Here are some great comments.
Joe
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Hi Joe,
Me again.
To build and maintain credibility with customers, just follow
'PC Pete's Four Steps To Credibility And Trustworthiness' :
1) Be willing to say 'Yes!'.
(REALLY willing, not path of least resistance willing)
2) Go beyond the minimum - delight them (as often as you like).
(Never do it because you think they expect it, or because you
want them to see you do it. Do it because you CAN.)
3) Learn why, when, and how, to say 'No.'
(And be prepared to back it... Dowp!)
4) Never, ever, define your customer.
(The act of definition sets YOUR limitations, not theirs.)
5) Learn how to count :)
(It is said that there are three kinds of people :
those who can count, and those who can't) <8}
I think these are more-or-less original, but I'm sure some sort of
rational thought from some Peter Roberts shows (or the news) has beaten
through the bone at the end of my neck.
PC Pete
HP - Asia Pacific TIS - Client
Operations AP Education Co-ordinator
Ph: +61 3 9272-4069
Telnet : 272-4069
Email : Peter_Naus@hp.com
Snail Mail:
31 - 41 Joseph St.
Blackburn. Victoria. 3130
Australia
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Joe,
Your jotting was very good, and I thought it listed a lot of great
ideas. Here are a few additional items I've used in my job to gain the
Credibility(trust?) my customers have in me.
Some other things to try and do(if possible).
First, be included on the Customers Mgmt Team.
I've been fortunate enough to participate with my customer at this
level. I'm included in every discussion the mgmt team has except for
ranking. This allows me to hear and participate in discussions at a
very strategic level. I actually sit in the customer area and live and
breathe what my customer does. Over the time I've been here(almost 2
years) I believe I feel what they feel.
From an IT mgmt perspective they want this to occur but they also
provide the feedback that I do not forget where I came from. It is an
interesting balance of trying to do the best for your customer and
integrating the standards IT wants implemented because sometimes they
conflict.
Second, I take my customer up on invitations to social gatherings they
have.
I'm invited to Christmas parties, summer outings, golf foursomes, etc.
I take them up on the invitations when possible because when you get
to know the whole person I think people really start opening up to
you.
It's almost to the point where they forget that the headcount is in
IT. My customer thinks of me as one of them.
Don Stupfel
HP Corvallis
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Hi Joe,
I finally got to read a LO list today and saw your post, which as
usual was very interesting. Many folks in the experiential training
field would support your intent as trust is one of the critical
success factors in that medium of training. One colleague actually did
his Ph.D. on trust as measured via his "walking on planks" exercise -
either with touch or not, with results showing that touch and trust
were closely connected ... it almost seems we are more like a pack of
dogs than we know it right! (Sociobiologists to the fore ....)
I imagine you have been aware of some software consulting
organizations and their particular emphasis on use of NLP or
neuro-linguistic programming. One central tenet of that particular
model is that rapport and rapport building are absolutely critical to
relationship building - thereby creating trust - and yes it is all
about modeling, i.e. looking the same - right down to matching body
language, breathing rates, tonality, etc.
Your comment/s re selection and training help me think that maybe
training on influence skills, NLP, etc is all too often very
instrumental in nature - thereby destroying much of its veracity.
Though I must add that in the case of HP, the culture in its explicit
support for one another really has a huge amount of value in this
regard - when it is actually working well.
Cheers,
Tony (tkortens@silicon.com)
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(Joe's introduction: This is from Alexia Martin, a long time friend
and colleague, who has been working at The Hunter Group for about two
months. She is MUCH younger than I am and youthful at any age.)
Hi Joe,
Nice to get another jotting -- seemed like a long time since the last
one.
I'm having a rude awakening at The Hunter Group. Some items on your
brainstormed list triggered my thinking about the situation. The rude
awakening I'm having is that I am old enough to be the mother of most
of my co-workers. I am at least 20 years older than most. It is
truly a generation.
The list got me thinking about whether we should "be like" our
customers/coworkers, etc. One aspect of being a mother is showing
concern.
My own kids rag on me. If I say "have a good time" and "be careful"
when
they go off to do extreme skiing, they say, "Mom -- oh, I almost
forgot to be careful." And, of course, the "kids" at work will also
rag on me, or kid me and say "hey thanks, Mom" or worse yet, call me
Grandma. I've always had trouble with this concern trip -- as if I
can really change them anyway.
But this age thing is pretty interesting. Not only do we need to keep
up with our skills to maintain credibility, but we have to keep up on
what is acceptable behavior across generations. And, it's probably in
our ball park to keep up on what is acceptable, since the future is in
the hands of our kids and younger co-workers and they are delightfully
brash and cocky and not likely to change. Now, I'm not going to go
grunge or pierce my nose, but I do watch my behavior. No longer do I
try to hug everyone (way too California anyway) because it might be
construed as harassment. I find myself swallowing some of the "caring"
comments, and I find myself being a bit paranoid occasionally. Can I
keep up? Do I want to? Of course, I do.
I also find myself with some new friends who are 20 years younger.
The first of these are my kids, thank heavens.
How are you handling the age difference?
Lexy (AlexiaM@aol.com)
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Hi Joe,
One thing bothered me about your jot. There was no reference to
respect. It is imperative in business relationships for the
individuals AND organizations to respect each other. We currently have
horrible problems with our board vendor (we are unable to drop them
yet due to contractual obligations). It has become obvious to all in
my organization that they have little or no respect for our needs and
requirements. The two most recent examples:
>They do some pass-fail board testing for us. Recently they sent us a
lot of boards that failed their test. It was obvious to our test
engineer that one part had been incorrectly installed and showed
physical effects of over heating. Our engineering department confirmed
that the parts were indeed bad. When their QC manager was informed of
our findings, he said we must have damaged them when we were trouble
shooting them.
>We had a couple of boards that showed damage from being incorrectly
inserted in the automatic parts installation machine (as diagnosed by
our test engineer). Their QC manager refused to even look at the
boards, saying that they don't have the types of machines that use
that process. We know they do, we saw them as part of the plant tour
during the contract negotiation.
During all of our contact with this company, the closest we have come
to an apology or an admission of fault was a "we'll take care of it".
This company clearly does not follow they guidelines that you listed as
part of establishing a relationship of mutual trust, respect, and
credibility. It's obvious to our organization that they do not respect
us as a customer. There are therefore two more guidelines that I would
add to your list
- Respect your customer as the Boss. They are the reason that you
exist and you must do everything within your power (that is
reasonable) to satisfy their requirements.
- Admit when you have made a mistake AND inform the customer of your
plan to rectify the situation. DO NOT OFFER EXCUSES. Your problems are
not the customers concern.
JHC
james_carrington@hp.com
--JOE_PODOLSKY@HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>