Why do so many CEOs still believe that it is okay to make promises to customers, promises that the organization cannot or will not keep?

I recently had a fight with a Fortune 20 company.  This fight made no sense, not because I’m a bug buzzing an elephant, but because I have access to the single most powerful force in marketing.  This force is... word of mouth.

Dear CEO, let me explain.  It is nonsense to spend millions on stretching the marketing truth on top of millions keeping unhappy customers at bay.  Better to align your promise with what your people can deliver and then to let customers sing your praises, not your lies.

Don't fire the relationship

And while you’re at it, please don’t promise me a fantastic relationship with your organization.  You do realize, don’t you, that customers have relationships with people, not with organizations?  Well, that’s something many businesses have forgotten in their rush to fire employees.

Managers glibly talk of their business having a relationship with its customers, but that’s an impossibility.  One can have a meaningful relationship with another person, such as a representative, but not with the organization itself.

And what happens when that representative leaves?  The relationship is over. The business must court you all over again or watch you follow the ex-rep elsewhere, maybe to a competitor.

Many businesses try to lull us into a false feeling of relationship with the organization by ensuring that all representatives follow a common script. Are we really that gullible?

The solution is pretty obvious. To hang on to your customer, hang on to the person who built the relationship with the customer.

Want my business? Call me Mister

Here’s how not to build a relationship with me:  complete strangers who call me James instead of Mr McIntosh.

This shallow familiarity that some businesses foist on me in the name of customer service really annoys me.  Hey, I’m not a snob.  It’s just that I like a bit of distance between us until I know you better.  And until I know you better I won’t know whether I like your customer service enough for us to become familiar.

Until then, could we please have a modicum of manners and a shot at professionalism?  After all, your job is to make me feel important, not commonplace.

You might even charm me into spending.

And if I don’t spend, don’t blame Washington.  It is nonsense to blame ‘the government’ when we should be blaming ‘we the people’.

We forget that an organization is simply one big team made up of a few smaller teams made up of many individuals.  Not only do we give the organization a legal status.  We also give it ‘life’ by assuming that it exists independently of the people who energize it.

The outcome is that we, on the outside, are too quick to blame any nonsense on the organization, instead of on the people who are the organization.  And the people on the inside are too quick to blame any nonsense on policies and procedures instead of on themselves, those who perpetuate the flawed designs.

We blame the organization when we should be blaming the individuals who comprise the organization.

You know what I think?  I think that ‘the organization’ and ‘the government’ will stop selling us lies when we acknowledge that ‘we the people’ are to blame.