the marketing/operations disconnect
COCO+CO.’s ‘Beneficial Benchmarks’ show how market share can drop despite outstanding marketing efforts

Part 1 of 5

The direct mail postcard you received promised the contractors would leave your home as clean as they found it, but you came home to a dirty handprint on the wallpaper. The advertisement you read promised “personal service,” but many of your transactions are handled by an unresponsive third party vendor. You e-mailed a complaint to the salesperson who sold you the doohickey, but the mail was returned due to “mailbox full.”

about this series Part 1: Overview of the marketing/operations disconnect Part 2: Prospect, we hardly knew ye Part 3: Customer service: “warm and fuzzy” or “take a number?” Part 4: Customers who’d rather be “outta here” Part 5: Reassembling the broken pieces

These are a few real life examples of what marketing departments promise as opposed to what operations departments deliver. Although you are receiving this newsletter because of your business associations, you are also a consumer and are bound to have many more such stories. Have you looked inward, however, to see if there are any marketing/operations disconnects occurring at your place of work? Will Dylan, author of “Small Business Big Marketing,” asks the tough questions.

“How do you sell your product or service? How good of a salesperson are you (honestly)? How about your service delivery; is it smooth and swift or slow and cumbersome for customers? All of these questions pertain to the operations of your small business, and none of them can be rectified by running a razzle-dazzle marketing campaign. In fact, a successful marketing campaign that encourages people to purchase your product or service, only to find that the product or service is faulty or the service delivery is poor, will hurt your business in the long run through negative word of mouth.”

Earlier this year, COCO+CO. sought to discover why a marketing program at one company generated $100 million in new business, while a similar program at a substantially comparable firm barely made the cash register ring. Using the “secret shopper” approach (and some permitted eavesdropping), COCO+CO. staff unearthed startling disconnects between what marketing promised and what operations delivered at the struggling company. Additional businesses were likewise surveyed and the months-long study became the genesis of COCO+CO.’s  new “Beneficial Benchmarks” analysis system.

Here are a few actual examples* of disconnects to look for at your business:

• The telephone caller ID showed the wrong company name and the displayed number connected to the wrong department. Many people return calls to the numbers on their displays. They may even answer the call – instead of screening it – if they recognize the company.

• While most personnel employed superb telephone etiquette, the widely touted “direct inward dialing” now allowed prospects to directly reach one joker who always answered on a noisy speakerphone with a snarky “yea-lo.”

• After being promised “personal service,” a new customer called about an error on her statement. She was astounded to hear, “Oh, I can’t help you with that; it is done by (an outsourced vendor).”

• Two customers within earshot of each other came to a customer service representative for some bill paying leniency. The first, a known friend of one of the top brass, was given an extended amount of time to pay his bill, while the recent college graduate next in line received no relief. Instead, he received a lecture with wagging finger pointing. Incidentally, the company is struggling to attract younger customers as its aging base dies off.

• A prospect arrived during the noon hour to make a purchase, but was told all of the salespeople enjoy taking their lunches together at that time. The business across the street with staggered lunch times made the sale.

• With a million dollar deal on the line, the account executive rinsed out a well-worn Styrofoam cup and offered the prospect a cup of coffee with fake cream. A better approach would be to keep some clean china mugs and half-and-half on hand for VIPs.

• A “do-it-yourself” shop closed at 5 sharp during the week and offered no weekend hours. The boss blames working people for not being “loyal” to local businesses when they shop at the nearby “big box” store.

• An accounts payable clerk mistakenly underpaid her company’s $5,000 plus monthly invoice by $3.05. Not only did she receive a haranguing call, but also a $20 late charge on the firm’s next bill because it was “policy.” Within a month, the customer took the business to a competitor. Smart companies give their employees leeway to override policies and deal personally with situations like this.

• A new accounting system meant printing remittance slips on full-sized sheets of paper, but customers found these didn’t fit into the provided window envelopes and still have the address show properly. About a year later someone asked the purchasing agent why he continued to buy the undersized envelopes. “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” he matter-of-factly responded.

Are any of these kinds of things happening at your place of business? Have you checked? Be honest. Trying out the much maligned concept of “management by walking around” will help you spot problems before you lose prospects and customers. Even if you are a semi-retired owner or a board member, take the time to do some “secret shopping” yourself.

Smart companies recognize there is more to achieving success than a creative advertisement or Web site, or even a well-researched strategy. COCO+CO. now employs its “Beneficial Benchmarks” analysis when preparing marketing plans. Observations and surveys are used to gauge dozens of possible marketing/operations disconnects before marketing departments make promises they cannot keep.

“You can’t throw money at an operations problem and hope that it goes away. An operations problem is like a bad cut and marketing is salt in the wound. Your business will be better served if you heal it first, then drive the customers to your door,” Dylan says.

Next time, Part 2: Prospect, we hardly knew ye

* Certain identifying elements have been changed to protect the identities of individuals or businesses.

Submit your comments to creative@cocoboston.com.

your letters

I’m guessing I’m not one of those ‘hoity toity” types you mentioned (“turn to the ‘hoity-toity’ for recession sales”), but I have big spending plans too.

I am going to “splurge” on that oil change for my car that I haven’t been able to afford, maybe restore basic cable TV service and, throwing caution to the wind, push my thermostat up to 65 on Thanksgiving.

How about advising businesses to take just a bit less profit so some of us will go back? I’m not thinking just about me. At least I have a job. I’m thinking about my former co-workers. As someone once said, “it takes a certain flair to squander one’s unemployment check.” 

K.H.
Woburn, Mass.

Submit your comments to creative@cocoboston.com.