In an effort to keep tax payers honest, the IRS is stepping up both its audit and customer service efforts at the same time. Interestingly, the IRS has created the position of Tax Advocate, an individual who monitors how tax payers are treated and makes recommendations to the IRS on how to improve its customer service.

Granted, not many of us would have a positive mental picture of the IRS when it comes to defining good customer service. However, we may want to think about taking a page from their book.

Who in your organization is an advocate for your customers? Who is checking on what the customer has to go through in using your products and services? Who is fighting for their cause in the midst of your pressures to decrease costs and improve productivity?

Decreasing costs and improving productivity at the expense of the customer is not a formula for success. In fact, is it a valid indicator that your business is at risk of hitting hard times.

There are many examples today of valued customers leaving long time vendors because of poor service. Case in point is my defection from American Airlines. As a frequent business traveler who usually travels on full fare coach tickets, American Airlines reached a nadir in its customer service which forced me to make a reluctant change. Interestingly, in the last 2 months I have spoken to 10 other frequent flyers who have also defected from American Airlines. Funny thing about these defections. Does American Airlines realize we left? Apparently not because no one has contacted us to find out what caused us to leave. Or, worse yet, they just don’t care.

If American Airlines had a customer advocate monitoring things, do you think we would have defected? Hard to say. What we can say is there probably would have been a better chance of us not defecting with a customer advocate in place because the customer service problems we experienced will hopefully have been uncovered and dealt with… assuming the customer advocate is empowered to facilitate changes and is listened to by management.

Who is your customer advocate? Are you listening to those who deal with your customer’s day in and day out? Are you listening and responding to your customer’s needs.

If the IRS feels it needs to address this situation when it is the only game in town, it is a sure bet that anyone who competes for a living must do the same thing.

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On April 14th, 1978, Bernie Marcus, CEO of the Handy Dan Home Improvement Center, was fired! Stunned by this unsuspecting blow, he thought about suing his former company. A friend of his, Sol Price, founder of Price Club, asked him if he really wanted to spend his life in litigation or let go of the pain and move on. Bernie decided to let go and moved on with a plan of his which led to the creation of Home Depot.

As the new year approaches, you should be planning your goals for the new year. As part of the plan, ask yourself: “Do My Actions Support my Goals”? If you want to accomplish better results next year, you will need to ratchet up your efforts and possibly do new new things. Bernie Marcus realized he would only be wasting a lot of time and money suing his former employer. There was a bigger return waiting for him by directing his energies into another cause.

Here are the top 10 questions you should be asking yourself in evaluating your personal leadership skills for the New Year:

1)As a leader, are you concentrating on things that really matter or wasting time on things that are more comfortable than productive?

2) Are you spending enough time in front of the right customers or are you simply calling on people whom you feel comfortable talking to?

3) Are you closing business that is profitable and makes sense for your business, or are you closing business that is easy to get?

4) Are you leaving money on the table because you were out negotiated and/or unprepared?

5) Are you calling on higher level decision makers where possible to expand your scope of opportunities?

6) Are you increasing the level of conversation with existing customers to uncover more opportunities?

7) Do you hold yourself accountable for your own success and eliminate all excuses?

Are your keeping yourself mentally and physically in shape to meet the demands of the stiff competition?

9) Are you honing your skills to perform at optimum levels?

10) Are you measuring your results on a timely basis so you can make modifications as needed to achieve your 2005 goals?

Remember, personal leadership starts and ends with YOU!!!

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As a leader, you set the direction for your team, company and customer. You set expectations and provide the tools for meeting them. If you don’t have the right tools, watch out. The damage from falling short of expectations will be far worse than not getting the business to begin with.

Here is an example. Two years ago, my wife and I bought a motorized awning for our deck. To this date it works well. However, we would love to have it checked out and make sure it is still properly secured after the heavy storms we have had lately. In April, we thought our questions were answered. The company that sold us the awning sent out a spring special to have the awning checked and maintained for a low price. My wife immediately calls the number, but nobody answers the phone. So, she leaves a message on their voice mail.

Two weeks go by and still no response. She calls again and leaves another message. On her third call, she finally got someone on the phone who assures her that all messages will be returned. Obviously this employee was trained in the School of Customer Dissatisfaction.

It gets better. My wife now turns to me to call and do the dirty work. So, I called the President and got no response. On my third call, the secretary finally answers, takes a message and promises to call me back in a few minutes. After not hearing from her for a few weeks, I call her back and leave a stern message.

My wife then calls again, gets the same woman and she asks, is your husband Ron Karr? My wife says yes. The secretary says she got our messages but, there is nothing she can do. They were so swamped with the mailing, they cannot handle the overflow.

To this date, this is all we have. I cannot believe companies do this to their customers. This is blatantly a case of dis-service and this company does not have long to live if it continues along this course of behavior. This marketing special was created by some executive who probably wanted to push revenues in a slow season which can turn into leads for new sales. Instead, this program failed miserably. Yes, they may have filled up their service schedule. But how many people now are hearing about this story? How many referrals have they received from us? How many people did we tell to stay away from this company?

Undoubtedly, if you are reading this letter, you are not guilty of such blatantly poor customer service. But don’t rest easy, either. If you in any way have over reached your abilities and cannot meet the expectations you set for your customers, you might inadvertently produce the same results of customer dissatisfaction and defection.Customer Loyalty? It all starts with meeting and exceeding expectations.

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Imagine you are front runner to win the Olympic Gold in the men’s all around competition. That’s just where Paul Hamm was when he started his vault routine. After running gracefully towards the vault, magnificently soaring into the air, doing incredible flips and preparing for his landing approach, disaster struck. on impact, Paul’s legs gave out and he lost control. He fell flat on his butt, rolling off to the side and landing on the edge of the judges table. You could see the painful expression on his face and the image of his dream passing through his eyes.

While the next competitor was doing his thing, TV commentators kept talking about how dejected and frustrated Paul Hamm must be. Hamm had other things in mind. Yes, he was dejected, but he was intent on doing his next and last routine as perfectly as possible. He was not going to leave Athens without giving it his best shot.

His next routine was perfect and to the amazement of everyone watching the event world wide, Paul Hamm wound up winning the gold.

Lessons to be learned we all make mistakes but the superstars don’t let those mistakes keep them down. They get right back up, dust themselves off, and keep going for the gold.

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When we hear “You’re Fired”, the first thing that comes to mind is Donald Trump’s Apprentice show. Yet, is the concept of firing limited to employees? The answer is a resounding no!!! How about firing some customers? Customers fire vendors for not being good. So, why can’t vendors fire customers who do not fit their sales model?

As a leader of your destiny, you have to figure out who your market is and only spend time on customers who are the right fit for your products and services.

Roy Putrino, President of Basic Home Infusion, recently dealt with this issue head on. As a supplier of in-home health care, he was finding that many national insurance companies were paying less and less for these services. Many of his national competitors wound up in bankruptcy. He started looking at this challenge and realized if he did not do something different, he was headed for the same fate.

He decided to provide less of the services that insurance companies were not willing to reimburse appropriately and provide more specialty services such as pre-mature pregnancy and MS in-home care. These services are listed as special therapies and hence command greater reimbursement from the insurance companies.

After implementing this strategy, Roy noticed interesting results. His overhead costs dropped immediately because he no longer was supplying the same amount of services. Consequently, his revenues also dropped. But, don’t get alarmed. At the end of the day, its not revenues that count. It’s the net profit (amount of money left over after expenses) that counts. Roy’s profit started to skyrocket. In addition, Roy’s stress level went down because he didn’t have to work as hard to make the same amount of money. In fact, he’s making more.

Roy figured out that certain customers were not in his best interests. He also figured out for other customers, it was not worth supplying certain services. If he continued, he would have gone out of business.
As the leader of your destiny/business, who’s your best customer? Who should you be spending time with? What services should you be concentrating on? If the answers do not add up to a profitable experience, then do something different or get out of business. If you don’t, the market will make that decision for you.

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