Several recent articles about President Obama pointed out that every day he gets a purple folder with 10 letters from Americans that are representative of the thousands of messages in the days’ mail. He personally reads the letters and the writers receive a presidential response. Sometimes even a call. He does this to “stay in touch with the people who elected him” and to make sure he doesn’t get stuck in a White House bubble that distances him from the real issues people face. He gets letters from people losing their homes or jobs, letters from parents of soldiers in Iraq, people who vehemently disagree with his bailout of the banks, etc. “We pick messages that are compelling, things people say that, when you read it, you get a chill,” said Mr. Kelleher, the Director of White House Correspondence. “I send him letters that are uncomfortable messages.”
Years ago when I was working at a large credit union, our entire senior team would sit in the Call Center once a year for two hours stints during National Customer Service Week and listen to member calls. It was intended to show appreciate for the reps, but an interesting thing always happened: Management team members would get wildly fired-up about the problems they were hearing from Members on the phone. Managers, often shocked, would say things like: “Did you know that direct deposits didn’t hit until 10 am this week and we bounced member checks?!” or “Did you know we don’t give payment envelopes with the payment coupons on indirect loans?!”
Many of the issues had been languishing on lists of items to review or fix, but when leaders heard the complaint coming directly from the Members, it suddenly seemed criminal that the problems hadn’t been resolved. There would be a big bustle of activity for the next several weeks as everyone raced to correct the things they’d heard the members grumble about. Eventually, the memories of our time in the call center would fade and we would settle back into our senior management bubble. Team conversation would revert back to more high-level, less member-centric topics. ROA, net income, board meetings and strategic planning sessions.
There is an old management saying “You can expect what you inspect.” Because we historically have not had tools that give us a daily feel for the “pulse” of the member, we tend to focus primarily on the things we do have tools to collect information about. Financials, Sales Figures, Delinquency. Many are outcomes – not necessarily drivers – of the business.
With a solid Net Promoter program, managers at all levels of an organization can get daily feedback from member in the members own words. Information that can truly balance the scorecard. What works? What doesn’t? What causes pain? What do they love? The voice of the member is powerful stuff and virtually impossible to ignore, especially when you make it part of your daily focus. It drives quick action to improve the member experience. It makes you better than your competitors.
Until there are formal tools in place in your organization to routinely collect member feedback, reading 10 letters (or listening to 10 calls) a day seems like a decent start. That is 2,600 letters a year. That is a lot of feedback. How many members do you communicate with each day? Do you need a purple folder?
