Do You Speak "Prada"? (You Should)
#329 2/18/09
How well do you and your team speak the language of sales your customers are dying to hear? Ifyou speak it even half way decently, they will likely interact -- and prefer you over the competition.But it
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s not easy.
The movie Confessions of a Shopaholic easily illustrates the kind of frustrations customers -- perhaps your customers-- needlessly suffer everyday. In one scene, the star of the movie is shopping and hears a man in a shoe storespeaking about specific products and what
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s really needed. In shock, she approaches him from a distance and says inawe, “You speak Prada?”No, it
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s not just about bags and shoes. Saturday I went to WalGreens to pick up my family
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s meds. Six months ago wesigned up for their 90 day program which gives you a 90 day supply of meds for a fraction of the traditional cost.Seemed like a good deal at the time. Right. When I phoned in the order Friday morning, the online system noted thatalthough one refill was available for one of the meds, a doctor
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s authorization would be needed to do the 90 day refill,which I expected. The online system asked me to give extra time since WalGreens
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techs would have to contact ourdoctor, so I deferred pick up to Saturday at 2pm. I arrive at 2pm and all meds are ready -- except one. “Sorry, therewas only one refill left so we only did a 30 day supply.” I replied, “Yes, but your phone system told me you wouldcontact the doctor to get authorization.” She paused looking on the computer ... “Well, there is no record of uscontacting your doctor. YOU will have to contact your doctor on Monday.” Noooooooo. This was not happening, but infact it was happening. Again. This did not sit well with me and I said, “Okay, so we paid you guys around $80 to do the90 day thing. I phone in the refill on your system which tells me that you will need to get a doctor
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s authorization, so Iarrive a day and half later and you tell me no 90 day for one prescription, no one phoned the doctor, I should do thatmy self and I should phone you after using your online refill system to then tell you “live” that the refill is for 90 days soyou will know to do a 90 day refill on all meds?” Her response in a word, “Yes.”What a train wreck.I smiled, was polite, but I really wanted to say much more. But I just didn
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t want to burn more time.Does anyone speak Prada?!?! Does anyone know how frustrating it is to become locked in a repeating cycle ofcorporate complexity, inefficiency and bureaucracy? Before leaving WalGreens, I told the tech, “I realize this is not yourfault, but this is not our first problem with your system and the whole thing seems far more complicated than it shouldbe.” And it
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s true.So how well do you and your team speak “Prada” -- the love language of your customers? Here
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s a quiz; score yourselfon a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high):
1.Listening is more than just waiting for your turn to talk.
How well do your people stop yaking, deflecting,excusing, or blaming and just listen to the customer
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s entire story? How well does your team listen to your customers?(1 - 5)
2.Whatever it takes.
How empowered are your people to do whatever is necessary to solve the customer
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s problem,concern, frustration -- even if it
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s the customer
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s own fault or requires your people to override the computer system tomake things right? How empowered are your team? (1 - 5)
3.Stops Here and now.
How quickly are you and your team able to prevent reoccurrence of problems experienced byother customer with your system, your policies and your processes? (1 - 5)
4.Spread the word to the herd.
How often do you capture and share case studies such as my WalGreens story withyour team and ask for feedback and suggestions to prevent things from happening to your customers? (1 - 5)
5.Know what you
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re losing.
What
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s the life time value of just one of your customers? Don
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t know? Find out. Then tellyour team. Every time a customer does not come back or does not come back regularly, you are losing money. Tellthem how much. Translate that into margins, commissions, bonuses that your team will immediately understand andappreciate. Most employees don
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t give this a thought. But they should. How tuned in are you to your typical customer
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slifetime value to your business? (1 - 5)
6.Listen even more.
Regularly bring in a 3rd party to speak with your partners, referral sources, employees, clientsand former clients to objectively determine how well your team speaks “Prada” and to determine what sort of
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