June 1, 2016 · 9:21 am

Braces

A female mouth with braces.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I went to the dentist last week for a cleaning. Despite having worn braces when I was a kid some of my lower teeth have shifted as I’ve aged and the dentist said I should think about having them straightened out (again). Having endured braces long ago, I told him that unless there was some reason beyond the need to be extra diligent as I brush and floss I would pass. It did, however, get me thinking about braces and I think there is a business lesson here.

Braces work by putting steady pressure on misaligned teeth. Over time, the pressure moves the teeth into the correct position. Orthodontists use rubber bands or springs to exert specific pressure to push the teeth in the proper direction. The trick is that there is constant pressure, and any of you who remember sleeping with the extra pressure of that contraption they had you wear at night will agree that while the pressure isn’t overwhelming it’s quite noticeable.

As managers, we need to act like braces. Organizations often have parts that are misaligned and which need to be moved back into place. As with teeth, one can’t just remove and replace the misaligned elements, at least not until all other options have been exhausted. It’s too traumatic. Figuring out how things ought to line up and applying steady pressure is what we ought to be doing.

The same goes for dealing with people. Really excellent people often have a flaw that can be fixed with time and patience. It’s identifying the problem, applying the corrective devices, increasing the pressure in a helpful but not painful way, and waiting that is the key.  The steel railroad ties of my youthful brace experience are long gone, replaced by barely noticeable orthodonture.  That’s how managers need to think as well – using a light, barely noticeable hand can be just as effective with the right pressure and design.

How are you fixing things today?

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May 31, 2016 · 11:10 am

GIGO

The Memorial Day weekend gave me a little time to get caught up on some reading. Some of what I was reading were analytics reports (I know – get a life) and while I very much appreciate the cycle of continual improvement Google fosters within their analytics product, that cycle yields a continuously growing amount of data. The problem that I have isn’t so much understanding what I’m reading but trying to figure out why any of it matters to my clients. I also spend time figuring out which of the numbers are lying to me. 

It’s no secret that there are an awful lot of bad actors in the digital world. Once it becomes clear how fraud is detected those bad actors move on to another form. If viewability is important, they create sites where there is 100% viewability but no content of any value. I had a client get all excited about an increase in referral traffic until I pointed out that most of that traffic was coming as a result of referrer spam. When we filtered it out, traffic was flat. Another prospect got excited by the large “stickiness” – time on site and pages viewed – that her site has. They were impressive until you filtered out the IP addresses of her employees, who spent hours a day on the site.

Silly things, I know, but it points to a common problem. An IDG study of a couple of years ago pointed out that nearly half of marketers said they struggle to make sense of the vast amount of data they get. The other half thinks they know what the numbers mean, yet many of their plans are built to achieve unrealistic metrics. The problem is compounded by what the paper identifies as the accuracy problem I mentioned above:

Why is data accuracy still such a big issue? One possible reason is a lack of investment in a defined data management process that includes ongoing, consistent data migration, data maintenance, quality control and governance. Too often data is held and managed in multiple organizational silos. This results in inconsistency, duplication, gaps and errors.

So while “garbage in, garbage out” isn’t a particular revelation, it does serve as an excellent reminder to take out the trash as best you can while compiling all of that data.  You with me?

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May 27, 2016 · 8:50 am

It’s Not Just The Burger

This Foodie Friday, the topic is Fast Food. Specifically, we’re going to see what we can learn from the rankings of fast food chains in the latest Temkin Ratings Report. What the heck are the Temkin Ratings?

English: McDonalds' sign in Harlem.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Temkin Experience Ratings are based on consumer feedback of their recent interactions with companies. We asked consumers to rate three components of the experience, Success, Effort, and Emotion, on a 7-point scale. For each component, we take the percentage of consumers that gave a rating of 6 or 7 and subtract the percentage that gave a rating of 1, 2, or 3. This results in a “net goodness” rating for each of the three components. The overall Temkin Experience Rating is an average of the three “net goodness” percentages.

In other words, they’re measuring if customers could do what they wanted to do, how easy it was to complete the interaction and their overall feelings about the interaction. In this case, it might be if the chain had the food item you wanted or prepared it the way you asked, was there a long wait or other impediment to you getting you food, and how pleasant the experience was.

Here is the business paradox and perhaps a learning. McDonald’s and Burger King didn’t do very well. In fact, as one site reported:

McDonald’s ranked dead-last among fast-food restaurants in the report, but there must be a masochistic streak among American consumers. Though the restaurant remains one of “the most commonly disliked fast-food establishments” in the U.S., last month Nation’s Restaurant News reported that McDonald’s is also the most-visited chain in the country.

So here is the question.  McDonald’s has placed a lot of emphasis on improving the menu – healthier items, more organic ingredients – and they now offer their popular breakfast items all day.  Sales are much better, and revenue and profits are two critical boxes on the scorecard in business.  I get that.  However, maybe they should have been spending more time improving the customer experience.  I can’t imagine that there is any sense of loyalty here.  The ratings seem to indicate that consumers go to McDonald’s either because it’s cheap or convenient and not out of any sense of enjoyment.  I don’t see that as a formula for long-term customer retention.

The thing for us to remember is that customers aren’t looking at your balance sheet.  They look at the product or service as well as the totality of their interaction with you.  If you’re not measuring and taking those things into account as you compile the financials, you’re probably missing a critical part as you analyze the health or your business.  Make sense?

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