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Last weekend I was listening to a news item on the radio – it was about a project in Texas where music is being used to help American vets deal with their post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Basically it involves skilled singer-songwriters working 1:1 with the vets, asking the vets to relay their experiences and then writing songs based on the testimonies.

These songs then seem to help the vets.  As a clinical psychologist says, “the music is a way of moving emotion and images and ideas out of you, into an objective form where you can see what it is, where you can express it…where you can face and honor what’s happened to you. And the process has been amazing.”

The story caught my attention on a number of fronts.  It was very sincere and imaginative.  But there was a particular snippet that leaped out at me.  It came from singer-songwriter Darden Smith – the founder of the project – when he described how the process works: “We get quiet. And we let them talk.”

That’s it – they ask the vets the questions and they then mainly shut up and just listen.

I often work with clients who want to find out what various stakeholders think.  It could for example be when I interview a client’s customer to uncover how my client can improve their customer service.  Or it could be facilitating an employee workshop to reveal how a client’s employees believe the client’s company can be driven forward.  In these and in other projects the key is to listen.

Of course I’ve to drive the conversation to a certain degree.  That might be through diving deeper into a particular issue if I believe there is more insight to be gleaned.  Or it might be through moving the conversation along to ensure that we cover the questions of most interest to my client.  But in all cases listening is still core.  Make sure to avoid talking at your stakeholders – and instead just sometimes “let them talk”.  By the way, you can read and/or listen to the article here.

I recently completed a customer satisfaction project for a client – using a combination of telephone interviews and online surveys to probe what a wide variety of customers thought of my client’s offering.

As I normally do in such projects, I made a series of prioritised recommendations at the report stage on what my client needed to do as a result of what we had learnt.  And in this case the very first recommendation I made was : “Contact email complainants immediately”.

Now this may seem self-evident – common sense – whatever phrase you want to use.  But guess what?  Yep – businesses do neglect to take this step.

For example, I met a woman on Tuesday who had stayed for a weekend at a 5 star hotel for a special occasion – a 5^th anniversary I believe.  With the competing demands of running a business and rearing a young family you can guess that such weekends are few and far between!

So you can imagine her reaction when the much anticipated stay proved a disappointment.   She was given the opportunity to voice her opinions through a paper feedback form – which she did.  The form was also non-anonymous and she provided her contact details.

But they never contacted her!  She received no apology.  She was told nothing of any planned remedial action.  And there was no gesture made to her to compensate for the disappointment.

So guess what?  Yep – she is telling people about this – both what went wrong with the stay as well as the fact that they never acknowledged her feedback.

The result?  This hotel  is needlessly incurring reputational damage.  And I can tell you that it’s in financial trouble – that information in the public domain.  And wouldn’t it be ironic if the hotel had actually taken the required remedial action?

What will you do the next time a customer makes a valid complaint?

The Irish Minister for Health is claiming that Irish hospital consultants are paid well above average compared to their international equivalents.  Meanwhile the consultants say that the high salaries are necessary so as to continue to attract the high calibre people to the profession.  The Minister’s perspective suggests that consultant’s salaries could be cut – and indeed this is what he plans for new consultants.  The consultants’ perspective may also be legitimate.

This theme of data interpretation came up in a recent post.  In that case the data was actually agreed upon – the bone of contention was solely in how the data was being interpreted differently by different parties – both of which were vested interests.  Obviously achieving accuracy and fairness is a challenge.

However it’s no good being able and willing to interpret data fairly and accurately if the data itself cannot be properly gathered.  In Ireland recently banks have been claiming that they are lending to businesses while businesses claim that the lending taps remains firmly turned off.  What does the data say?  Where is the truth?

The gathering of data and the correct interpretation of results are both links in a chain – a chain that must be complete for a valid result.

Researchers obviously need to be ethical and competent.  But if you are commissioning research you also need to be honest with yourself, for example in asking legitimate questions whose answers you know you might not like.  And let the results speak for themselves.  Keep that wool out of your own eyes!  Otherwise you’re fooling yourself – and can any good come from that?

I came across an article recently in which author Gianfranco Zaccai claimed he has “never seen innovation come out of a focus group“.  Indeed, he claims that focus groups “kill innovation”.  Strong words!

I can understand where he’s coming from – creativity cannot be mandated or ordered.   Is it even possible to “generate” innovative ideas?  Or do they just emerge seemingly spontaneously in the right environment?

I’d also seriously question whether a focus group is a valuable tool with which to even try and generate innovative ideas.  In a group setting a better tool to use would be a facilitated workshop – where the facilitator allows a free-flowing creative stage before the more pragmatic stage of discussion, evaluation and comparison kicks in.

Other methods used to foster innovation include the hiring of creative people, the openness of management to new ideas, the sincere solicitation of employees’ opinions, the carving out of thinking time and people being allowed to spend a proportion of their time on pursuing their own ideas.   Indeed in a large company I once worked in there was a specific division of people who worked fulltime on “down the road” ideas – and their funding was ring-fenced separately to the more “pragmatic” product development division.

But I digress.  Back to Mr. Zaccai.  He has a point – but perhaps he’s overstating things when he says focus groups kill innovation.  Granted they may not be the optimal tool to use.  But if people can be made comfortable and if the moderator can provide people with a buffer from having their ideas immediately evaluated critically, then creative thinking can flow.

Recently I used the services of a provider.  I’ll keep their identity private – but I want to make their attitude public.

I got an email from them yesterday that included the following : “In the spirit of openness and desire for continuous improvement in customer service, are there a few things you can think of that we could/should have done more, better, different or less????”

The question is humble and succinct yet comprehensive in scope.  The attitude underpinning it is spot-on.  And what made the question even more powerful is that it wasn’t part of some system that issues such queries automatically after each customer’s experience.  (Such systems can be very valuable – but I’d caution against instituting them for every sale – as that can lead to annoyance and fatigue on the part of recipients.)

No – the email I received was a spontaneous non-formulaic response from a Chief Executive to an email I had sent him.  He genuinely wants an answer.  With that spot-on attitude has he a chance of learning how he might improve his overall offering?  Absolutely.  And will I tell others about this in a positive way?  Yes.

Not bad for something that probably took him less than 30 seconds to do!  He has the right attitude – just like the William Hurt character at the end of The Doctor.

In a 1991 film “The Doctor” William Hurt played the main role – portraying a doctor whose manner towards patients left a lot to be desired!

His attitude began to change however when he was diagnosed with cancer and himself became a patient.  This different perspective showed him just how badly many in the medical establishment were treating patients.

The experience transformed him – towards the end of the film he actually made trainee doctors don hospital gowns to get closer to the reality being experienced by patients.

The implication was obvious.  He wanted them to experience what it’s really like to lie interminably on a trolley, or the loneliness of being treated impersonally at a traumatic time, or the frustration at not really being listened to.

If the trainee doctors could experience this they in turn would hopefully never forget that their own future patients are real people, with their individual stories, fears, hopes & dreams.

Do you know how your business is viewed by your customers?

Do you know what it’s like to walk in their shoes?

Do you understand the full customer experience that your business delivers?

To do so requires that you seek out, listen to and hear the voice of the customer.  There are many ways to achieve this.  You can interview your customers.  You can conduct focus groups of your customers.  If your business deals directly with the public you can use mystery shoppers.  If you’re senior enough to not be familiar to your frontline staff you could perhaps even do some mystery shopping yourself!  I use all these tools to help my clients listen to their customers.

So there are a variety of tools available to you.  But the starting point, like with William Hurt, is your own attitude.  If you want help listening to your customers I’d be glad to help.

Last Sunday Kilkenny won the All-Ireland Hurling Final by defeating Galway.  (If you don’t know what hurling is here’s a wonderful video introduction.)  The match was a replay – the original game having been drawn in a gripping encounter three weeks previously.

The replay had been eagerly awaited – the majority of pundits leaning slightly towards Kilkenny but also expecting a very strong performance from Galway.  One area of particular interest was the Kilkenny forwards – in hurling there are six forwards.  They had underperformed in the drawn game with only one of them – Henry Shefflin – excelling.  The Kilkenny manager dropped two of the six forwards for the final – replacing them with two young players – one making his championship debut.

In the replay all six Kilkenny forwards played brilliantly.  Nicky English – himself a successful hurling player and manager – said of the Kilkenny manager Brian Cody – “He found where the leaks were and he plugged them”.

Do you know where the “leaks” are in your business?  How good are you at continuously monitoring?  When you detect leaks do you take decisive action quickly to fix them?  What do you need to change in order to improve your performance?

Problems in any sphere, in sport or in business for example, don’t resolve themselves in a vacuum.  Action is needed.  And that action needs to be based on a realistic view of the situation.  I can help you identify the leaks.  Get in touch if this interests you.

Recently I was invited to take part in an online survey by a national group here in Ireland.  One of the questions asked “are you a member…” and offered two answers – “yes” or “no”.  The question was also obligatory, i.e., it was not possible to proceed to the next page of the survey without answering the question.   So, given that I am a member, I answered the question “yes”.  Making such questions obligatory is a common enough practice.

However, a little later, there was another question asking: “If you are not a member of [group in question], why not?”  Now why ask me that question?  I’ve already said I’m a member.  I didn’t even want to see that question – it was irrelevant to me.  So that was irritating.   But then it got worse.  That question was also obligatory!  Yep – I had to describe why I wasn’t a member even though I am a member and had already said so!  Now maybe some people put “N/A” or something in the box.  But I’ve better things to do with my time so I stopped taking the survey at that point.

Did the survey designer test the logical flow of their survey?  No.

Did they get someone else to take a test run through the survey?  Seemingly not.

Did they irritate all members?  Probably.

Did they cause people to abandon the survey prematurely?  Yes.

Are their results flawed?  Definitely.

If you’re considering a DIY survey beware the risk of false economy!  And if you’ve any similar stories on other surveys I’d love to hear about them.