Structure | The Barefoot Spirit

Does Your Company Have a Customer Intel Department?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 17:00:17 +0000

In most large companies, the customer service department is strictly for complaint resolution. Companies usually relegate customer service to the bottom of the corporate structure pyramid because they’re seen as some kind of a clerical call center. They’re the ones who answer the 800 number complaints and comments. And they’re the ones who are expected to solve customer problems “down” at their level.

In the top-down structure of the classic pyramid company, production and marketing have a higher status than sales and customer service. Products are pushed down to the salespeople to sell. And if any complaints try to come back up, you guessed it, they are kept down by the customer service people.

Some companies actually rate their customer service people by how few complaints escalate up to management. We think this limited view of the customer service is not only unfair, but it’s unprofitable, wasteful, and ultimately unwise.

Why? Because this view of customer service ignores the fact that, except for your salespeople, your customer service people are the only ones in your company who talk directly to your customer every day. They know what your customers like …and hate about your company’s products. They know about your competition. They hear daily suggestions about how to improve your products. They know when and where your products are out of stock. And they are the ones who can turn your complainers into advocates.

In fact, we don’t call it “Customer Service.” We call it “Customer Intel.”

The Two-Division Company

A popular keynote we present for large companies that want to engage and empower their people with the entrepreneurial spirit is “The Two Division Company.” The two divisions are Sales (which includes Customer Service) and Sales Support (everybody else from the CEO to the receptionist).

Customer Service – Resolve Issues, Win Back Customers & Get Feedback

A customer can only give you two things: their money and their feedback. The feedback is extremely valuable. That’s because it is the information you need to keep your goods and services relevant, stay on top of your distribution system, and stay ahead of your competition. In other words, it’s the information you need to stay in business!

Unlike the focus groups and market studies that the marketing people spend thousands on, the information your customer service people get is unfettered, unbiased, and timely. And it comes from folks who care enough about your company to call and complain. Many are brand advocates seeking resolution for their favorite brand, the brand they’ve told their friends and neighbors to buy. Now that brand let them down. If they can get resolution they won’t feel obligated to go back and tell everyone they know about the problems they ran into. Instead, they will celebrate the problems and the solutions as validation for their continued advocacy.

Once their problem has been resolved, they can provide vital information you need like: Where did they buy it? Was it in stock? How long have they been a customer? Have they been satisfied with it in the past? What suggestions do they have to improve your products, marketing, and service? Will they recommend your brand to others?

Formal Lines of Communication Focusing on Sales & the Customer

If you don’t have it already, we recommend that you at least establish formal lines of communication between sales and customer service on the one hand, and production, marketing, and management, on the other. By focusing on sales and the customer, instead of divisions of labor, specialization, and chains of command, some of those complaints and suggestions can find their way back up into the company structure where they belong to keep your products relevant and competitive.

Why not start today by renaming your customer service department, “Customer Intel” and benefit from what they hear from your customers? They can do much, much more than complaint resolution.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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How to Make Sure You Hear the Good Ideas That Will Improve Your Company

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 15:07:20 +0000

Often the best ideas to solve problems, cut costs and improve sales come from your own people — but they never get to you.

Why? Because you have inadvertently allowed your company’s structure to prevent them from doing so.

Employees, vendors and customers are loaded with good ideas to help you succeed. But are you willing to listen?

If you think you know more about your product than anyone else, or that accepting ideas from others is somehow implying that you, the product creator, don’t have all the answers, you may be losing out on a goldmine.

This mindset is counterproductive to improvement. You may be making a statement but losing a deposit.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post How to Make Sure You Hear the Good Ideas That Will Improve Your Company appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

5 Principles For Solving Problems

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 16:22:09 +0000

When we took on the building of the Barefoot Wine brand, we really didn’t understand the problems we would have to overcome to be successful.

We had no idea how long it would take, the opposition we would face, or the enormous hurdles we had to clear in compliance, distribution, and personnel management.

Every day there were new fires that had to be put out. Every day there were unexpected bills hungry for bucks. And every roadblock challenged our very approach to problem solving.

After a while, we began to develop actual problem-solving principles that gave us structure and a set of standards we would apply to future problems. As we solved problem after problem, we slowly improved our approach to problem solving itself.

To read the complete article, please visit Business Journals

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Organizations That Say They Want an Entrepreneurial Culture Need to Walk the Talk

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 17:00:16 +0000

Every day we hear companies, organizations, and institutions say they “want to hire people with entrepreneurial DNA.” They all say they “want an entrepreneurial culture where their employees are engaged and empowered.” But do they really? You can hire the best. You can vet for self-starting, creative, resourceful people with a sense of urgency, who take responsibility for their own actions. And you can even hire entrepreneurship grads. But without the proper environment in your own company you will stifle the new hires, and lose others who are frustrated.

We saw a cartoon recently that best summed up the paradox. The tired, haggard, office employee was down at the bar after work, sipping on his martini. He turns to the woman next to him and says, “Sure, they want me to be creative, imaginative, and resourceful, but I have a career to think about!”

Long before Barefoot Wines, Michael worked for the Federal Government. Right out of college, he was keen on being productive, making a mark, and moving ahead. But he ran into office politics, turf battles, and empire building within the organization. Few folks seemed to care about more than their job security. Most had become isolated and insulated from the real job at hand. Upon realizing that this could become his future too, Michael decided to not just quit his job, but quit the idea of having a job in any siloed organization.

The good news is that if it wasn’t for that experience, there would be no Barefoot Wine today!

The biggest problem with any kind of vertical or pyramid structure is that the structure itself is contrary to the entrepreneurial culture. Why? Because as the organization grows, sales and personal responsibility for the customer experience become more removed from the process. Soon, under the guise of efficiencies of scale and divisions of labor, folks get comfortable strictly focusing on their own specialties. They figure they‘re going to get paid, no matter what. Sales is someone else’s responsibility, they think. At the governmental level, it can be even worse. They can feel like their organization exists without customers, sales, or accountability.

Sales is the key to the entrepreneurial culture. Three entrepreneurs in a garage have no question that they must make sales happen or they won’t be there tomorrow. No matter what their skill set, all know that sales are critical. So what happened as they grew? Simply, many new divisions were created and they separated themselves from sales! So it’s not so much how to build an entrepreneurial culture as it is how you lose it! Little by little, the principles that allow an entrepreneurial culture to survive and flourish are replaced by fear, compliance, and restrictions on communication. Compensation systems increasingly are based on attendance, status, and tenure, rather than sales, growth, and productivity.

In order to attract and retain a staff with entrepreneurial DNA, you must provide the fertile ground that is essential for them to thrive and be effective. Just like an early stage startup, you must provide a culture of permission, enthusiasm, inclusiveness, recognition, acknowledgment, and performance-based compensation. The customer experience must be more important than the structural or political limitations of the organization.

You must get back in touch with the organization’s goals and means of support (i.e. sales). That must be the entrepreneurial motive that overrides corporate divisions of labor, status, and tenure. Serve your customer with an engaged and empowered culture that wants to, and is allowed to, deliver the excellent customer experience you desire. Your people are engaged when they know they can make a difference, and are encouraged, appreciated and compensated to do so!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Training Magazine – Teach Employees to think like Owners by Scaling Down to Two Divisions

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 19:10:48 +0000

As a leader, you’re hyper-focused on your company’s productivity, profits, and growth. Wouldn’t it be nice if your employees were as focused on those factors as you and the company’s other executives? Sure, they do what you tell them. They come in every day and perform every task within their job descriptions. But often that’s where the buck stops. If a problem lands in their laps that isn’t what they consider to be “their responsibility,” they pass it on to the next guy or they bring it to you expecting a solution.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can teach your employees to think and act outside of their job descriptions—to think, in point of fact, like owners! At Barefoot Cellars, we found that the key to turning worker bees into solutions-oriented entrepreneurs was simplifying our structure into just two divisions: sales and sales support.

To read the complete article, please visit Training Magazine

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Training Magazine – Teach Employees to think like Owners by Scaling Down to Two Divisions appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.