All Posts in Policies and Procedures

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According to Yoda, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

While the road to the dark side of customer relationship management (CRM) — dubbed “customer elimination management” (CEM) by a different Lewis — follows a different path, it also leads to suffering. As evidence:

My broadband service works great, but I’ve been traveling, which means I need dial-up capability. No problem: My ISP has a mobile access option, which I duly set up according to the instructions. Just one glitch: I can receive mail, but can’t send it.

That was over a month ago. Through endless hours with this CEM practitioner’s on-line chat and telephone-based technical support I’ve learned that:

  • The two help channels use different problem management systems and have no access to each others’ records.
  • Level Three support, also known as “Network Operations,” isn’t allowed to talk directly to customers. That’s their policy, and it’s unbreakable.
  • For that matter, Level Three support can’t talk directly to Level Two, either. The telephone system has been carefully engineered to prevent it, even though the two groups work in the same building.

I’ve extracted some lessons for establishing a successful CEM practice in your own organization:

1. Make sure organizational boundaries are high. Use technology and your accounting system to reinforce them. In the case of my service provider they’ve gone the extra mile: While the parent company owns an excellent dial-up ISP with the same core brand, broadband is a different division, so it set up its own dial-up service rather than piggyback on one that works exceptionally well.

2. Institute bad metrics. From my various conversations it’s clear this company only measures the number of problems resolved. This ensures an unrelenting focus on dealing with the easy ones. Letting a few tough ones go for a month or three won’t affect the performance reports.

3. The more policies the better, and make sure every employee knows they’re all that matter. Since my first article on CEM I’ve received an avalanche of CEM stories, and most included at least one episode of “That’s our policy.” A thick policy manual and CEM go together like toast and jam.

If you’re wondering, I tried to offer my provider a chance to respond. Unfortunately, the company keeps its media relations group well-hidden, as carefully sequestered as its Level Three support engineers.

Hey, do you think it’s the same guy?

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|In: Industry Commentary|Last Updated:

When you play bridge, you sometimes overbid. It might be a sacrifice, to prevent your opponents from scoring. Maybe the cards just look good despite the point count. Probably, it’s your partner’s fault, but you’re stuck playing the hand.

Sometimes, you’ll make the contract anyway, which might make you greedy. Then you’ll overbid the next several dozen hands, too.

Your opponents will love you for this. Your partner, however, just might become your ex-partner.

Microsoft isn’t in the bridge-playing business. It has, however, overbid its hand, and it might just be time for you to become its ex-partner.

It is, in short, time to seriously consider Linux as a desktop operating system. If it isn’t time to develop a migration plan, it’s certainly time to perform a cost/benefit analysis.

It’s a triple irony: The timing coincides with Dell dropping its support for Linux; it comes just as Microsoft has finally achieved sufficient OS stability to eliminate that as a differentiator, and it is Microsoft, through its licensing shenanigans — not any of Linux’s backers — that has made Linux a credible option for you.

Microsoft has backed off from its upgrade-by-October-or-else marketing plan for Office XP. So what? Its willingness to play licensing hardball with customers is beyond doubt. Its preference for renting software rather than selling it is overt. And the correlation between its products’ marketshare and pricing is a matter of record.

Which means you no longer know what you’re going to pay next year for Microsoft Office. Think you can evade the problem by avoiding upgrades? Think again: Whether through business growth or retiring older machines with OEM licenses, you’ll need new copies of MS Office, and you’ll buy them under Microsoft’s terms.

The problem is, you don’t know today what Microsoft’s terms will be tomorrow.

Linux lets you avoid these risks. That doesn’t make the migration free and easy. IT and end-user training are obvious costs. The soft costs of reduced productivity and time spent tweaking imperfectly converted files are others.

The hard part, though, will be remembering that despite rumors to the contrary, personal computers are important because they’re personal. You’ll need to help end-users convert or find Linux correspondents to those nasty unsupported or personally developed applications so many IT managers try to prevent in the Windows environment.

If you don’t, an unsupported personal information manager will be the least of your problems. You’ll see renegade copies of Windows appearing on desktops throughout your company.

Now that would be ironic.

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