What’s the Good Word?
Some people who can’t get their digital camera to work solve their problem by throwing it away rather than even going back to the store or calling the 800 number, according to research firm TARP Worldwide. TARP calls this trained hopelessness.
In recent conversations with Purdue University’s Mike Trotter and NetBank’s Art Hall, both used the term business karaoke -- referring to companies that talk about being customer centric but don’t actually follow through with customer-focused actions.
I thought these were fairly cutting yet descriptive terms, and thought readers of our 1to1 Weekly e-newsletter might have their own “favorites.” So I asked. Here are a few; some serious, some with a hint of, shall we say, sarcastic humor.
The Real Stuff:
Framing – Packaging intangible services in an intellectually and emotionally winsome manner.
Open Your Kimono – To let someone know the real secrets of something, e.g. I'm not going to open my kimono until you've signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Alignment – Matching all systems and operations for the benefit of better serving the customer.
And similarly…
Collaboration – Working across internal departments to achieve results for customers.
Single view of the customer -- Having systems and procedures in place that present a real-time picture of every customer interaction, to enable a company to highly customize its services/products. Many companies aspire to having a single view of customers, but few achieve it, due to disconnected and disparate IT systems.
The Fun Stuff:
Featurizing – The misguided practice of adding features to a product in the hope that it will make customers happier. Often the unfortunate result is making customers more confused instead.
Manage by fact – Teams or individuals are asked to do research and make fact-based recommendations for decision making, only to have the executive(s) who requested the activity override it based on their experience or opinion. Subsequently a consultant is engaged to bring "credibility" to the matter.
Integrated marketing – When a company discovers that it’s worth practicing teamwork among departments.
Innovation – Today some companies seem to need a Chief Innovation Officer to drive innovation, yet a look back through time shows that it’s the innovators who have been taking the lead all along, often after multiple failures.
Customer ownership – When interviewed by one 1to1 reader, direct marketing pioneer Lester Wunderman humbly noted regarding the term customer ownership that for centuries now slavery has been extinct.
Do you have a favorite business term you’d like to share?
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