There's an impulsive retort you've undoubtedly heard from customer service personnel on occasions when you've demanded to speak with their manager. It usually goes something like this: "Okay, but just so you know, he/she is only going to tell you what I just told you."
And sometimes that's precisely what happens. One is a parrot of the other, demonstrating the issue isn't so much about the inept person serving you but about the disconnected boss managing them.
It's a widespread disconnect that has now been validated in a mammoth study that comprised interviews with 70,000 customers from more than 100 companies and, most importantly, 1000 managers from those companies. The objective of the research was simple: What's the impact when managers think they know how their customers are feeling but in reality have no idea at all?
It's surely what explains the ubiquitous presence of people who hate customers in positions where they're, um, serving customers. Someone is putting them in these positions. Someone is keeping them in these positions. And that person obviously happens to be the manager who, according to the study, is seemingly unaware of the seething customers walking away empty handed but full of rage.
The research was published earlier this year in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Allow me to preempt the findings by revealing the researchers' conclusion that the evidence suggests "managers generally fail to accurately understand both what customers think of their firm's products and services and why customers hold the perceptions that they do".
What makes this study quite special is that the 1000 managers selected for the survey were chosen because they rated themselves an 8 or above out of 10 in terms of their confidence. That basically means these managers seriously thought they could correctly predict how their customers felt about their products and services. They were dreadfully wrong. Â
This was especially the case in the following areas:
- They overestimated how much their customers valued the firm's products and services.
- They had an inflated view of their customers' overall level of satisfaction.
- They miscalculated the likelihood that those customers would repurchase one of their products or services.
- They couldn't even estimate correctly the frequency with which their customers complained, which you'd think would be impossible since surely overconfident businesses would have sophisticated reporting mechanisms in place. Â
The scholars summarise their findings by writing that "the significant 'rosy view' bias among managers … is likely to result in managers failing to act when they should … These overly optimistic managers are likely to miss trouble signs when they appear."
Let's recall once again that we're talking about the majority here, not the minority.
Those trouble signs, such as diminished customer loyalty and advocacy, of course will ultimately lead to lower sales, but these troubles start percolating when disconnected managers keep employees in service roles when the only thing they should be servicing is a chainsaw.
And that's just the people factor. There's also the archaic processes, unpopular features, inconvenient hours, and a whole lot of other stuff that managers have little chance of noticing if they're not interacting with customers at some level or at least collecting valid and reliable data.
these managers seriously thought they could correctly predict how their customers felt about their products and services. They were dreadfully wrong.
The consequence of it all is that managers are then "less likely to see a need to improve the firm's product and service offerings" – or to provide training to staff who desperately need it.
"The results of our study should serve as a wake-up call that all is not well with most firms' customer satisfaction and complaint monitoring systems."
But hey, who's listening?
James Adonis is the author of Employee Enragement. Follow MySmallBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
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