Trust is another issue for Intersect from the customers toward the personnel in sales and marketing. While there was a certain amount of customer intimacy between the staff and the customers, the leadership has allowed the trust to vacate by non-responsive staff members of the sales team on vital issues. "A psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intent or behavior of another person" (McShane, & Von Glinow, 2005, p. 128). From the customer standpoint, the sales team lost the trust through being unavailable when the customer requires professional counsel.
Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas
There are three main stakeholders involved in II and the new customer intimacy philosophy. Each group is looking for ways to look out for the best interest of the company and the perspective of each group. This could present some potential conflicts among the various stakeholder groups. The first is the II senior leadership team. As a whole, financial gain, organizational change, and motivational directing are the main values of this team. The leadership is challenged to change the approach through the entire organization, beginning with themselves. Frank Jeffers has high expectations and expects leadership to follow goals, usually acting fairly when directing them. Jeffers faces concern because the company is stalling due to market conditions, but allows the leadership team enough credit to establish the way to achieve their goals. Janet Angelo is motivated to help II transition to the new model. Angelo is open-minded, willing to take suggestive criticism from her leadership team should they see that she is not setting the right example. A part of Angelo's role is to align the team and she is determined to see that happen. Lyn Chen is defensive about the changes at II. Chen is fearful of the new model, perhaps because she does not understand it. Myopic thinking restricts Chen's ability to grow because she does not want to fix ‘what is not broken.’
The second stakeholder to discuss is the II sales advisors. These employees desire knowledge, feedback, and need reassurance. Sales advisors do not know the new products they are selling, and need to realize the rewards that come from the vision before they can embrace it. Because personal financial security is at stake, advisors are likely to leave II due to uncertainty about meeting goals that seem unrealistic to attain under the new customer intimacy model.
The third group of stakeholders and possibly the most important are the II customers. Customers desire confidence and trust in the relationship with II, and expect solutions-based approaches to meeting their investment concerns, especially since environmental changes after 9-11. Clients want more than a sales representative who is pushing contracts; they want a trusted advisor who considers their best interest when presenting financial solutions.
Problem Statement
The problem being faced by II is not the shift from the traditional-selling model to a customer intimacy model, but the failure to make an organizational change within the leadership of the company. II has key individuals choosing to not make the organizational change in turn causing the loss of employees but more important the loss of customers.
End-State Vision
The end-state vision is that II will become a leader in the investment industry by providing exceptional customer service and offering up to date products. The leadership teams will embrace a common purpose of creating customer intimacy by taking a solutions-based approach toward its clients, by providing motivated advisors, building solid relationships, and by demonstrating aligned leadership.
Alternative Solutions
The senior leadership team should look closely at whether to keep Lyn Chen on board. She is resisting the change to the new vision, which is causing confusion among her sales team. They are told by other employees under different management teams where the company is headed, yet they are not being told by Chen, their own manager. This is causing dissention on her team and in turn causing a high turnover rate. Chen has been a tremendous asset to Intersect for the past 20 years. "But in the past year, Chen has fallen short of revenue targets, sales employee turnover is up 25% and customer satisfaction has declined by more than 10%," (University of Phoenix, 2006, p. 1). Chen is not yet supportive of the customer intimacy model, and coaching may help Chen overcome this resistance or she needs to be replaced in the company.
The II leadership team should offer incentives for employees to reach their goals set forth by the management teams. This will entice the employees to spend more time with their customers promoting the new products that the research teams are developing. By getting to know their customers on an intimate level, the employees will better determine what their customer’s goals are and what it is they need to sustain their businesses. This will improve trust between the employees and their customers and will allow them to increase their sales, thus increasing the company revenue.
Another possible alternative would be to extend the 12 month deadline for implementation of the customer intimacy philosophy to 18 or 24 months. This will allow time for Chen and her teams to adopt the new vision and work within their teams to set goals and implement this sales approach.
Analysis of Alternative Solutions
The first alternative discussed was whether to give Chen time to adapt or for II to cut their losses and bring in someone who will be proactive with the new approach to sales. Involving successful managers in the implementation and support process is critical to keeping motivated employees on-the-job. Other managers such as Nancy Falkins, have already had success under the new vision. Falkins, already familiar with this idea from working at an IT company, can be placed in a mentor role for Chen in order for her to see the advantages of the customer intimacy model.
Another alternative discussed is to offer incentives to employees as the reach or exceed their sales goals. This is successfully done in many companies today. By offering the employees a percentage on each “add on” sale to current customers, this gives them more incentive to get to know their customers better. They will spend more time finding how they can help them build their businesses rather than trying to sell them something they will not need, thus causing distrust in their employee customer relationship.
The third alternative discussed was giving Chen more time to get her employees on board with the new philosophy. This alternative can go both ways. By giving Chen more time to get on board, they are losing revenue with the customers. On the other hand, they are giving the research department time to produce new products in which Chen’s teams can sell to their customers. This also gives the employees time to become intimately familiar with their customers, thus building their trust over a period of time and not trying to force feed them. This combined with the incentive program, is the best alternative.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation Techniques
There is little risk involved when looking at the last alternative discussed. The only risk that can be calculated is the slow increase in sales and revenue by extending the timeline. Jeffers wants to start this process yesterday and brought in Janet to implement this process immediately. After analyzing the situation at hand, even Janet has decided that this is too short of a timeline to make a 180 degree turn around in about 75% of the company. By quickly re-training all employees on the customer intimacy model instead of taking the time to examine it in depth, may cause more confusion among the employees and management teams. The point is to clarify the confusion, not cause more. The employees need to trust their leadership the way the leadership wants the customers to trust their sales representatives. The mitigation is to take the time to examine everything in detail so that all questions are answered and all fears and doubts are erased.
Optimal Solution
Robert House's Path-Goal Theory of leadership suggests, "Leader behaviors thus are expected to be acceptable when employees view them as a source of satisfaction or as paving the way to future satisfaction," (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2004, p. 608). Jeffers may have to incorporate several leadership styles and behaviors in order to lead II successfully. The optimal Solution is to keep Chen on board due to the loyalty of her employees and to help coach her along with the process of changing sales priorities. It is vital to align all leadership in the change to a customer intimacy model, most importantly Chen at this stage of the conversion. Jeffers must first gain Chen's acceptance to garner support for the new vision before trying to change to entire sales organization. Once Chen is on board, support will trickle down to the sales force through her mentorship. This will in turn decrease employee turnover, increase revenue, increase trust with the employees, increase trust between the customers and their sales representatives, and thus move the company into the top three investment firms in the industry.
Implementation Plan
Before II can expand into different markets by using alternate areas of research, Jeffers needs to bring together his senior leadership team and make them see his vision. One solution is to bring all the senior managers in and let them know how it is going to be. Jeffers needs to get tough. He needs to let them know that the direction of the company is customer intimacy and they either get on board or he will accept their resignation. Now is not the time for the company to be divided on what individuals think is best for their business. It is time for the leaders to step up and be leaders. The first way to do that is to have their questions answered on what they do not understand about the new vision. This way they will relay what is expected of the leaders to the employees so that there is no doubt what the employee needs to do to meet their goals.
When the management team is on board, their next step is to sit with their employees and go over goals, individual and team, short term and long term. Goal setting is one of the most important ways that they can measure performance. By setting goals together, leader and employee, there is an agreement made on whether the goals are attainable or out of reach. When the meeting is over, the employee should walk out of the office with clear guidance on what is expected of them.
Evaluation of Results
After reintroduction of the customer intimacy philosophy, II must set in place data collection metrics to evaluate that this was the best course of action for the company. Failure to monitor results, is a failure among the senior leadership team. II should see an increase in revenue after 15 months of fully integrating this philosophy into the employees and the employees trusting in their management team to see it through. In the beginning there will probably be a decrease in sales, but when the employees gain the trust of their customers, then their sales will increase and so will the incentives paid out to the employees.
Customer and employee satisfaction surveys should be used to measure the level of importance the employee and customer feels. Every employee should feel needed and a part of the team. The customers should be getting the best service possible by their sales representative to include longer discussions on how to improve their customers’ business needs.
A third way to measure the success of the new vision is by checking the goal setting being done by the manager with the employees. Are they meeting or exceeding their goals or are they falling short. Re-evaluation of the goal setting may have to be done if the employee seems to be falling short. If it is because they have not grasped the new concept or because they will not grasp the new concept, then the managers need to look closely at their teams and decide if anyone needs to be replaced.
Conclusion
There a number of key aspects for successful change. Company leaders and management teams need to be aligned with the company vision. Managers must recognize that success breeds success and they must be preaching the company vision to their employees in a positive light for them to be onboard with the change. This will increase employee satisfaction and decrease employee turnover, thus saving the company a lot of money on unnecessary training of new employees. II’s EVP’s mission is to bring all departments together in order for II to improve its brand image and to establish long-term, profitable relationships with its customers. “Customer intimacy and operational excellence are just two of three value disciplines that can provide strategic focus for organizations” (Anderson, Healey, & Locke, 2005, p. 14). By following these principles and using the examples explained in the paper, Jeffers will be able improve his company as a leader in the industry.
II found that “achieving operational excellence in processes that support the customer automatically leads to ‘customer intimacy’” (Anderson, Healey, & Locke, 2005, p. 14). Companies pursuing operational excellence work hard to ensure customers are satisfied. Jeffers was on the right track when he decided to bring his employees closer to his customers and because of this insight, he will lead his company to the top of the industry.
References
Anderson, P., Healey, G., & Locke, M. (2005). When operational excellence meets customer intimacy. CriticalEYE, September-November 2005, 14-19. Retrieved from .
Kotelnikov, V. (2001). Customer Intimacy. Ten3 Business e-Coach. Retrieved from .
Krietner, R. & Kinicki, A. (2003). Organizational behavior, sixth edition. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
McShane, S. & Von Glinow, M.A. (2005). Organizational behavior. (3rd). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Treacy, M., & Wiesema, F. (2003). Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from .
Table 1
Issue and Opportunity Identification
Table 2
Stakeholder Perspectives
Table 3
Analysis of Alternative Solutions
Table 4
Optimal Solution Implementation Plan
Table 6
Evaluation of Results
