the past few years, and whenever I mention my hometown Gary, Indiana, two things come up no matter what: The Jackson family and the economic downturn of the steel industry of the 70s and 80s that also impacted the city of Gary. So imagine my feelings after hearing about Hollowing Out The Middle. Written by sociologists Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas, the book examines how the plight of maintaining economic viability in small towns is too often overlooked. Given the economic uncertainty of the country, the book’s appearance is timely.
Who Stays Home, Who Goes Away
Hollowing Out The Middle focuses on the interviews of the young residents of “Ellis”, Iowa, a small town with a population of 2,000 and “eighty miles from the nearest Starbucks”. Carr and Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the migration motives; they note that “only West Virginia loses a larger percentage of college graduates to out-migration.” The authors divided their interviewed subjects into four separate groups;
- Stayers, those who feel their lives are best served staying in their town
- Achievers, those who leave for large cities and educational opportunities
- Seekers, those who join the military, unable to afford college
- Returners or “Boomerangs”, those who leave for large cities and later return, rejecting the lifestyle selected for personal reasons
Carr and Kefalas believe that communities over-invest in perceived future Acheivers, yet Acheivers end up not contributing to a town’s future growth. Meanwhile, a town’s transition into its next generation hinges on the Stayers, who drive the local economy but typically have not kept up with training that can lead to higher paying jobs. Rural town families, educators, and the policies they set create these decisions in their youth. They are often unaware that the aftermath can diminish competitiveness and their ability to recruit new industry and increase the likelihood of negative social problems such as rural meth addiction.
Another surprise is how such investment can be linked to immigration. For example, Stayers can be economically pitted against immigrants through a region’s overreliance on one industry such as agribusiness; in which labor cost have been cut aggressively. Postville, Iowa, as an example, was the site of one of the largest raids on undocumented immigrants in US history, despite the fact that many were families that had been in the community for decades without incident. The book does mention Iowa programs of in-migration as an example of easing the economic inclusion of skilled-worker immigrants in planned and sociological ways.
Carr and Kefalas cover these topics well without overpoliticizing issues or excessive cynicism. They also do not stereotype small town life. Having spent time in Ellis while researching the book, the authors feel that the community has “its arms outstretched” with respect to embracing new residents, be it researchers or immigrants. The authors save their important alarm for the idea that America, as a whole, is overlooking an essential asset to its well being.
“The good news is that there are an abundance of ideas about how to fix rural America; The challenge is that too few Americans are aware we’re at a critical point….If, as a nation, we decide not to intervene, then we must accept a future with a myriad of social problems throughout the countryside, the spread of rural wastelands, and the unraveling of civic institutions such as churches and local schools.”
I really liked the book because it reminded me of past thoughts on preventing communal brain drain. In 1903 W.E.B. DuBois advocated the concept of the Talent Tenth, a Black American social class that seeks education, then contributes its gained knowledge to the economic well-being of a disenfranchised community. “Hollowing Out the Middle” offers an evolved version in suggesting that town educators adjust their methodology in supporting its youth in their educational and career decisions.
Expanding the Scope of Rural Economic Policy is Essential
The concluding segment “What Can Be Done to Save Small Towns” is short. This brevity, however, makes the message to support rural America more urgent and stinging, and there are thorough footnotes for more reading.
The suggestions do not elaborate on the involvement of small businesses or regional businesses. I find that curious given that the authors also recommend that towns should reconsider the “elephant hunt” – luring jobs through large business projects such as new plants, and focus on supporting small business growth. But given Ellis’ small size, business readers should give the omission a pass and look towards the examination of state policies for insight. There are reviews of campaigns, such as Iowa life/Changing and Michigan Cool Cities, and of economic strategies like free land programs.
Who Will Benefit from Reading “Hollowing Out the Middle”
If you are a business owner trying to raise community awareness and state-level policy reconsideration, this book is the right read for starting engagement. Many towns are working to relaunch their image to stay alive, and there have been few recent sociology books on rural America. I instantly recalled “Sundown Towns” by James Loewen, which focused on the segregation history of Midwest towns, and there’s also “Worlds Apart” by Cynthia Duncan, which examines rural poverty.
This book rang my bells, with a hopeful spirit. I think it will do the same will for others as well. It did for the Ellis school board (I’m not giving this away, read the book!). Hollowing Out The Middle is a good thinking person’s book, meticulous enough to provide supporting details while briefly getting its points across. Understanding the authors’ view of the Ellis young adults interviewed will make you think, if not take action, on the protection of your town’s future.
From Small Business Trends
Hollowing Out the Middle; A Call to Duty to Save Small Town America
I have moved around the United States over the past few years, and whenever I mention my hometown Gary, Indiana, two things come up no matter what: The Jackson family and the economic downturn of the steel industry of the 70s and 80s that also impacted the city of Gary. So imagine my feelings after hearing about Hollowing Out The Middle. Written by sociologists Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas, the book examines how the plight of maintaining economic viability in small towns is too often overlooked. Given the economic uncertainty of the country, the book’s appearance is timely.
Who Stays Home, Who Goes Away
Hollowing Out The Middle focuses on the interviews of the young residents of “Ellis”, Iowa, a small town with a population of 2,000 and “eighty miles from the nearest Starbucks”. Carr and Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the migration motives; they note that “only West Virginia loses a larger percentage of college graduates to out-migration.” The authors divided their interviewed subjects into four separate groups;
- Stayers, those who feel their lives are best served staying in their town
- Achievers, those who leave for large cities and educational opportunities
- Seekers, those who join the military, unable to afford college
- Returners or “Boomerangs”, those who leave for large cities and later return, rejecting the lifestyle selected for personal reasons
Carr and Kefalas believe that communities over-invest in perceived future Acheivers, yet Acheivers end up not contributing to a town’s future growth. Meanwhile, a town’s transition into its next generation hinges on the Stayers, who drive the local economy but typically have not kept up with training that can lead to higher paying jobs. Rural town families, educators, and the policies they set create these decisions in their youth. They are often unaware that the aftermath can diminish competitiveness and their ability to recruit new industry and increase the likelihood of negative social problems such as rural meth addiction.
Another surprise is how such investment can be linked to immigration. For example, Stayers can be economically pitted against immigrants through a region’s overreliance on one industry such as agribusiness; in which labor cost have been cut aggressively. Postville, Iowa, as an example, was the site of one of the largest raids on undocumented immigrants in US history, despite the fact that many were families that had been in the community for decades without incident. The book does mention Iowa programs of in-migration as an example of easing the economic inclusion of skilled-worker immigrants in planned and sociological ways.
Carr and Kefalas cover these topics well without overpoliticizing issues or excessive cynicism. They also do not stereotype small town life. Having spent time in Ellis while researching the book, the authors feel that the community has “its arms outstretched” with respect to embracing new residents, be it researchers or immigrants. The authors save their important alarm for the idea that America, as a whole, is overlooking an essential asset to its well being.
“The good news is that there are an abundance of ideas about how to fix rural America; The challenge is that too few Americans are aware we’re at a critical point….If, as a nation, we decide not to intervene, then we must accept a future with a myriad of social problems throughout the countryside, the spread of rural wastelands, and the unraveling of civic institutions such as churches and local schools.”
I really liked the book because it reminded me of past thoughts on preventing communal brain drain. In 1903 W.E.B. DuBois advocated the concept of the Talent Tenth, a Black American social class that seeks education, then contributes its gained knowledge to the economic well-being of a disenfranchised community. “Hollowing Out the Middle” offers an evolved version in suggesting that town educators adjust their methodology in supporting its youth in their educational and career decisions.
Expanding the Scope of Rural Economic Policy is Essential
The concluding segment “What Can Be Done to Save Small Towns” is short. This brevity, however, makes the message to support rural America more urgent and stinging, and there are thorough footnotes for more reading.
The suggestions do not elaborate on the involvement of small businesses or regional businesses. I find that curious given that the authors also recommend that towns should reconsider the “elephant hunt” – luring jobs through large business projects such as new plants, and focus on supporting small business growth. But given Ellis’ small size, business readers should give the omission a pass and look towards the examination of state policies for insight. There are reviews of campaigns, such as Iowa life/Changing and Michigan Cool Cities, and of economic strategies like free land programs.
Who Will Benefit from Reading “Hollowing Out the Middle”
If you are a business owner trying to raise community awareness and state-level policy reconsideration, this book is the right read for starting engagement. Many towns are working to relaunch their image to stay alive, and there have been few recent sociology books on rural America. I instantly recalled “Sundown Towns” by James Loewen, which focused on the segregation history of Midwest towns, and there’s also “Worlds Apart” by Cynthia Duncan, which examines rural poverty.
This book rang my bells, with a hopeful spirit. I think it will do the same will for others as well. It did for the Ellis school board (I’m not giving this away, read the book!). Hollowing Out The Middle is a good thinking person’s book, meticulous enough to provide supporting details while briefly getting its points across. Understanding the authors’ view of the Ellis young adults interviewed will make you think, if not take action, on the protection of your town’s future.
From Small Business Trends
Hollowing Out the Middle; A Call to Duty to Save Small Town America
Didn’t like economics in school?
Too bad you did not have Anna Bernasek as a teacher. From her you would have discovered great connections between what you learn in class and what you encounter everyday.
At least that’s my imagination of Anna Bernasek as a teacher, based on how I understand her writing style in her wonderful book “The Economics of Integrity: From Dairy Farmers to Toyota, How Wealth Is Built on Trust and What That Means for Our Future.”
I came across the title while researching online news articles online on the aftermath of the 2008- 2009 financial crisis. A highly acclaimed economics journalist, Bernasek wrote a great book on economics that may get you to think about how integrity can be so essential to everyday dealings as well as branding, customer loyalty, profitability, and value creation.
Your business value derives from trust and trustworthiness
The book title includes the word “economics”, but Bernasek’s comments do not sink into price-demand charts (though there are supporting data charts sprinkled throughout the text). Bernasek includes an excellent mix of familiar everyday items, such as how we rely on the milk supply chain for assurance of fresh milk, to the greater complexity of the financial markets.
The Economics of Integrity examines our reliance on integrity in many businesses, with a dedicated conversation on Toyota and its commitment to integrity in the quality of its vehicles. While American automakers focused on attractive features (or “gimmicks”) meant to stir the imagination of the average car buyer:
Toyota, on the other hand, took a more straight forward approach. It said “We’ll sell you a car that does exactly what you expect it to do.” And Toyota has delivered on its promise consistently year after year.
Bernasek also explains about how Toyota’s handling of a frame recall for the Tacoma pickup – buying back vehicles 1 1/2 times their worth in Kelly Blue Book – brought amazing customer response: Some turned around and bought another Toyota truck. Bernasek sums branding best: “A brand is stored integrity.” (An aside: Anna has also talked about Toyota’s recent failings in her interviews – You can hear and see all her interviews at her website.)
A small business owner may think, “Why should I read this? I know integrity is important to my business. Duh! with a side order of #Fail.” But that kind of thinking overlooks the point of the book. The Economics of Integrity makes a solid case for the degree in which we depend on integrity naturally, so much so that even when catastrophic events are managed well integrity becomes a useful asset. Bernasek’s example of Toyota’s ability to leverage integrity is timely given its recent highly publicized recalls. And given the company’s successful first quarter earnings despite those recalls has shown, Bernasek is spot on it.
More holistic view of transparency
While transparency and authenticity is mentioned in almost every book and blog on social media, The Economics of Integrity provides a more holistic view, permitting an imaginative strategic-minded business reader to view integrity in his or her operations as a means to create value for customers and vendors.
“Understanding how critical integrity is to our economic well being is a big step. Yet the real power of integrity comes from knowing how to create more. Thinking strategically about integrity and designing integrity systems that are self-reinforcing wealth creating machines is the exciting possibility we have at our fingertips. We can transform whole areas of the economy that function poorly into integrity systems by keeping in mind the DNA of integrity — disclosure, norms, and accountability. ”
Bernasek believes integrity and trust creates value. Through economic examples she delves into how systems based on disclosure, norms, and accountability can work to an advantage.
In the segment “Calculating Getting Caught,” for example, she explores statistics on vehicular safety, murder, and tax returns to show how disclosure, norms, and accountability should be to deter behavior instead of an all-encompassing punishment.
More to the point in business, Bernasek believes that a system of integrity should be “designed to work naturally to reinforce itself”, promoting trust from all parties involved. An example is the customer service policy with LL Bean where its customers can return purchase for a full refund anytime. While the policy “sets it apart from other retailers…. LL Bean has found that customers who try to take advantage of its unlimited return policy in an unfair way are by far the minority.” These kind of summations are awesome in their simplicity, and really makes you appreciate her points with respect to your own business practices and strategy.
The ending chapter of the book focuses on how the financial markets should do better. This may not be particularly applicable for the immediate needs of a small business, but the subject does make for a nice read. The reader will find historical examples with an interesting subject fit, such as the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal or Thomas Jefferson’s quote on the mistrust of banks. With a book length of 186 pages, these asides certainly are not overwhelming nor so brief so their punch is lost in their purpose.
Use this book to build your brand the right way
You should pick up The Economic Of Integrity as a good tonic for how a business can get back to basics in establishing relationships based on trust. Readers will gain some personal perspective on brand building and customer service, because the examples raised connect individual integrity to the business community at large.
People — whether customers or investors — will stick with your firm if you follow three simple systematic behaviors of:
- disclosure,
- producing norms, and
- having accountability.
From Small Business Trends
Build your Business Through The Economics of Integrity
